1976 SPECIAL REPORT: "TRANSEXUALITY IN SPORTS"

AtlantisEmpire
Published on Jan 1, 2022
Dr. Renee Richards, the 42 year old, transexual tennis player moves into the second round of the Tennis Week Tournament at South Orange, New Jersey tomorrow, but she is no nearer to gaining admission to the U.S. Tennis Open at Forest Hills which begins next week. Forest Hills officials have demanded that she take a chromosome test like those required of women athletes in the Olympics to prove their femininity. Dr. Richards has refused to take the test and argues that her rights are being trampled on. At the same time she is not unhappy that the so-called "sex change tennis case" has focused more public attention on transexuals than-anything since the notoriety of Christine Jorgensen in the 1950`s.

Dr. Richards lived as a man until last year. He was a successful ophthalmologist in New York and a ranked amateur tennis player. Since the sex reassignment operation a year ago, Dr. Richards has been living in California and playing tennis as a woman. That was fine until she decided to enter Forest Hills, the major tennis tournament in this country.
Tonight, the problems of being a transexual athlete and more widely the growing recognition of transexualism and the problems of acceptance in American society.