June has traditionally been called Pride Month as the world celebrates equal rights for members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Tennis has a fair share of members of that community and very few are as prominent and well-known as Martina Navratilova. The life story of the American tennis player is worthy of a film and perhaps we'll see it one day.
From hiding her true self in a communist country to defecting to the United States and finally living freely, Navratilova also managed to put together an iconic tennis career. As pride month begins this year, Navratilova called upon everybody to embrace their true selves in a written piece for the WTA.
In 1981, I was semi-out. Because I didn’t care, personally. I just wanted to get my citizenship. Once I got that, I didn’t care who knew what, or when. The fact that we have Pride Month – across the whole country – that’s a good thing. We have Pride Day at NHL games, NFL, baseball, all over. It wasn’t always like that.
While LGTBQ+ rights are pretty well established it's still not ideal. There are plenty of people who don't support them and statistically, it's likely that some of the world's population still harbours negative views of members of the community. Being able to be yourself is a privilege that Navratilova cherishes a lot.
So it was always hush-hush, or ignored – or called something other than what it was. So these days it’s just nice not to have to censor yourself, or not be censored, most of all. And it kind of becomes, not a norm, exactly, but “Ah, who cares?”
She finished off her essay with a conclusion that things are moving in the right direction: But, yeah, I think it’s going in the right direction. And it’s all the better.
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