Pat Griffin is an Emerita Professor in Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She also the Director of It Takes A Team! Education Campaign for LGBT Issues in Sport. She leads classes and workshops on sexism, racism, ableism, heterosexism/homophobia, and other forms of social injustice in education. Her research and writing interests focus on heterosexism and homophobia in education, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender teachers and students, and heterosexism and homophobia in athletics, with a particular interest in women's sports. Dr. Griffin has written a book entitled, Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbian and Homophobia in Sports, published by Human Kinetics, 1998. She is also co-editor of Teaching For Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Trainers, Routledge, 1997.
Dr. Griffin is an National Collegiate Athletic Association recognized speaker. For the past 24 years Dr. Griffin has led seminars on heterosexism/homophobia in sport at numerous colleges and universities as well as at coaches and athletic administrators’ association meetings around the United States and Canada. She has served as an expert consultant on homophobia and heterosexism in sport for the Project to Eliminate Homophobia in Sport, Out For a Change: Addressing Homophobia in Women’s Sports (an educational video), the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network, the Massachusetts Department of Education Safe Schools Program, Playing Unfair: Media Images of Women in Sport (an educational video), and for numerous articles in the press, on television and in periodical publications. Dr. Griffin has appeared on ESPN Outside the Lines, HBO Real Sports, and ABC Sports as an expert commentator on LGBT issues in athletics.
Dr. Griffin played basketball and field hockey at the University of Maryland and coached high school basketball and field hockey in Silver Spring, Maryland. She also coached swimming at the University of Massachusetts. She was a member of the U.S. Field Hockey squad in 1971. She won a bronze medal in the triathlon at Gay Games IV in 1994 and a gold medal in the hammer throw at Gay Games V in 1998. She has had short stories and first person accounts selected for publication in Sportdykes: Stories from on and Off the Field, Tomboys: Tales of Dyke Derring-Do, A Whole Other Ball Game: Women’s Literature on Women’s Sport, Whatever It Takes: Women on Women's Sports.