Sally ride gay

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 astronaut. The revelation came in a low-key way. 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.

Sally Ride joined four male crewmates on Challenger's STS-7 mission in , making her the first American woman in space, NASA says. At the time, she was also the youngest American in space, the National Women’s History Museum says. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, and when she died in , her obituary publicly revealed that she was gay.

KCRW hears from her partner Tam O’Shaughnessy, plus the director of the documentary “Sally.”. 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. A new documentary, “Sally,” details the full life of historic astronaut Dr. Sally Ride. (Credit: U.S.

National Archives). Most of us recognize the name Sally Ride But there are two other things about Sally that are both striking and memorable—she was raised in a Presbyterian family, and she was gay. Ride was born in Encino, California, in late May At thirty-two, Ride experienced her first spaceflight aboard the Challenger shuttle.

She would return to space once more the following year, in , before serving on the accident investigation board set up in response to the Challenger tragedy. Sally Ride, America's first woman astronaut communicates with ground controllers from the flight deck. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. The two had known each other as preteens, when they were tennis teammates.

She passed after a month-long battle with pancreatic cancer. Sally was not only a prolific scientist, an astronaut, and gay—she was also an older sister. Her younger sister Bear was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in , the same year Sally was selected by NASA to enter spaceflight training. Women had been granted ordination rights only twenty years before; the Rev.

Bear served as pastor of Claremont Presbyterian Church, CA, for about a decade, from the early s until Sally left with Bear right , Image courtesy of the Academy of Achievement. The family belonged to First Presbyterian Church, Encino, and grew up attending services and becoming familiar with the denomination.

when was sally ride born

Joyce, the girls' mother, was a Sunday School teacher. When word got around that she had taught her 3rd grade Sunday School class the song We Shall Overcome in , Joyce was reprimanded by the Session. While Bear went on to pursue a career within the church by becoming a reverend, Sally never really spoke publicly about her faith. She was a very private, guarded person—even her cancer diagnosis was only made known to those closest to her.

This is where we want to turn your attention to the younger Ride sibling.

Bear has created a legacy of her own as a lesbian Presbyterian minister. The s was a decade of strife when it came to discussions of homosexuality in the church. The Rev. The committee spent three years studying all aspects of human sexuality and recommended that justice and love be used to evaluate all relationships, including heterosexual marriages.

In , the Human Sexuality Committee's final report, which advocated for the ordination rights of gay and lesbian Presbyterians, was hotly debated, and ultimately rejected by the General Assembly. So, in the late s and early s, the two Ride sisters were making names for themselves—though in different ways. Sally was becoming the first American woman to venture to space, and Bear was joining the fight within the Presbyterian church for ordination and marriage rights for the gay community.

Where Sally was quiet and private, Bear was participatory and vocal. She was active in protests and marches, including the Soulfource demonstration at the th General Assembly in , when she and Rev. She stood strong at her pulpit at the Claremont Presbyterian Church, preaching harmony and equality. Bear Ride participated in this protest, and was arrested. Pearl ID: [islandora].