by Susan Ware
20 “Larry and Billie Jean King Work to Renew Their Marriage,” 76; Deford, “Mrs. Billie Jean King,” 81.
21 “Mrs. King Offers to Quit as W.T.A. Head,” S5; “Larry and Billie Jean King Work to Renew Their Marriage,” 75; BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 27, 26.
22 For example, skater Peggy Fleming (Jenkins) wrote a letter in support: “Billie Jean King should be measured by her tremendous contributions to women's sports, and particularly tennis. One's personal life should remain private unless you choose for it to be otherwise. Billie Jean has been a leader in the development of women's sports and I hope she will continue to be one in the years to come.” women's Sports, August 1981, 64. For Randy's reaction, see BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 216–17.
23 Richard Cohen, “Billie Jean King Pays for America's Fantasy,” Washington Post, May 7, 1981, C1; “Sequel,” People, December 28, 1981/January 4, 1982, 111. This fan reaction seems fairly typical: “Billie Jean, I don't care if you are gay, straight, bisexual, asexual, or neuter. To me and every woman who has been able to admit her love of sports without fear of chastisement you are a saint.” Susan Caust, Flushing, N.Y., to editors, women's Sports, July 1981, 59.
24 Shelley Roberts, “Bad Form, Billie Jean,” Newsweek, May 25, 1981, 19. Cohen, “Billie Jean Apologizes—But Not Really” basically calls her actions reprehensible, not admirable. See also Dr. Roberta Bennett quoted in Betty Hicks, “The Billie Jean King Affair,” Christopher Street, July 1981, 16: “It was scarcely a one-night stand. There must have been something there.”
25 Helen Dude, Nashville, Ill., to editors, women's Sports, January 1983, 6.
26 “A Disputed Love Match,” 77.
27 Facts on File, April 20, 1979.
28 Facts on File, April 20, 1979. The Supreme Court decision is Marvin v. Marvin, 18 Cal.3d 660 (December 27, 1976). Thanks to Karen Simonson for tracking it down.
29 Facts on File, April 20, 1979. See also Judy Mann, “What Michelle Won and What Was Lost,” Washington Post, April 20, 1979, C1. In the end Lee Marvin's victory was total, since Triola's award was overturned on appeal. See Nancy F. Cott, Public Vows: A History of Marriage and the Nation (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2000), 207–8. See also Stuart Auerbach, “Sealing It With a Contract; Lawyers Eye Written Agreements for Nonmarried Couples,” Washington Post, August 11, 1977, A8; Richard Cohen, “Living in Sin Becomes Just Too Complicated,” Washington Post, March 5, 1978, B1; and LaBarbara Bowman, “From Altar to Palimony?” Washington Post, July 3, 1979, B1, on the legal and social implications.
30 “Oh, BillyJean,” National Review, May 29, 1981, 600.
31 “A Disputed Love Match,” 77; “Billie Jean's Odd Match,” 36–37.
32 “Court Bars Publication of Letters from Billie Jean King to Woman,” New York Times, May 6, 1981, A26; “Style,” Washington Post, June 10, 1981, B2; “Mrs. King Loses Bid to Dismiss Lawsuit Brought by Ex-lover,” New York Times, July 9, 1981, B5.
33 “Newsmakers,” Newsweek, December 21, 1981, 59; “Style,” Washington Post, December 12, 1981, C3; “Billie Jean King Upheld;Judge Hints at Extortion,” New York Times, December 12, 1981, 10. In May, 1982, Larry King sued Barnett and her lawyers for a whopping S57.5 million, alleging malicious prosecution in the case over the Malibu house. He asked for damages based on the income he lost as a result of the adverse publicity. Presumably nothing ever came of this suit. Washington Post, May 22, 1982, C2.
34 “Judge Dismisses Suit Against Billie Jean King,” New York Times, November 20, 1982, 10; Judith Cummings, “2 in Los Angeles Die Fighting Storm,” New York Times, March 3, 1983, 16.
35 Nancy Cott, Public Vows, shows how much has changed in our understanding of marriage since the 1960s, but still its resilience as a legal, political, and cultural ideal.
36 Amdur, “Homosexuality Sets Off Tremors,” B11; Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 181; Fleming and Leibovitz, “The Battles of Billie Jean King.” Based on full access to King, Roberts concluded, “Billie had twisted the truth about the breadth of her lesbian experiences, in part to protect Ilana.” A turning point in publicly acknowledging their relationship finally came around 2003–2004 when both King and Kloss agreed to cooperate with the HBO documentary which aired in 2006. See Richard Sandomir, “TV Sports,” New York Times, April 25, 2006, 7.
