Sally Ride Lesbian
Sally Ride, the first American lesbian in space, was a woman. And it was not public knowledge. It wasn’t until she died on Monday, July 23 at age 61 of pancreatic cancer that it was announced she is survived by her female partner of 27 years, Tam O’Shaughnessy.
The Huffington Post reports that it is believed Ride never publicly addressed her sexuality prior to her death.
Sally Ride, Lesbian astronaut pilot, died on July 23 at age 61.
The Sally Ride Science website offers the following information:
“Sally Ride and Tam O’Shaughnessy became friends at the age of 12 when they both played tennis. While their lives took different paths, they stayed in contact over the years. Ride went to Stanford University, earned a BS, an MS, and a PhD in physics, and became the first American woman to fly in space; O’Shaughnessy became a professional tennis player and later earned a BS and an MS in biology from Georgia State University and a PhD in school psychology from the University of California-Riverside.”
O’Shaughnessy, who is the COO and executive vice president for content for the official website of Sally Ride Science, told ABC News that all Sally wanted to do was ride around Sally, ride. O’Shaughnessy and Sally Ride together oversees development classroom books and teacher guides.
She is the author of nine science books for children, including “Our Changing Climate: Ecosystems” and “The Third Planet” (co-authored with Sally Ride), which won the American Institute of Physics Children’s Science Writing Award.
In 1982, Ride married fellow astronaut Steven Hawley; that union ended in divorce in 1987 after Hawley discovered Ride in bed with another woman. Hawley kept it a secret out of respect for Ride and the Aeronautics field which he spared the scandal