We Got Him Beat!

Formula One’s forgotten gay pioneer
More than 50 years since F1’s only known gay male driver, LGBTQ Nation explores its drive for equality – and talks to those campaigning for change.
LGBTQ Nation
By George Cooper
August 25, 2022


Were you one of Mike’s boyfriends?”

Martine Beuttler is surprised by the phone call. Speaking from her home in Saint-Tropez, on the French Riviera, the 78-year-old welcomes the chance to share memories of her beloved brother-in-law, Mike. After all, no one ever asks about him.

Mike Beuttler is Formula One’s forgotten LGBTQ pioneer: the only openly gay male driver to ever grace the sport’s elite championship.

He competed against the world’s most famous drivers during the 1970s — Niki Lauda and Ronnie Peterson foremost among them — before retiring young and leaving the United Kingdom to settle in the U.S. for the final 14 years of his life. Beuttler died in 1988 at age 48 of AIDS-related illness in Los Angeles.

Well we will see you one gay race car driver and raise you two trans race car drivers! So there!

'It's tiring, living in denial': Racing driver Charlie Martin tells her coming out story
ESPN
By Bethan Clargo and Niamh Lewis
October 11, 2021


Endurance racing driver Charlie Martin [she/her], 40, came out to the public as transgender in 2018, and says she started her transition in 2012. Martin competed in the Michelin Le Mans Cup in 2019, and was the first out trans person to race in the 24 Hours of Nürburgring event, in 2020. Martin is a Stonewall, Racing Pride, and Athlete Ally ambassador.

Then we have NASCAR driver…

A NASCAR Racer On Her Sex Change
By Newsweek Staff
May 12, 2007


J. T. Hayes won over 500 regional and national championships in go-kart, midget and sprint racing and competed in NASCAR Winston Cup before undergoing sex-reassignment surgery in 1994 at age 30. During the two years she transitioned from man to woman, the Corinth, Miss., native raced throughout the South and California, wrapping an Ace bandage over her breasts to flatten them out ("Boys Don't Cry"-style), wearing baggy T shirts and tucking her long hair under a baseball cap. Now as Terri O'Connell, she's had very little luck breaking back into the racing world. O'Connell still lives in Corinth with her elderly mother and is working on a clothing line for female NASCAR fans. The petite redhead is also writing a memoir, "Dangerous Curves," (due this fall). She'd like to get back on the track and is currently looking for a sponsor.

The terms transgendered and professional motor sports just don't go together, especially when you say I'm 5 foot 6 inches and weigh 118 pounds. I have girl's body—small, fragile and tiny.

You know for the gays and lesbians they don’t have to come out, they can stay in the closet their whole entire professional life, but trans female drivers they have to come out. People tend to notice coming to work in a bra.