Renee Richards Dominates the Court
In 1977, a press-friendly judge whacked the US Tennis Association for trying to exclude a man from the US Women’s Open. The judge didn’t cite any caselaw.
After graduating from Yale, turning down an offer to pitch for the Yankees, storming the tennis world, procuring a pilot’s license, serving in the Navy, and scoring a medical degree, Dick Raskind became subsumed by an ambitious goal: changing sex.
“I swaggered like a macho man,” Raskind wrote of his younger self in a memoir, “but I jiggled when I did so.” He’d grown breasts by sneaking estrogen.
In 1975, Raskind went in for genital surgery. He emerged as “Renee Richards” and reprised his tennis career by competing in amateur women’s tournaments. Now in his early 40s, he won two and placed as runner up in three. (I’ll call him Richards from here on in.)
Athletes build their careers by winning events because the prize money means they can invest more in their training. In addition to Richards’ physical advantage (not only was he male, but he was 6-foot-2) he had a financial advantage over many young women: he was a successful ophthalmologist.
After Tucker Carlson’s father outed Richards as a man, the US Tennis Association implemented a sex test – a cheek swab that confirmed the presence of XX chromosomes – for players seeking to compete as women in the upcoming 1977 US Open.
Richards sued the USTA for employment discrimination on the basis of sex.
Richards v. US Tennis Association (NYC, 1977)
In August 1977, a state court in Manhattan ruled on Richards’ lawsuit. Referring to him as “Dr. Richards” and “she” throughout, Judge Alfred M. Ascione blocked the USTA from relying on the chromosome test as the “sole criterion” to determine his eligibility for the US Women’s Open.
As I wrote a few weeks ago, most trans lawsuits over job discrimination were nonstarters in this era. As far as I can find, Richards is the only transsexual who prevailed over an employer in the 1970s. (My post was about the federal Title VII; Richards sued under the New York State Human Rights Law, which is similar.)
Richards told the court that he “underwent this [genital] operation after many years of being a transsexual, a woman trapped inside the body of a man.”
Judge Ascione accepted this, citing law students’ scholarship to define transsexualism:
“A transsexual is an individual anatomically of one sex who firmly believes he belongs to the other sex. This belief is so strong that the transsexual is obsessed with the desire to have his body, appearance and social status altered to conform to that of his ‘rightful’ gender. They are not homosexual. They consider themselves to be members of the opposite sex cursed with the wrong sexual apparatus. They desire the removal of this apparatus and further surgical assistance in order that they may enter into normal heterosexual relationships.”
The USTA defendants submitted affidavits from a league official about the importance of fairness and keeping males out of women’s tennis; a Stanford medical professor about sex testing; and pro women tennis players. (All the testimony came in the form of written statements, as this was a ruling on a preliminary motion.) The players argued:
“the taller a player is the greater advantage the player has . . . similarly, the stronger a player is, the greater advantage the player has, assuming like ability.”
On Richards’ side, his surgeon stated:
“With respect to Dr. Richard's internal sex, due to the operation I performed, one would say that Dr. Richards' internal sexual structure is anatomically similar to a biological woman who underwent a total hysterectomy and ovariectomy. … Her muscle development, weight, height and physique fit within the female norm.”
Ascione paraphrased another of Richards’ doctors, who had treated over 1,700 transsexual patients:
“It is his view that Dr. Richards should be considered a female. … if she has the external genital appearance, the internal organ appearance, gonadal identity, endocrinological makeup and psychological and social development of a female, she would be considered a female by any reasonable test of sexuality.”
Richards’ “gynecologist,” in Ascione’s words, claimed that “Dr. Richards examines as a woman and her perception of herself is entirely as a woman.” A gynecologist who glosses over the subject of genitals and psychoanalyzes his patients? Yeah, that tracks my mom’s stories of going to the doctor in the 70s.
