Skip to content
Billie Jean King changed tennis, challenged sexism and helped transform the fight for equality. But at 82, the sporting legend is reminding us of something we would rather not contemplate: the LGBTQ+ rights we have spent generations fighting for are not necessarily guaranteed forever.
There is something extraordinary about listening to Billie Jean King speak about equality.
Not because she offers some revolutionary new argument or delivers the sort of carefully manufactured statement celebrities often make when discussing political issues. Quite the opposite. King speaks with the conviction of someone who has spent her entire life watching society change, often because she was one of the people pushing it forward.
In a deeply personal interview published by The Guardian on 9 November, the former world number one reflects on her career, her sexuality, her marriage to Ilana Kloss and the sacrifices she made at a time when being openly gay could destroy a public figure’s livelihood.
But one observation stands out above everything else.
Speaking about the possibility of hard-won rights being taken away, King warns: “We can lose it overnight.”
And if there’s one thing our community should understand by now, it’s that she’s not being dramatic.
Billie Jean King Paid a Heavy Price for Coming Out
When Billie Jean King’s relationship with another woman became public in 1981, she was already one of the most accomplished athletes in the world.
She had won 39 Grand Slam titles across singles, doubles and mixed doubles, transformed the commercial landscape of women’s tennis and helped challenge a sporting establishment that treated female athletes as considerably less valuable than their male counterparts.
Yet none of that protected her from the consequences of being publicly identified as gay.
King’s sexuality became public after a former partner, Marilyn Barnett, brought legal proceedings against her. At the time, King was still married to Larry King, and the media attention placed her private life under extraordinary scrutiny.
In the new interview, she recalls losing her commercial endorsements almost immediately after acknowledging the relationship.
Imagine that for a moment.
You can be a world champion. You can change your sport. You can inspire millions of people and build an international reputation through talent, determination and extraordinary hard work.
And then something as personal as loving another woman can threaten everything you’ve spent your life building.
That was the reality faced by countless LGBTQ+ public figures before visibility became something that brands could celebrate in June with a rainbow logo.
For King, the decision to tell the truth came at a tremendous professional and personal cost. But it also allowed her to stop maintaining a public narrative that concealed an essential part of her life.
And that distinction between being successful and being free is one that still resonates today.
Why Billie Jean King’s Marriage to Ilana Kloss Matters
King has been with fellow former tennis player Ilana Kloss for more than four decades. The couple married privately in 2018, three years after same-sex marriage became legal nationwide in the United States.
Their relationship represents something that earlier generations of LGBTQ+ people were frequently denied: the ability to build a life together and have that commitment recognised by the law.
In her interview, King explains that marriage was important not simply for financial and legal security, but also as a way of honouring the people who fought for marriage equality before her.
That is a particularly moving detail.
For many younger LGBTQ+ people, the right to marry may feel like an established part of modern life. But for people of King’s generation, legal recognition arrived after decades of exclusion, political campaigning, personal sacrifice and public humiliation.
Marriage equality was never simply about weddings, flowers or the possibility of calling someone your husband or wife. It was also about inheritance, family recognition, security, dignity and the principle that queer relationships deserve equal treatment.
And it took an extraordinary amount of work to get there.
Today, as the United States continues to debate constitutional protections and the future of LGBTQ+ rights, King’s concerns feel particularly relevant.
The Gayly Mirror has recently explored how political representation and LGBTQ+ equality continue to evolve in Brazil, where historic electoral victories have occurred alongside significant political opposition.
Different countries, different circumstances, but a shared lesson: progress requires more than celebrating the moment a right is won.
It also requires protecting that right afterwards.
Can LGBTQ+ Rights Really Be Taken Away?
King points to the reversal of Roe v Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that had recognised a constitutional right to abortion in the United States.
In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned that precedent, demonstrating that even rights recognised for almost half a century can be reconsidered.