37 Fleming and Leibovitz, “The Battles of Billie Jean King”; Michele Kort, “Finally, after 17 years of dodging the subject in print, Billie Jean King comes all the way out,” Advocate, August 18, 1998, 40–42.
38 Hicks, “The Billie Jean King Affair,” 17.
39 Martina Navratilova with George Vecsey, Martina (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1985), 137. “If Chris and I do the same thing,” Martina complained to Nora Ephron in 1985, “I'll be criticized and she'll come off smelling like a rose.” Nora Ephron, “Martina's Unfairness Doctrine,” New York Times Magazine, March 31, 1985, 52.
40 Kort, “King Comes All the Way Out”
41 Johnette Howard, The Rivals: Chris Evert vs. Martina Navratilova: Their Epic Duels and Extraordinary Friendship (New York: Broadway Books, 2005), 107. See also Nancy E. Spencer, “‘America's Sweetheart’ and ‘Czech-Mate’: A Discursive Analysis of the Evert-Navratilova Rivalry,” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 27 (February 2003): 18–37.
42 Robert Lipsyte, “Connors the Killer Is ReallyJust a Child,” New York Times, September 6, 1991, 36; Navratilova, Martina, 136.
43 The characterization is Jennifer Baumgardner's in Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007), 91.
44 Stephanie Mansfield, “Rita Mae Brown, Martina Navratilova and The End of the Affair; the Love Match; the Love Match Gone Sour,” Washington Post, August 13, 1981, C1. See also Rita Mae Brown, Sudden Death (New York: Bantam Books, 1983).
45 “Playboy interview: Billie Jean King,” 60. Grace Lichtenstein included the story in A Long Way, Baby.
46 Howard, The Rivals, 179–80; Jane Leavy, “women's Tennis Makes the Grade in a Testing Year,” Washington Post, January 3, 1982, L15.
47 Howard, The Rivals, 227–28. Lieberman's heterosexual charade didn't last. In 2000 while the head coach of the Detroit Shock in the WNBA, she faced accusations that she and WNBA rookie Anna DeForge were having a sexual relationship. At the end of the season, Lieberman was told she would not be offered a new contract. In 2001, she filed for divorce from her husband of thirteen years, Tim Cline. Grant Wahl, L. Jon Wertheim, and George Dohrman, “Passion Plays,” Sports Illustrated, September 10, 2001.
48 Peter Bodo, The Courts of Babylon: Tales of Greed and Glory in the Harsh New World of Professional Tennis (New York: Scribner, 1995), 181; Mary Jo Festle, Playing Nice: Politics and Apologies in women's Sports (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), chapter 6. See also Grace Lichtenstein, A Long Way, Baby.
49 Bodo, The Courts of Babylon, 210; Lichtenstein, A Long Way, Baby, 85; Festle, Playing Nice, 243. See also Mary G. McDonald, “The Marketing of the women's National Basketball Association and the Making of Postfeminism,” International Review for the Sociology of Sport 35 (2000): 35–47; and Nancy E. Spencer, “Once Upon a Subculture: Professional women's Tennis and the Meaning of Style, 1970–1974,” Journal of Sport and Social Issues 21 (November 1997): 363–78.
50 Barry Lorge, “The Aftermath; Verbal Vultures Descend on women's Tour; King Affair Puts women's Sports on Trial,” Washington Post, May 7, 1981, D1; Howard, The Rivals, 81–83. See also Bodo, The Courts of Babylon. I use the term transsexual here because that is how Richards was described at the time. Now she would be called transgendered.
51 Joan Ryan, “Richards Pushes on For Friends,” Washington Post, August 22, 1976, 37; Howard, The Rivals, 181–82. See also Renee Richards with John Ames, Second Serve: The Renee Richards Story (New York: Stein and Day, 1986), which was made into a TV movie starring Vanessa Redgrave.
52 Joan Ryan, “Richards Defended by Tourney Director,” Washington Post, August 21, 1976, B1; Cynthia Reader, “‘I’m a Special Kind of Woman; I’m a T
ranssexual,’“womenSports, December 1976, 37; Neil Amdur, “Miss Stoll, 16, Topples Dr. Richards in Semifinal,” New York Times, April 17, 1977, S11. See also Marcia Seligson, “Transsexual Chic: The Packaging of Renee Richards,” Ms., January 1977, 74–76.
53 “King Cites Richards’ ‘Tremendous Advantage,’“Washington Post, August 31, 1976, C5.