John Money also supported Richards. Money is the notorious Johns Hopkins sex researcher who later argued sex with children could be harmless. He stated:
“For all intents and purposes, Dr. Richards functions as a woman; that is her internal sex organs resemble those of a female who has been hysterectomized and ovariectomized (i.e. panhysterectomized). Also, her external organs and appearance, as well as her psychological, social and endocrinological makeup are that of a woman.”
The judge noted:
“Dr. Money also believes that Dr. Richards will have no unfair advantage when competing against other women.”
None of these experts stated Richards literally was a woman. This is a point I’ll be following closely as we move forward in time.
Next up was Billie Jean King, famous by then for winning the “Battle of the Sexes” against Bobby Riggs:
“Billie Jean King states that she and Dr. Richards were doubles teammates in one tournament and that she participated in two tournaments in which Dr. Richards played. It is Billie Jean King's judgment that, ‘[Richards] does not enjoy physical superiority or strength so as to have an advantage over women competitors in the sport of tennis.’”
After Richards won his case, King reaped the benefits by continuing as his doubles partner.
Ascione wrote that the “only justification for using a sex determination test in athletic competition is to prevent fraud, i.e., men masquerading as women, competing against women.” He “reject[ed] any such suggestion as applied to” Richards.
Without explaining why it mattered, Ascione found:
“It seems clear that defendants knowingly instituted this test for the sole purpose of preventing [Richards] from participating in the tournament.”
Ascione acknowledged that the genital surgery was a psych treatment while maintaining that it changed Richards’ sex:
“When an individual such as plaintiff, a successful physician, a husband and father, finds it necessary for his own mental sanity to undergo a sex reassignment, the unfounded fears and misconceptions of defendants must give way to the overwhelming medical evidence that this person is now female.”
So the judge, if not the medical experts, thought Richards was a woman. Did that mean the chromosome test was worthless? No, it could still be used for determining other people’s sex. Ascione concluded:
“This court is not striking down the [chromosome] test, as it appears to be a recognized and acceptable tool for determining sex. However, it is not and should not be the sole criterion, where as here, the circumstances warrant consideration of other factors.”
A test that courts sometimes apply to murky questions is “totality of the circumstances.” It basically lets judges rule however they want, as long as they blather about the facts of the situation first. I think Ascione was implying that “totality of the circumstances” should be the test for determining a person’s sex.
But Ascione didn’t say that, or much else about the law. After lingering over the medical affidavits, he raced through the legal discussion without citing any relevant cases:
“Section 296 declares that it shall be an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employee because of age, race, creed, color, national origin, sex or disability, or marital status of any individual to refuse to hire or employ or to bar or to discharge from employment such individual or to discriminate against such individual in compensation or in terms, conditions or privileges of employment.
“As indicated, this court finds defendants and each of them in violation of plaintiff's rights under the Human Rights Law and, accordingly, pursuant to section 297, subd. 9 thereof, plaintiff's application for a preliminary injunction is granted in all respects.”
Was Richards discriminated against as a woman, as a former male, or as a transsexual? How did playing wide receiver on the Horace Mann football team give him a woman’s “social development”? Why treat all those genital sculptors like experts on women’s sports? What did Richards’ honest intentions have to do with determining whether his body was different from a woman’s?
These questions were never asked. The USTA decided not to appeal, apparently because it was not concerned about “the threat of [a] player who [was] probably past her prime as a professional.”
An Objector from Terf Island
Richards competed in that year’s US Women’s Open. He lost early in the singles tournament, and then lost in doubles in the finals to a team that included Martina Navratilova. After that, Richards became a competitive force on the women’s tennis circuit. While he had defenders, others called him out.
A British player named Glynis Coles appeared at a Florida tournament wearing a T-shirt that read “I Am A Real Woman.” According to the Washington Post:
“She refused to shake hands after losing a doubles match to Richards and Billie Jean King, and was quoted in newspapers as saying, pointedly, ‘I don't think he should be playing,’ and ‘as far as I'm concerned, he's just a man who's had an operation.’”
