Alissa Wykes

Last updated

Alissa Wykes (born 1967or1968) [1] is a former American football running back who played for the Philadelphia Liberty Belles of the National Women's Football Association. [2] [3] [4] When she was playing, she was 5'6" tall, weighed 209 pounds, and was nicknamed "A-Train" by her teammates. [5] Previously, she played softball at Upper Moreland High School in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania. [6]

Contents

Biography

Wykes was one of the first active American athletes to publicly come out as gay when she announced that she was lesbian in an article in the December 2001/January 2002 edition of Sports Illustrated for Women . [7] [5] [1] Catherine Masters, owner of the league, condemned Wykes for pursuing her own "personal agenda", claiming that the league had received "hundreds of phone calls. Gay people were saying it was horrible. Straight people were saying it was great." [8] In 2003, Wykes participated as a panel member at the first National Gay/Lesbian Athletics Conference at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. [5] [4] Wykes joked that she felt "great empathy for the women on my team who are straight. I meana straight female football player?" [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Coming out</span> Process of revealing ones sexual orientation or other attributes

Coming out of the closet, often shortened to coming out, is a metaphor used to describe LGBT people's self-disclosure of their sexual orientation, romantic orientation or gender identity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Women's gridiron football</span> American football practiced by women

Women's gridiron football, more commonly known as women's tackle football, women's American football, women's Canadian football, or simply women's football, is a form of gridiron football played by women. Most leagues play by similar rules to the men's game. Women primarily play on a semi-professional or amateur level in the United States. Very few high schools or colleges offer the sport solely for women and girls. However, on occasion, it is permissible for a female player to join the otherwise male team.

David Marquette Kopay is a former American football running back in the National Football League (NFL) who in 1975 became one of the first professional athletes to come out as gay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sue Wicks</span> American basketball player and aquaculture farmer

Susan Joy Wicks is a former basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). She played with the New York Liberty from 1997 to 2002. Wicks was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. Sue now works in aquaculture on Long Island continuing her family 400 year legacy on working on the water

Rita Mae Brown is an American feminist writer, best known for her coming-of-age autobiographical novel, Rubyfruit Jungle. Brown was active in a number of civil rights campaigns and criticized the marginalization of lesbians within feminist groups. Brown received the Pioneer Award for lifetime achievement at the Lambda Literary Awards in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jason Collins</span> American basketball player (born 1978)

Jason Paul Collins is an American former professional basketball player who was a center for 13 seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played college basketball for the Stanford Cardinal, where he was an All-American in 2000–01. Collins was selected by the Houston Rockets as the 18th overall pick in the 2001 NBA draft. He went on to play for the New Jersey Nets, Memphis Grizzlies, Minnesota Timberwolves, Atlanta Hawks, Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and Brooklyn Nets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kay Lahusen</span> American photographer, writer, and activist (1930–2021)

Katherine Lahusen was an American photographer, writer and gay rights activist. She was the first openly lesbian American photojournalist. Under Lahusen's art direction, photographs of lesbians appeared on the cover of The Ladder for the first time. It was one of many projects she undertook with partner Barbara Gittings, who was then The Ladder's editor. As an activist, Lahusen was involved with the founding of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) in 1970 and the removal of homosexuality from the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). She contributed writing and photographs to a New York–based Gay Newsweekly and Come Out!, and co-authored two books: The Gay Crusaders in 1972 with Randy Wicker and Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era, collecting their photographs with Diana Davies in 2019.

Jennifer Lynn Allard is a former All-American softball player at the University of Michigan and the current head coach of the University of Pittsburgh softball team. Allard played for the Michigan Wolverines softball team from 1987–1990, where she was named an All-Big Ten player four straight years. She was a third baseman as a freshman and sophomore and a pitcher as a junior and senior. In 1989, Allard was named the Big Ten Player of the Year and a nominee for the Honda-Broderick Cup. She has been the head coach at Harvard since 1995, where she led the Crimson to its first Ivy League championship in 1992 and has followed with three more Ivy League crowns. In 1997, Allard told her team that she was a lesbian, becoming one of the first major college coaches to openly announce her homosexuality. In 2008, Allard was inducted into the University of Michigan Athletic Hall of Honor.

