BILLIE JEAN KING

Billie Jean King is an American former World No. 1 professional tennis player. She won 39 Grand Slam titles: 12 in singles, 16 in women's doubles, and 11 in mixed doubles.

By 1968, King realized that she was attracted to women. In 1971, she began an intimate relationship with her secretary, Marilyn Barnett. Marilyn had been living rent-free in Billie Jane’s house. In 1979, the Billie Jean asked Barnett to leave their house, but Barnett did not want to. Refusing to leave the house, Barnett threatened to leak records and receipts between the two that she had kept over the years. It was not until, when the attempts to leak these records failed, that Marilyn Barnett sued the Kings in 1981 for half their income and the Malibu house where she had been staying. Billie Jean did not know of the lawsuit until a reporter from the Los Angeles Times asked her about it. Billie Jean King did not want to confirm this, but acknowledged the relationship when it became public in a May 1981 palimony lawsuit filed by Barnett, making Billie Jean the first prominent professional female to come out.

King is an advocate for gender equality and has long been a pioneer for equality and social justice. In 1973, she won the famous "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match against Bobby Riggs. She was also the founder of the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation. In 2014, King founded the Billie Jean King Leadership Initiative, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting equality in the workplace. She says that, based on research it has carried out, “this is the greatest generation on inclusion ever. And that gives me hope. We’ve done all kinds of studies and it holds true that young people don’t want to be in a workplace that doesn’t have inclusion. They’ll leave work and go to another company if it has better inclusion.”

Billie Jean King is a Certified Proud Icon because she remained through to who she is despite the risk to her career. Today, she continues to use her platform to promote equality.