54 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 137. A subplot here: King was angry that she hadn't been given a wild-card entry to the Virginia Slims championship, so she decided to play in an unsanctioned tournament. Given her longstanding organizing on behalf of the women's tour, this stand angered the WTA and its elected leaders, including Chris Evert. See Neil Amdur, “Rebuff to Mrs. King Causes a Split in women's Tennis,” New York Times, March 23, 1977, 31.
55 Navratilova, Martina, 223.
56 One factor that swayed the judge was an affidavit from Billie Jean King: “From my observation of Dr. Richards and experience with her on the court, as well as my total knowledge of the sport of tennis, she does not enjoy physical superiority or strength so as to have an advantage over women competitors in the sport of tennis.” Quoted in Neil Amdur, “Dr. Richards Gets Support of Mrs. King,” New York Times, August 11, 1977, 76. Since Richard Raskind had reached the finals of the men's over-35 championship at the U.S. Open in 1972, her appearance in 1979 would make her the only person to have reached the finals in the same event as both a man and a woman.
57 Navratilova, Martina, 228.
58 Christine Jorgensen in the 1950s was the first transsexual to receive widespread publicity; British writer Jan Morris and Renee Richards were the best-known male-to-female transsexuals in the 1970s. For a general history, see Joanne Meyerowitz, How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002).
59 Gross, Up from Invisibility, 203. Other out athletes include tennis players Gigi Fernandez and Amelie Mauresmo and golfers Muffin Spencer-Devlin and Patty Shee-han. See
60 Gross, Up from Invisibility, 204; Robert Lipsyte, “A Major League Player's Life of Isolation and Secret Fear,” New York Times, September 6, 1999, A1; Mike Wilson, “Wanted: Gay Sports Hero,” St. Petersburg Times, February 7, 1999, 1F.
61 BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 213; Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 178–79. In 1984 King upped the total to more than $2 million, presumably to include the business opportunities that Larry lost as well. “Sports Fanfare,” Washington Post, January 6, 1984, C2.
62 Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 176; BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 188.
63 “Mrs. King May Retire,” New York Times, February 4, 1982, D25; George Vecsey, “Billie Jean King Reaches 100,” New York Times, June 25, 1982, A21; Neil Amdur, “Mrs. King Gains The Round of 16,” New York Times, June 27, 1982, 170; Amdur, “Mrs. Lloyd Her Foe in Semifinals,” New York Times, July 1, 1982, B9; Amdur, “Faces Miss Navratilova in Final,” New York Times, July 3, 1982, 15; Amdur, “Mrs. King Ousted by Miss Mascarin, 18,” New York Times, September 1, 1982, B7.
64 George Vecsey, “Mrs. King in a Familiar Spot,” New York Times, June 28, 1983, A25; Neil Amdur, “Mrs. King Gains Semifinals,” New York Times, June 29, 1983, B7; Amdur, “Miss Jaeger Trounces Mrs. King,” New York Times, July 1, 1983, A13.
65 women's Sports Foundation, The New Agenda: A Blueprint for the Future of women's Sports: A Summary (1984), 2, copy found at WSF Archives; Jane Leavy, “women's Sports Seek Visibility,” Washington Post, November 4, 1983, C1. Grove City College in Pennsylvania deliberately avoided all federal aid to maintain its independence from federal interference, which it argued exempted it from Title IX's coverage. In a decision announced in March 1984 the Supreme Court ruled that certain financial grants to students did in fact trigger coverage. But then the justices significantly narrowed the coverage of the law from what Congress had seemingly intended—that it cover the entire institution, not just a specific program receiving aid—by ruling that if Grove City ever were found guilty of discrimination in a program not receiving federal aid, Title IX sanctions would not apply. Since no athletic departments received federal funds, suddenly they were not covered. Not until Congress passed the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988 over President Reagan's veto was Title IX's broad coverage restored. See Linda Jean Carpenter and R. Vivian Acosta, Title IX (Champaign, Ill.: Human Kinetics, 2005), 121, 179.
66 Leavy, “women's Sports Seek Visibility”; women's Sports Foundation, The New Agenda, 3.
67 In other versions, it is actual corporate threats that cause the panic, but I think Griffin has it right (Strong Women, Deep Closets, 7–10, 73) and that it was the women's Sports Foundation folks who panicked first, fearful of what might happen, and then worked hard to keep the word out of the official proceedings. For a competing version, see Mariah Burton Nelson, Are We Winning Yet? 138: “In 1983, a major corporate sponsor of ‘The New Agenda’—a national women's sports conference—threatened to pull out at the last minute if the word ‘lesbian’ were used in conference materials.” As per its modus operandi, the women's Sports Foundation had lined up support from ATT, American Express, Adidas, Virginia Slims, Anheuser-Busch, Coca-Cola, Nautilus, and Milky Way. In all, the WSF raised $130,000 to put on the conference. women's Sports Foundation, The New Agenda, 2.
