New book by sportswriter Julie Kliegman takes a new look at transgender pioneer Renée Richards

Tennis player Dr. Renée Richards, shown in action at stadium in Forest Hills, New York during a U.S. Open tennis match on Sept. 1, 1977 (Photo by Dave Pickoff/Associated Press)

RENEE BAKER | Special Contributor
Renee@Renee-Baker.com

Remember back in the 1970s when you played tennis with a wooden racquet, maybe with your tennis coach father, drank water out of those metal tennis ball cans and dreamed of someday having what people then called a “sex change”?

No? Or just not that last part? Well, maybe that was just me. Wink-wink.

So, Renée Richards was on my childhood radar back then while growing up in a tennis family. Both of our fathers taught tennis. Both of us experienced our own form of “rebirth,” reflected by the French name “Renée” meaning to be “born again.”

Though many of you younger ones might not remember her, Richards was the tennis star that sued the U.S. Tennis Association in the New York Supreme Court and won the right to compete in the women’s draw of the U.S. Open for tennis — 50 years ago — way, way O.G. trans history.

Vanessa Redgrave portrayed Richards in the 1986 CBS television movie Second Serve, based on the 1983 memoir of the same name, written by Richards.

Much later, in 2007, Richards reflected on her “notorious” life in her second memoir, No Way Renée, providing a glimpse into the rocky life of an aging transgender athlete.

Today, of course, there is much notoriety and heartache surrounding trans people in sports. We all know it is a “shit-show” at every level, from personal to political. So, if you want to dig deeper … enter Julie Kliegman.

Kliegman, editor and writer for ProPublica and Sports Illustrated, in collaboration with HarperOne books, is releasing the new biography: Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer.

Here’s what is initially so bewildering to me. Richards, says Kliegman, is not on the side of trans inclusivity in sports. Right off the bat — or, dare I say — racquet, Kliegman sets the tone for their book.

“I was gobsmacked by [Richards’] take — that she had been wrong to sue for her right to play professional women’s tennis … and that most trans women should also be barred from doing so,” says Kliegman.

Kliegman, who identifies as nonbinary and transgender, makes it clear that they/them are in respectful disagreement with her 91-year-old trans elder, who happens to be 6-foot-2. (Richards is still alive and is an avid golfer … PSA: keep moving, live longer.)

When Richards “beat the crowd favorite” — 6-1, 6-1 — at a local La Jolla, Calif. tournament in 1976, the five-foot-three “reigning” champion Robin Harris had been a bit intimidated, to say the least.

Kliegman writes, “when rumors and whispers continued to swirl” about this tall newcomer with a wicked serve, it was San Diego journalist Dick Carlson — yup, Tucker’s father — that investigated and outed Richards as a man “masquerading as a woman.”

Like father, like son? At minimum, the Carlson family name has appeared at two very different moments in America’s evolving conversation about transgender lives.

(And FYI, I’m trying to be nice here and not break my racquet.)

And before I forget, 1976 was coincidentally the year that Caitlyn Jenner won her Olympic gold medal in the men’s decathlon. And about 40 years later when Jenner introduced herself publicly in Vanity Fair magazine, Jenner and Richards became two of the most recognizable trans athletes in U.S. history.

Kliegman follows Richards through her gender transition, too, of course. Those were painful days of growth for the trans community, which lacked respectful medical services (I know; ask me another time).

Richards ultimately is hormonally aided by endocrinologist Harry Benjamin, M.D., well known for his pioneering work with transgender patients including Christine Jorgensen. The New York Daily News famously introduced Jorgensen to the public in 1952 with the headline, “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty.”

Jorgensen, you might recall, traveled to Denmark for gender affirming care. She had little to no choice on where to go for that care.

Richards, though a medical doctor herself, struggled to find surgical approval in the U.S. and went through psychoanalysis three or more times per week for two years.

Kliegman writes that Richards’ analyst was Dr. Robert Bak, a “titan in the field,” who had a “reputation for treating sexual fetishes.” Bak’s view, Kliegman continues, “meshed with the common understanding of what transsexualism was: “simply a sexual fetish…” rather than an innate part of someone’s identity.

I was happy to see Kliegman address this subject fully and not sugar coat Richards’ childhood, which was sadly full of gender shaming and mistreatment by her sister and mother, Jo and Sadie Raskind. Sadie was, incidentally, one of the first female psychiatrists in the U.S.

And, oh boy, I had forgotten about the castration stuff these old-school analysts liked to bring up. To Bak, embracing the trans journey was really about coping with a fear of castration. I’m a counselor, and this idea has always made my head spin.

Richards took things under her own control and traveled to Casablanca for gender reassignment surgery with Dr. Georges Burou — called a sex change back then — only to feel discouraged by a primitive and unhygienic clinic. So she backed out.

Kliegman writes about Richards’ journey back to living as a male and getting married, and then moving forward to female again. She eventually gets surgery in 1975 with Dr. Roberto Granato Sr. in New York, one year before the La Jolla tournament, and two years before the landmark New York Supreme Court case.

If you love tennis, tennis history and tennis heroes, not to mention a very well written sports bio, and if you want to see if Richards can be “found,” then check this one out. Hint: Rumor is that Richards is living in New York and quite content living a private life, unlike Jenner.

Oh, and to make Kliegman’s view clear, they says they get flustered with the tennis star: “I firmly disagree with Richards on the question of trans participation in sports. I’ve told her this.”

I agree with Kliegman’s hope — let’s keep working toward both inclusion and fairness in sports. I think we can and should agree on this: Trans writers do belong in sports writing. Kliegman proves this point quite well. A+.

As for whether Renée Richards was truly ‘found,’ maybe that answer belongs only to her. Some of us spend a lifetime growing into our names.

Renee Baker, PhD, LPC, LMHC is a Dallas-based licensed professional counselor serving LGBTQ+ communities. Her website is Renee-Baker.com.