Out Spotlight X

We focus on an interesting and somewhat controversial figure for the Out Spotlight today. Transsexual pioneer Renee Richards, born Richard Raskind, Richards was a gifted tennis player and played on the professional tour. Richards went to medical school and became an eye surgeon, specializing in strabismus (crossed eyes). Long a cross dresser, Richards considered sexual reassignment surgery in the 1960s but opted out, married and fathered a son. In 1975, Richards had her surgery and began pursuing a tennis career as a woman.

Richards was barred from the US Open by the USTA, citing a previously unheard of women-born-women policy. Richards took the case to the NY Supreme Court and won. It was a landmark decision for transsexual rights.

Richards played tennis as a woman for 4 years and was ranked as high as 20th. Richards had some success at the US Open, reaching the doubles final in 1977 and also won the 35 and over singles title in 1979. Richards twice was a mixed doubles semi-finalist at the US Open with partner Ilie Nastase.

Richards expressed regrets over her reassignment surgery in later years, saying she felt like a second class woman. She also felt that she should not have had the surgery so late in life, after having already lived a significant portion of her life as a man.

"It's not something for somebody in their 40s to do, someone who's had a life as a man, - - - If you're 18 or 20 and never had the kind of (advantages) I had, and you're oriented in that direction, sure, go ahead and make right what nature didn't. But if you're a 45-year-old man and you're an airline pilot and you have an ex-wife and three adolescent kids, you better get on Thorazine or Zoloft or Prozac or get locked up or do whatever it takes to keep you from being allowed to do something like this.''

- Renée Richards, Associated Press, February 1999.

"She calls the 2004 decision of the International Olympic Committee, which allows transsexuals to compete, “a particularly stupid decision" . . . "Better to be an intact man functioning with 100 percent capacity for everything than to be a transsexual woman who is an imperfect woman.”"

- Renée Richards, as quoted in The Lady Regrets
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/01/garden/01renee.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin,
New York Times, February 1, 2007













Richards in 1975.












Richards in 2007.