“In addition to Tam O’Shaughnessy, her partner of 27 years, Sally is survived by her mother, Joyce; her sister, Bear; her niece, Caitlin, and nephew, Whitney; her staff of 40 at Sally Ride Science; and many friends and colleagues around the country.”
That was the final sentence of the announcement on the Sally Ride Science website of the death this past Monday of the first American woman to travel into space. Most newspaper obituaries, including the obituary in Sally’s local newspaper, U-T San Diego, quoted the sentence nearly verbatim, and failed to answer any questions a reader might have about the sentence.
But one journalist was more inquisitive that day. Chris Geidner, who works at BuzzFeed.com, talked to Sally’s company and to Bear Ride, her openly lesbian sister, and confirmed within a couple of hours that there was a breaking news story hiding inside a humble obit: An American hero had just come out of the closet publicly.
Even before Geidner’s reporting, I’d emailed U-T editors to note what may not have been immediately obvious: That Tam is a woman and the obituary didn’t seem to mean business partner. I also asked the U-T editors, “Does it matter?”
A short while later, I realized it does matter. While, on the one hand, public figures coming out is no big deal nowadays – did anyone spill their coffee over Anderson Cooper’s recent revelation? – this may well be the first time that someone who is already in the schoolbooks has come out of the closet.
A sentence or two now will be added to those history books, and that will matter a whole lot to gay and lesbian young people who have to cope with the harsh environment of high school, where any kind of difference, but particularly being gay, still can make one a target for bullying and abuse. (California actually has a law requiring that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, history be included in textbooks.)
This was a gift that Sally Ride, said by her family to be a very private person, gave to other LGBT people upon her passing.
“Sally never hid her relationship with Tam,” Bear Ride told The San Francisco Chronicle. “Sally’s very close friends, of course, knew of their love for each other. … Sally had a very fundamental sense of privacy – it was just her nature – because we’re Norwegians.”
Bear told the Chronicle she hopes Ride’s revelation “makes it easier for kids growing up gay that they know that another one of their heroes was like them.”
Fierce debate erupted on gay-activist listservs within moments of the announcement of Ride’s death. Some people scolded Ride for not coming out during her lifetime, arguing that that would have made a bigger difference in the world. Others defended her decision not to take that step into the limelight.
Yes, Ride could have come out if she felt like it. Current-day La Jolla is not at all an unsafe place for same-sex couples. But she had no obligation to do so, and neither does any other public figure.
Not every gay or lesbian person wants to be an activist, and when a public figure comes out, he or she can be thrust into that role by the media, which start asking the individual’s opinion on every gay topic of the day.
Not every gay or lesbian person even considers his or her sexual orientation one of the most important pieces of his or her identity. For some, it’s just another thing, like being left-handed, or Episcopalian.
If anyone deserves a bit of scolding, it’s the news media, which went about its business for around 24 hours before realizing that this obituary was not a run-of-the-mill obituary and that there was a surprise, and breaking news, lurking in the list of survivors.
By the second day, there were stories everywhere about Ride’s coming out.
And I suspect this piece is one of several on Sunday op-ed pages around the country today.
American hero Sally Ride did one more great thing the day she died. She showed America, again, that LGBT people really are everywhere, including even in outer space and already in our history books.
Read the original story at UT San Diego
