Was sally ride gay

Brian Epstein Reed Erickson E. Sally Ride to — American astronaut and physicist. In life, Sally Ride became famous as America's first woman in space — and in death, she's now added to her fame as the first acknowledged gay revelation came in a low-key way.

Dr. Sally Ride, the Queer Woman Icon Who Was Never Allowed to Be One As a new National Geographic documentary highlights, the history-making astronaut was never given space in homophobic American society to feel comfortable living as her true self.

Her 5-year marriage to a fellow astronaut in the 80s was documented, but her year same-sex relationship was only known by friends and family. Purchase a print. NASA astronaut Sally Ride during training for space flight STS “Oh, by the way, Sally Ride was gay.” This was the headline in a New York Magazine obituary noting the death of.

She tried to downplay the importance of her gender, but still had to field a number of inane and biased questions from the media. She retired from NASA in and began to teach, dedicating herself to encouraging children, especially young girls, to love science.

American astronaut and physicist. In a statement prepared before her death on Monday of pancreatic cancer, Ride, 61, acknowledged publicly for the first time that she had a longstanding relationship with a woman, Tam.

Ride (who also once served as president of ) chose to disclose her LGBTQ+ status posthumously; as such, she is also the first known member of that community to fly in space. Her parents supported her interest in science from a young age, and although she considered a career in professional tennis, science eventually won out.

Ride was appointed to the committee to investigate the disaster, and was the only one to support the engineer who had warned of technical problems prior to lift-off. She was one of 8, applicants who answered an advertisement to join the space program, and was officially accepted by NASA in Inshe became the first American woman in space, and the youngest, as a crew member on Challenger for the STS-7 mission.

Despite being such a public figure, Ride always valued her privacy. She went into space again for STSG, and was in training for her third mission when Challenger was destroyed.