MAGA

Sponsor of Women's

ETTMAN ARCHIVES

TEED OFF: Babe Didrikson and Martina Navratilova battled butch attacks.

"I hate being called a homosexual because

I don't feel that way. It really upsets me." King, who appeared at a Gay Games benefit in New York last summer, has not spoken publicly on the subject since.)

Though Navratilova calls herself "the lone ranger," she has said that coming out was liberating. "The main reward is being able to live the life I want to live and being honest," she says. "The most known repercussion [of coming out] is the financial losses I've suffered. If I were not out, I would have earned millions of dollars in endorsements. But it's not just the money. It's also the public's acceptance. Even though I know people come to see my matches who might not otherwise attend tennis tournaments, there are still hisses, boos, and jeers when I

step on the

court or when

FOULED OUT: Jody Conradt (left) fielded and Rene Portland doled out bias.

RICK MAIMAN/SYGMA

I'm playing. Maybe they don't like my hair or my nose, but I doubt that's the reason."

Navratilova knows her example hasn't emboldened other gay athletes. "I've been out since 1980, and I've never noticed a line forming behind me. Still, I think it's becoming more acceptable for people to come out, and as levels

of acceptance increase, so will the numbers of people who come out. It's an individual decision and depends on how comfortable people are with their sexuality."

10 APPRECIATE the power of homophobia over sports, you have to first understand the place of sports as a sacred male preserve. In ancient Greece, women were not only forbidden to compete in the Olympiads (while men watched other male athletes run and wrestle in the buff), women who were apprehended in the vicinity of the stadium were dragged to a nearby cliff and hurled to their deaths. Things have improved. But the passage of time hasn't encouraged men to share athletics with the female half of the human race. Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, fought desperately to keep women from participating. As lesbian athlete and author Mariah Burton Nelson points out in her new book, The Stronger Women Get, The More Men Love Football, de Coubertin hoped the Olympics would foster "manliness," which would "reverse the decline of a French upper class grown weak and effete."

As women gradually gained entry into the Olympics in the early 1900s, men took pains to denigrate their achievements. Babe Didrikson, a lesbian who competed in the 1932 Olympics in track and went on to a successful career as a pro golfer, was commonly described as "mannish" by male sportswriters. (Didrikson, whose relationships with women were known among her peers, later married a wrestler.) In 1967, the International Olympic Committee, suspicious of the improvement in women's performance times, began requiring women athletes to undergo chromosomal sex tests to prove they were fe-

WECH

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male. (I wonder if they. suggested the same tests for men who ran slowly.) When Navratilova took women's tennis to a new level with increased training, Sports Illustrated in 1983 quoted "continued suggestions" that she was "the tip of some science fiction iceberg: Team Navratilova and all that." Says Candace Lyle Hogan, a writer who is researching a book on the history

GAY GAMES IV

Someone's on the Fairway With

DINAH

T'S KNOWN AS DYKE HILL. The 17th hole at the Mission Hills Country Club is a short par-three that plays uphill. For the thousands of lesbian groupies who flock to Palm Springs each spring, it is here that they get a bird's-eye view of their favorite LPGA stars-Patty Sheehan, Beth Daniels, Pat Bradleyteeing off, striding up the course for their second fairway shot, and tapping their putts into the cup.

If the 17th is Dyke Hill, the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament is Dyke Heaven. Each March more than 5,000 lesbians pour into California's desert oasis for what has become the hottest ticket on the lesbian social calendar. With sunshine, golf, and girls, the tournament has become known as "the biggest dyke party west of the Mississippi."

Little did Dinah know when the tournament was established in 1972 by Colgate-Palmolive (and taken over by Nabisco in 1982) that it would end up as a landmark of lesbian subculture. Besides the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, and Gay Pride parades, there may be no bigger convergence of butches, lipstick lesbians, and Long Beach blondes in the world. "I've been a half-dozen times, and I'm always amazed," says Los Angeles-based journalist Michele Kort. "I've never seen more healthy-looking lesbians in one place-ever."

I called a friend who had just returned from her first trip to the Dinah Shore. She launched into an enthusiastic description of a benefit golf tournament held on the Saturday before the finals, playfully called the Lina Shore

GAY GAMES IV

SUNNY BAK

Golf Tournament, the proceeds of which go to the Susan G. Komen Breast Foundation. "You should have seen the crowd... very upscale, very pretty, lots of dough. They're all lawyers, doctors, psychiatrists, real estate tycoons and their pretty girlfriends. It's not cheap, but it's worth it. And you can bid on prizes-a foursome with some famous golfer or a golf bag autographed by the girls on the tour."

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ABOVE PAR: Dinah Shore (above) and desert denizens. French Riviera Pool Party.

Golf, of course, is secondary to many of Dinah's denizens. By early March, L.A.'s Lesbian News reaches fever pitch with its promotions for events featuring "gorgeous gals" and "luscious ladies." There is the Desert Palms Bra Party (guests are invited to wear their sexiest and most unusual bras) and an event called Le Moulin Rouge (which promises 3,000 très chic women), as well as the

By Sunday the gals who gather at the Mission Hills clubhouse for beers are showing the strain of the sun, cruising, drinking, and golf. "It was girls as far as the eye could see," said my friend. For those few with energy left to burn, there was still the famous whipped cream wrestling night at Daddy Warbucks bar. I asked her if she'd go back next year. "In a heartbeat!"-S.R.