Tennis legend Billie Jean King is the subject of a long interview in today’s Sunday Times (London), after having received the Lifetime Achievement award at the newspaper’s Sports Women of the Year banquet. She talks in depth about her career, her fight to establish a women’s tour, the much-hyped match with Bobby Riggs, being outed, and coming out to her parents. It’s a detailed article with several bits of information new to me; for example, she is godmother to her ex-husband’s first child (by his new wife) and has four other godchildren, whom she talks about “with fondness.” She also still plays tennis regularly “and says that her forehand now is vastly better than ‘the shocking forehand’ she struggled with in her prime” (and which only won her 12 Grand Slam titles, 67 singles titles, 101 doubles titles and 11 mixed doubles titles). You go, girl! I hope you teach your godchildren, if not tennis, at least a lifelong love of fitness and dedication. (Thanks to National Gay News for the link.)
Fellow tennis legend Martina Navratilova has signed a deal to be the “Health and Fitness Ambassador” for the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). For those who don’t know, the New York Times tells us this about AARP: “With 35 million members—more than one-tenth of the American population—and hundreds of millions of dollars in annual income from the sale of health insurance and other products to people 50 and older, AARP is perhaps the wealthiest and most influential advocacy organization in the nation.” And now they have one out lesbian telling them to get in shape.
I find it hard, however, to imagine Martina as the spokesperson for an age-based group my own parents belong to, but like Billie Jean, Martina is aging, and doing it well. It’s almost harder to imagine AARP, which is non-partisan but not known for being particularly liberal, as having a lesbian spokesperson. Maybe things are changing, however. Their Web site, after all, has a rainbow-hued navigation bar. LGBT seniors, too, are also both a force to be reckoned with (an estimated 2.4 million GLB Americans (and some unestimated number of T Americans) are over the age of 55), and a population often ignored. Now, if the AARP site ever has a link to SAGE (the services and advocacy group for GLBT elders), then I’ll know we’ve gotten somewhere. Perhaps Martina can help build some bridges.