Renée Richards Faults Herself

Finding Renée Richards

Renée Richards

A new biography published last  week, “Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer,” by the trans and nonbinary sportswriter Julie Kliegman, chronicles the challenges and contradictions of Richards’s life and career. 

Richards won acceptance in part because she was seen as a “one-off,” Kliegman said in an interview.

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CNN: In 1977, Dr. Renée Richards — a well-regarded ophthalmologist who’d spent most of her life as a very good amateur tennis player — sued for her right to play in the US Open.

Richards had played some competitions locally and throughout the country. She had the backing of tennis great Billie Jean King. And she had a tricky left-handed serve.

But Richards was a transgender woman, the first in the sport. Some tournaments allowed her to play, and opponents dropped out in protest. Others, like the Italian Open, accepted her at first only to change their minds days before the tournament’s start. And the US Open barred her completely.

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Think of the fact that I was born with this problem of whether I was a boy or a girl, that I was born a transgender, and what a curse that is on the person and the population. Think of how difficult it is for somebody to be transgender. I’m asking for the country to sit back for a minute and feel sorry for this little, tiny unfortunate community. It may have led to a pretty interesting life, but I would trade in a nanosecond my existence as a transgender for one who wasn’t.

It’s very difficult, and it is almost life-ending for some.

I’m on the most fortunate side of this small group. It’s a curse. I don’t want them to look at my life — where I’m comfortable and enjoying my life even into my 90s — and say that I represent what is the norm for transgenders. I don’t. I represent the abnorm. Because I’ve been able to survive, and I’ve been relatively calm and enjoying life into my elder years. That’s not the case for the majority of transgenders.