Renée Richards

Renée Richards (born August 19, 1934) is an American ophthalmologist and former tennis player who competed on the professional circuit in the 1970s, and became widely known following male-to-female medical affirmation, when she fought to compete as a woman in the 1976 US Open.

The United States Tennis Association began requiring genetic screening for female players that year. Richards challenged that policy, and the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor, a landmark case in transgender rights. Among the first professional athletes to transition, she became a spokesperson for transgender people in sports. After retiring from play, she coached Martina Navratilova to two Wimbledon titles (1982 and 1983).

Early life Richards was born Richard Raskind on August 19, 1934, in New York City and raised, as she put it, as "a nice Jewish boy" in Forest Hills, Queens. Her father David Raskind was an orthopedic surgeon, and her mother was one of the first female psychiatrists in the United States, in addition to being a professor at Columbia University.

In the early 1970s, Richards resolved to undergo sex reassignment and was referred to surgeon Roberto C. Granato Sr. by Harry Benjamin, transitioning in 1975. (Granato had practiced in Argentina in the 1950s but had moved his practice to New York in the 1960s.) After surgery, Richards went to Newport Beach, California, and started working as an ophthalmologist in practice with another doctor. Subsequently, the United States Tennis Association (USTA), the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), and the United States Open Committee (USOC) required all female competitors to verify their sex with a Barr body test of their chromosomes. Richards applied to play in the US Open in 1976 as a woman, but refused to take the test, and thus was not allowed to compete in the Open, Wimbledon, or the Italian Open in the summer of 1976. Richards finally agreed to take the Barr body test. The test results were ambiguous. She refused to take it again and was barred from play. He further ruled that the USTA intentionally discriminated against Richards, and granted Richards an injunction against the USTA and the USOC, allowing her to play in the US Open.

Tennis career after transitioning

After moving to California, Richards played in regional competitions for her local club, the John Wayne Tennis Club, under the name Renée Clark. where she crushed the competition, and her unique left hand serve was recognized by Bob Perry, a tour player from UCLA. On August 2, 2013, Richards was among the first class of inductees into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.

Richards has since expressed ambivalence about her legacy, and came to believe her past as a man provided her with advantages over her competitors, saying "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."

Life after tennis After four years of playing tennis, she decided to return to her medical practice, which she moved to Park Avenue in New York.

In 2014, a wooden racket used by her was donated to the National Museum of American History, which is part of the Smithsonian.

Movies and books In 1983, Richards published an autobiography, Second Serve, and in 2007, a second, No Way Renée: The Second Half of My Notorious Life, in which she expresses regret over the type of fame that came with her being transgender, although she said in 2007 that she did not regret undergoing the sex reassignment process in itself. In 2021, Richards continued her autobiography with Diary 1999: An Eye-Opening Medical Memoir. Richards's first autobiography served as the basis for the film Second Serve. Renée is a 2011 documentary film about Richards directed by Eric Drath. The film was one of the anchor films of the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and the documentary premiered on ESPN on October 4, 2011.

In 2017, Richards was interviewed by Katie Couric near the end of the documentary Gender Revolution.

A biography of Richards, Finding Renée Richards: The Groundbreaking Story of Tennis’s Trans Pioneer by Julie Kliegman, was published in 2026 by HarperOne. The book received starred reviews from Publishers Weekly and Kirkus, and was among the top ten biographies reviewed in the past year by Booklist.

Grand Slam performance timelines

Note: The Australian Open was held twice in 1977, in January and December.

Men's singles

Women's singles

Women's doubles

Mixed doubles