July 02 2025, 08:15 Tam O’Shaughnessy, the partner of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride, has condemned NASA’s rollback of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies under the Trump administration.
Sally Ride flew in the space shuttle Challenger in 1983 – at 32, becoming the youngest American in space. She died in 2012, having been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
In April, the space administration became the latest government department to scrub references to equality initiatives from its website, following president Donald Trump’s crack down on so-called “woke cr*p”, an issue that has become a political battleground.
Archives of NASA’s official website, seen by PinkNews, revealed several pages have either been modified or taken down completely, to remove mentions of the LGBTQ+ community, Women’s History Month, Black History Month or DEI initiatives.
@pinknews With NASA eliminating departments covering diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, we asked the late Sally Ride’s partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, her thoughts on the matter. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space who happened to be queer. ‘Sally’ – a documentary about the groundbreaking lesbian astronaut and physicist Sally Ride, has been made and makes for fascinating viewing. The National Geographic film documents Sally Ride’s history as the first American woman and the third woman to fly in space, after cosmonauts Valentina Tereshkova in 1963 and Svetlana Savitskaya in 1982. Sally premiered in January at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize – awarded to an outstanding feature film that focuses on science or technology. #sallyride #astronaut #space #dei #nasa #lgbtqia
♬ Epic Music(863502) – Draganov89
One page, formerly called the Diversity at NASA news section, has had its name changed to “Special Observances,” while several DEI resources appear to have been removed from the news list, including a blog post titled NASA has Pride Across the Universe, with the unarchived link now showing a 404 “page not found” error message.
The move followed the president’s executive order aimed at eliminating DEI initiatives from the federal government and the armed forces.
Speaking to PinkNews, following the premiere of Sally, a National Geographic film which documents astronaut and physicist Ride’s life, O’Shaughnessy described the roll back as a “huge step backwards”, adding: It’s going to affect queer scientists, queer astronauts. They’re going to be more careful, more cautious, cover more. It’s just horrible.
“Sally would want NASA to continue with its DEI programmes until the world is equitable and our country has equal pay for equal jobs between men and women and appreciates the diversity of human beings. She would be all for men and women in the astronaut core, trans – whatever – being themselves, being open and honest.”
O’Shaughnessy added that it “just seems silly, those three words – diversity, equity and inclusion – they’re wonderful values, they’re wonderful words. It’s really hard to understand why this is happening.
“It’s going to hurt the astronaut core and NASA’s dreams for the future.”
Ride and O’Shaughnessy had been in a relationship from 1985 until the former’s death. The space trailblazer never “thought of herself as gay or queer or bisexual” because she did not like labels, her partner insisted.
“Sally lived her life exactly the way she wanted to,” O’Shaughnessy told PinkNews. “But the fact of the matter is that she was a queer woman, perhaps bisexual. Who cares?
“To me, part of being queer is sort of being true to who you are. There’s that old saying: to thine own self be true. It’s a unique, universal message. Part of being true to yourself is being who you are and being honest with yourself.
“Sally was always true to herself. She was very comfortable in her own skin even though she was private. That’s a remarkable, wonderful thing.”
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