King complained to the Post: “Glynis Coles has just got a problem. In our doubles match, she tried to hit Renee every time she had an easy volley.”
Objectors in New York
Richards divorced his wife, a model named Barbara Mole, in 1975. In the settlement she received a stake in his medical practice, which he sold. It tanked, leading to a legal dispute between Mole, Richards, and the practice’s new owner. In 1978 a New York appellate court summed up the problem tartly:
“The husband had undergone transsexual plastic surgery in order to engage in professional athletics as a female, and the resultant publicity caused a decline in the practice which he (she) had sold.”
Mole moved on. In 1978 she married a Lehman Brothers partner.
The Education of Martina Navratilova
Martina Navratilova, one of the greatest players of the era, hired Richards as her coach in 1981 – the same year she came out publicly as gay. These decisions provoked ridicule and likely cost her sponsors.
For decades Navratilova was a lesbian icon. But then in 2018 she tweeted shock at the sight of a trans-identified male on a women’s cycling podium. Trans rights advocates admonished her to “educate herself.” She obliged and roared back five years later unrepentant:
“I supported Renée Richards when she wanted to play on the women’s tour in the seventies because I thought she was a one-off. I would not have supported her if she had dominated the tour. …
“The female category was created to provide opportunities for women to compete fairly. It was always intended to exclude males. We need to keep excluding them.”
Navratilova hasn’t really changed; she’s still a progressive lesbian whose X (Twitter) bio sports a BLM hashtag. She still considers Richards a friend. But she’s bashed in gay media, belittled in tacky media, and was kicked off the board of Athlete Ally, an LGBT sports nonprofit. Her fellow lesbian Kara Swisher recently confronted Navratilova on her podcast, reminding her that she (Navratilova) used to face “speculation” and people mocked her for looking like a “dude.” Swisher seemed to suggest, repeatedly, that Navratilova was a traitor to LGBT people:
Swisher: If they had tried to seclude you for being gay — do you see it as the same thing?
Navratilova: No, of course not. [...]
Swisher: But you understand where it leads to, the dangers for trans people.
Where Is He Now?
Richards agrees with Navratilova:
"Having lived for the past 30 years, I know if I'd had surgery at the age of 22, and then at 24 went on the tour, no genetic woman in the world would have been able to come close to me. And so I've reconsidered my opinion” on trans-identified males playing women’s sports.
Richards has also expressed ambivalence about his surgery:
“[I]f there were a drug, some voodoo, any kind of mind-altering magic remedy to keep the man intact, that would have been preferable, but there wasn’t.”
That 2007 article noted Richards opposed same-sex marriage. He was living in the New York exurbs with a female friend who appeared to be, basically, his servant.
Despite Richards’ heresies, he’s not tarred as a traitor. In 2013 he was inducted into the Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame. His tennis racket is in the Smithsonian. Katie Couric interviewed him for a 2017 documentary about gender, and in 2011 a documentary about him was screened at the glamorous Tribeca Film Festival.
Finally, Insight into the Legal Reasoning
Few decisions cite Richards v. USTA. Culturally the case was a big deal but legally it was a flop, failing to influence other judges even though it was among the first to determine a trans person’s sex.
In an unusual move right after the ruling, Judge Ascione gave an interview:
“This was no open‐and‐shut case … The transsexuals are going to love me, I guess. According to the psychiatrists, they want to be recognized. This is another step that recognizes them.”
Ascione’s decision to favor Richards paid off. His 1989 death made the New York Times.
This post was lightly edited on Sept. 27, 2024.
I had a lot of OMG moments reading this post as a lot of missing holes were filled. Ie. Billie Jean King and Richard's playing doubles and her stance on the issue today. Amazing that Richard's had some eye opening, self awareness with his 180 turnabout later in life.
I am riveted to this series!