The "lesbian kiss episode" is a subgenre of the media portrayal of lesbianism in American television media, created in the 1990s. Beginning in February 1991 with a kiss on the American L.A. Law series' episode "He's a Crowd" between C.J. Lamb and Abby Perkins, David E. Kelley, who wrote the episode in question, went on to use the trope in at least two of his other shows. Subsequent television series included an episode in which a seemingly heterosexual female character engages in a kiss with a possibly lesbian or bisexual character. In most instances, the potential of a relationship between the women does not survive past the episode and the lesbian or suspected lesbian never appears again.

Homophobia has been widespread in men's association football, also known as soccer, throughout the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dee Mosbacher</span> American documentary filmmaker

Diane "Dee" Mosbacher is an American filmmaker, lesbian feminist activist, and practicing psychiatrist. In 1993, she founded Woman Vision, a nonprofit organization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joanna Lohman</span> American soccer player

Joanna Christie Lohman is a retired American professional soccer midfielder/defender who last played for the Washington Spirit of the American National Women's Soccer League. She previously played for the Washington Freedom and Philadelphia Independence. In addition, she served as the general manager of the Washington Freedom Futures, the Washington Freedom Soccer Club's W-League team. Lohman is a former member of the United States women's national soccer team and author of the book Raising Tomorrow's Champions: What the Women's National Soccer Team Teaches Us About Grit, Authenticity and Winning that was released on March 3, 2021 by Inspire Digital Media.

The lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and other non-heterosexual or non-cisgender (LGBTQ+) community is prevalent within sports across the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Homosexuality in American football</span> LGBTQ history in American Football

There has been only one player who has publicly come out as gay or bisexual while being an active player in the National Football League (NFL): Carl Nassib, who revealed himself as gay on June 21, 2021. He later became the first openly gay player in an NFL playoff game on January 15, 2022. Six former NFL players have come out publicly after they retired. In the 2014 NFL draft, the St. Louis Rams drafted Michael Sam in the seventh round, the 249th of 256 players selected, which made him the first openly gay player to be drafted into the NFL. However, on August 30, St. Louis released Sam as part of a final round of cuts to reduce their roster to the league-mandated 53 players before the start of the regular season. In 2015, he became the first publicly gay player to play in the Canadian Football League (CFL).

The homosexual sports community in the United States, like the LGBT rights in the United States, enjoys one of the highest levels of acceptance and support in the world. A vibrant and rapidly growing community, it is enjoying an exponential growth. The public opinion and jurisprudence has changed significantly since the late 1980s; by the early 2020s, an overwhelming majority of Americans approved of the legality of same-sex marriages.

References

  1. 1 2 Rothaus, Steve (April 28, 2003). "Ex-Padre shows pride out of the closet". The Ottawa Citizen . Retrieved May 6, 2021 via Newspapers.com.
  2. Lofton, Steve; Croteau, Roger (September 2002). "Alissa Wykes". Out. p. 84. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  3. Crane, Michael (2004). "2002 Influential Gays and Gay Allies". The Political Junkie Handbook. S.P.I. Books. p. 261. ISBN   9781561718917.
  4. 1 2 3 Garfield, Simon (4 May 2003). "Is anyone out there?". The Observer. Retrieved 8 May 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 DuLong, Jessica (19 February 2002). "Out in the field: pro footballer Alissa Wykes talks about breaking new ground for out lesbian athletes--and the flak she's gotten along the way". The Advocate. pp. 32–35. Retrieved 4 January 2012.
  6. Miles, Gary (May 7, 1984). "Rookie pitcher comes through for the Bears". The Philadelphia Inquirer . Retrieved May 6, 2021 via Newspapers.com.
  7. Bonham, Mark S. (2017). Lesbian Football/Soccer Players. Bonham & Company. pp. 96–97. ISBN   978-0993960031.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  8. Hipp, Deb (31 October 2002). "Dreams of Fields". The Pitch. Kansas City. Retrieved 3 May 2021.