When Elton John asked lyricist Bernie Taupin to pen a song called “Philadelphia Freedom” for his friend Billie Jean King and her tennis team, the Philadelphia Flyers, no one could have imagined the role that King would play in promoting freedom not just in the City of Brotherly Love, but throughout the nation and across the globe. Now a strong advocate for LGBT rights, King is the founder of the Women’s Sports Foundation, which advocates not just for women but also counters discrimination, including homophobia.
“It’s just really important that we start celebrating our differences,” King once said. “Let’s start tolerating first, but then we need to celebrate our differences.”
A native of Long Beach, California, Billie Jean King won 12 grand slam singles titles throughout her career, plus 16 doubles and 11 mixed doubles crowns. She is credited with playing a critical role in developing the women’s Virginia Slims tour (the present-day WTA Tour) when tournament payouts heavily favored male counterparts. Ranking among the most celebrated American tennis players of all time, she is an inductee of the International Tennis Hall of Fame, the Southern California Tennis Association Hall of Fame, and the ITF Hall of Fame. The USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, NY, bears her name. In total, her accomplishments and accolades are simply too abundant to mention.
In 2009, President Barack Obama bestowed upon Billie Jean King the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and praised her ability to “change how women athletes and women everywhere view themselves and to give everyone – regardless of gender or sexual orientation…a chance to compete both on the court and in life.” Five years later, as Russia enacted anti-gay legislation just as the country prepared to host the Sochi Olympics, President Obama named King as an openly gay delegate to the US Olympic Team, sending a clear message to the Russian government.
“Billie Jean King didn’t just raise consciousness, which was the feminist mantra then,” late columnist Frank Deford wrote in Sports Illustrated during the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ with Bobby Riggs. “No, she absolutely changed consciousness.”
Celebrate LGBT Pride, diversity, and inclusion throughout the month of June!