That does not mean marriage equality is about to disappear, nor does it mean the same legal reasoning automatically applies to LGBTQ+ relationships. The constitutional questions, legislation and legal protections involved are different.
But King’s warning is about something broader than predicting the outcome of a particular court case.
It is about the danger of assuming that social and legal progress moves in only one direction.
For those who remember homosexuality being criminalised, queer relationships being hidden or LGBTQ+ people losing their livelihoods simply for being open about themselves, that danger is not an abstract political theory.
It is a lived memory.
And perhaps that is why King’s warning carries such weight. She has witnessed extraordinary progress, but she also remembers exactly how much resistance that progress encountered.
Billie Jean King on Transgender Rights and the Future of Sport
The interview also addresses one of the most contentious questions in contemporary sport: the participation and inclusion of transgender athletes.
King acknowledges that questions involving transgender participation in elite sporting competition are complex and do not necessarily have simple solutions.
But she is equally clear that transgender people deserve understanding, dignity and the opportunity to live without being subjected to constant hostility.
That matters because the debate about transgender inclusion is frequently presented as though supporting women’s sport and respecting transgender people must be mutually exclusive.
King’s career demonstrates that sporting equality has always involved difficult arguments about fairness, access and opportunity. Her work helped transform how female athletes were treated by institutions that had historically dismissed their achievements.
The current debates are not identical to the battles she fought in the 1970s, and meaningful discussions about sporting rules should recognise differences between disciplines and competitive levels.
Nevertheless, those discussions should not become an excuse to strip transgender people of their humanity.
As The Gayly Mirror reported on Washington State’s proposed restrictions on transgender girls in school sport, access to sport remains one of the most contested areas of LGBTQ+ policy in America.
King’s position is a useful reminder that genuine equality requires both serious engagement with complex questions and respect for the people affected by them.
Give Me the Ball! Tells the Story Behind the Legend
The renewed attention surrounding Billie Jean King coincides with the upcoming release of Give Me the Ball!, a documentary examining her extraordinary career and the personal battles that shaped it.
Directed by Liz Garbus and Elizabeth Wolff, the film explores King’s role in transforming women’s professional tennis, including her involvement in establishing a professional tour and her famous 1973 Battle of the Sexes victory against Bobby Riggs.
It also examines her relationships, personal sacrifices and the challenges of balancing a public career with a private identity that society was not prepared to accept.
According to ESPN’s official announcement, Give Me the Ball! will premiere in the United States on 22 November 2026 at 8:30 pm Eastern Time on ESPN and the ESPN App.
The Guardian also reports a Disney+ release from 22 November, although UK availability should be confirmed directly with the platform.
For younger audiences, the documentary offers an opportunity to discover that the freedoms enjoyed by many LGBTQ+ people today were not simply granted by a more enlightened society.
They were fought for, often by people who had very real reasons to fear the consequences.
The Next Generation Needs to Remember Who Fought for Them
Perhaps the most powerful element of King’s story is not simply that she changed tennis or became an LGBTQ+ icon.
It is that she continues to care about what happens after her.
At 82, she remains concerned about the future of equality, the treatment of transgender people and the responsibility of younger generations to continue challenging injustice.
There is something deeply moving about that sense of responsibility. King belongs to a generation that experienced discrimination many younger people have been fortunate enough never to encounter in quite the same way.
But she also knows that the distance between yesterday’s discrimination and tomorrow’s rights cannot be measured simply in years.
Laws can change. Political climates can shift. Public attitudes can become more hostile. And people who once believed their place in society was secure can find themselves having to defend it again.
That is not a reason to abandon hope. It is a reason to understand the value of what has been achieved.
Billie Jean King has spent her life proving that society can change when people refuse to accept the limits placed upon them.
Now she is reminding us that change must also be defended.
And perhaps that is the message we should take from her extraordinary life.
Pride is not simply about celebrating how far we have come. It is about recognising who brought us here and making sure the next generation does not have to fight the same battles all over again.