68 The final resolutions, which ran to almost ten pages, mentioned homophobia in two places. Under research, they called for “investigation of homophobia and women's sports, including the effectiveness of educational programs in homophobia awareness training.” In the section of resolutions on implementing the New Agenda, it was resolved that future efforts include “a task force to explore homophobia in women's sports, with the purpose of counteracting myths about women in sports.” women's Sports Foundation, The New Agenda, 15, 23. For an interesting perspective on the conference, see Don Sabo and Janie Victoria Ward, “Wherefore Art Thou Feminisms? Feminist Activism, Academic Feminisms, and women's Sports Advocacy,” Scholar and Feminist Online 4.3 (Summer 2006).
69 April Austin, “Superstar Emeritus of women's Tennis Now on Business Side of Net,” Christian Science Monitor, November 14, 1988, 24; Russ Atkin, “Billie Jean King Spearheads Revival of Team Tennis League from Top,” Christian Science Monitor, July 8, 1985, 20; Paul Harber, “King Still Reigns in World of women's Tennis,” Boston Globe, October 20, 1988, 59.
70 Billie Jean King with Cynthia Starr, We Have Come a Long Way: The Story of women's Tennis (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1988), chapter 8; Howard, The Rivals; BJK, Billie Jean (1982), 209.
71 “WTA Tour Seeks Answers,” New Orleans Times-Picayune, May 15, 1994, C1; “Mrs. King Still Taking Bows,” New York Times, March 22, 1983, B9; Peter Alfano, “Casals Laments Changes on Tour,” New York Times, April 10, 1985, B12.
72 Michele Kort, “Ms. Conversation with Billie Jean King and Martina Navratilova,” Ms., February 1988, 60, 61.
73 Greg Wood, “Sport on TV: Outing for the Pioneering Spirit of a King,” London Independent, July 17, 1999, 16; George Vecsey, “Billie Jean King and the Millionaire,” New York Times, March 9, 1990, B7.
74 Nolan Zavoral, “Billie Jean King Tries to Slow Down a Bit; Tennis Great turns 50 in November,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, May 12, 1993, 2C. Ashe likely contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion after open-heart surgery in 1983. An intensely private person, Ashe told few people about the diagnosis in order to protect his family, especially his young daughter. Yet a surprisingly large contingent of friends, including Billie Jean King, knew or guessed the truth and still kept the secret out of respect for Ashe's wishes. An anonymous tip to USA Today in 1992 forced his hand. King knew firsthand what it was like to be forced into the public eye before it was time: “I felt violated when it happened to me, I felt violated when I talked to Arthur before his news conference. I had total empathy with him.” Ashe died in February 1993; King spoke at his memorial service. Joan Ryan, “Many friends guarded Ashe's secret,” St. Petersburg Times, April 11, 1992, 2C; Christine Brennan and Christine Spolar, “Ashe Told Friends in ‘88; St
an Smith Says Media Forced Public Disclosure,” Washington Post, April 9, 1992, D1; Bruce Lowitt, “King's Contributions to Tennis Increase as Team Tennis Grows,” St. Petersburg Times, May 3, 1992, 2C.
75 Kort, “King Comes All the Way Out”; Roberts, A Necessary Spectacle, 181.
76 Billie Jean King, Pressure Is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes (New York: LifeTime Media, 2008), 163; Corri Planck, “Portrait of a Legend,” Lesbian News, April, 1999, 18; Sandomir, “A Complex Life Gets a Closer Look.” This reconciliation would have been in 1994–1995.
77 Fleming and Leibovitz, “The Battles of Billie Jean King,” 130.
78 Steven Seidman, Beyond the Closet: The Transformation of Gay and Lesbian Life (New York: Routledge, 2004), 123. See also Charles Kaiser, The Gay Metropolis: The Landmark History of Gay Life in America (New York: Grove Press, 2007), which starts in the 1940s; and George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994), which covers the earlier period.
79 Gross, Up from Invisibility, 50–51; Amy Hoffman, An Army of Ex-Lovers: My Life at the Gay Community News (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2007), 83, xv.
80 Marcia Gallo, Different Daughters: A History of the Daughters of Bilitis and the Rights of the Lesbian Rights Movement (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2006); Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-century America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); and Leila J. Rupp, A Desired Past: A Short History of Same-sex Love in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
81 Radicalesbians, The Woman Identified Woman (Pittsburgh: Know, 1970).