Betty Hicks, Forever Remembered

When I first read Remembering Betty Hicks (1920-2011) on Pat Griffin’s LGBT blog, I was amazed about all the things Hicks had accomplished in her life, so I decided to find out more about her. Betty was a golfer, founder of the Women’s Professional Golf Association, and the precursor to the LPGA, not to mention she was an inductee into the Women Sports Foundation International Hall of Fame. So why is it that I have never heard about Betty Hicks? The blog talks about Hicks and how the fear of being labeled a lesbian in the 1950’s haunted the women in the LPGA tour. Betty’s athletic career was during the McCarthy Era, when Senator Joseph McCarthy spoke out against Communists and homosexuals. I can only imagine the changes that this woman went through. She lived to be 90 years old and she got an opportunity to see and live through the changes in women’s sports and changes in women’s and LGBT rights.

I then thought about the reading that was assigned to us, “Changing the Game: Homophobia, Sexism, and Lesbians in Sport” by Pat Griffin, and how by not speaking out about homophobia in sport it actually shows ignorance. “Our failure to speak out against homophobia signals our consent to the fear, ignorance, and discrimination that flourish in that silence.” Betty was a person who spoke out about equality and she was the first woman athlete to write about lesbians in sport. Here first article “The Billie Jean King Affair,” came out in a 1981 issue of Christopher Street, a former gay publication. In her article, Betty talks about how Billie Jean King was the first athlete to come out as a lesbian. I don’t know about you, but to me Betty Hicks is an inspiration, someone who I can admire. She was a fearless feminist and a great athlete, who stood up for what she believed in. If it wasn’t for her courage and hard work in sports, women and LGBT voices would never have been heard. As Pat Griffin states in the reading I read, “If our goal is to create a vision of sport in which all women have an opportunity to proudly claim their athletic identity and control their athletic experience, then we must begin to build that future now.” Betty Hicks fought for that and isn’t that what we all want nowadays?