Renée Richards faults herself

By Leah Asmelash, CNN

(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.

A judge ruled that the US Open had violated New York State’s Human Rights Law, and that Richards could play. Though she was knocked out in the first round that year in singles, she was a finalist in women’s doubles. She went on to play in other tournaments and in 1981, at the age of 47, she retired from professional tennis.

Richards, now 92, describes herself as a steadfast supporter of trans rights. She also calls her own lawsuit “selfish” and says she opposes trans women and girls participating in women’s sports.

A new biography published this 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.

Competitors like Martina Navratilova, who is now a vocal opponent of trans women playing women’s sports, liked Richards as an individual, Kliegman said: “It’s often sort of easier to accept someone from a marginalized group when you have a personal relationship with them, as opposed to the abstraction of trans people who might be seen as coming to steal scholarships or prize money from cisgender women.”

Where Kliegman sees the debate about trans women athletes as an integral part of the current, expanding campaign against trans rights, Richards insists on separating the two, a disagreement that ripples through the book.

“It’s not like if trans people and their allies concede on the sports question, then they’re going to gain ground in areas like gender-affirming care or public bathroom usage,” Kliegman said.

Richards — whose gender identity was outed by the journalist Richard Carlson, the father of Tucker Carlson — now says she believes that she did have an unfair advantage against her tennis opponents, one that was masked at the time because of the relatively advanced age at which she went pro.

Richards discussed the book, her own views about her experience, and the current state of trans rights in and out of sports.

Can you explain your reasoning on why you don’t think trans women should play women’s sports? Do you just mean pro or elite sports?

Richards: It could be amateur, or it could be pro. It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t distinguish between whether it’s professional golf or whether it’s professional tennis or whether it’s women’s basketball or whether it’s swimming.

If a male who becomes a female went through male puberty, that person has an advantage over other females who were never males in the beginning and didn’t develop larger long bones and bigger chest cavities and larger hearts and a greater amount of muscle mass and bigger cardiac output and lung capacity. Even if they are deprived testosterone by their transition, that’s only part of the story. It’s not enough.

It does limit them a lot. I can tell you that through personal experience, but it doesn’t limit them to the point of equality. I know what I became, compared to what I had been.

When did you come to that new position?

Richards: I thought I was being fair in competing with cisgender women because the competition was pretty close. I won some matches against top players. I lost some matches against poorly ranked players.

I thought that because I was older than the other players, that negated any advantage I might have had by having formerly been a male. I thought that it was a pretty equal playing field until I played in one match in 1979. I played in the women’s 35-and-over championship at Flushing Meadow, and I beat Nancy Richey, a Hall of Fame player. She won the French Open and a few other big tournaments. I beat her in the finals, and I was only 10 years older than she was.

And after I beat her in the finals, I said to myself, “I don’t think it’s fair. It’s not enough of an age difference.” So that got me to think that my opinion about allowing transgender women to play on the tour was inaccurate. I’ve been saying that it’s been fair because I’ve been playing against women that are 20 or more years younger than I am.

There are many instances throughout your life where you defended your right as a trans woman playing women’s sports. At one point, you said: “I want to be happy.” Why wouldn’t you also extend that to trans women athletes today?

Richards: Because we know better now. Sure, I wanted to be happy. I was selfish. I was looking out for myself. I was trying to do, first of all, what was good for me and making me happy, and only secondly, what was fair for the world.

I didn’t think that the age would make such a difference. When I played that match against Nancy, I hadn’t conceived of it until then. I’d been playing against Chrissie (Evert) and Martina (Navratilova) and Tracy (Austin), and they had an advantage over me for sure because of the age difference. No matter the size and the muscle mass and so on, I was at a disadvantage playing Martina and Chrissie and Tracy, and I knew it, and they knew it.

In the book, Kliegman notes that this is a position taken by a lot of people who specifically want to exclude trans women and trans people from public life, which isn’t your stance. How do you feel knowing that your view might lump you in with people who are more broadly anti-trans?

Richards: Well, I certainly hope that it doesn’t, because that’s just stupid. Being a trans woman is something that is a right and should be respected. And if you’re a trans woman congressman, you don’t have any physical advantage over other congressmen or women.

Competitive sports are a totally different entity. Why do you think we have juniors and seniors and junior seniors and 35-and-overs and 150 pounders and lightweights and middleweights and bantamweights and heavyweights? Because sports is different.

What do you say to the common right-wing argument that it’s unsafe to have trans women in women’s locker-rooms?

Richards: That’s all just stupid. Those are stupid people. Who cares about the men in the women’s locker rooms? Who cares about this kind of overrunning of the world by the transgenders? That’s gobbledygook. When I was with Martina at the French Open in the women’s locker room, the men masseuses were walking around in there all over the place.

This locker room, bathroom thing is just stupid. They’re just using it because it adds fodder to their complaint about trans women in general. Has nothing to do with sports. Has nothing to do with anything other than they don’t like the idea of there being trans people.

You talk about how few trans women athletes there actually are, and how the idea that trans women are overrunning women’s sports is a myth. But since there’s so few of them, why not just let them play?

Richards: It has nothing to do with the number. I’m pointing out the number to show how inflated an issue it has become for political reasons. If somebody commits murder or mass murder, what’s the difference? Murder is murder. Just because it’s a small number doesn’t make it right.

Is there anything else you want to add?

Richards: It’s too bad that any of us decided to participate in sports, because it takes away from the main issue of the sadness of having been born with this tendency. Believe me, it’s a blight on whoever it hits.

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.

Maybe that’s the statement I want to get out there. Don’t beat up on them so much. Try it yourself.

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