Renée Richards
US tennis player and ophthalmologist
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.
Richards attended Horace Mann School and excelled as a wide receiver for the football team, a pitcher for the baseball team, and on the tennis and swim teams. Her baseball skills even led to an invitation to join the New York Yankees, but she decided to focus on tennis. After high school Richards attended Yale University and was captain of the men's tennis team, and was considered by some to be one of the best college tennis players in the country.
The public source identifies “Renée Richards” as uS tennis player and ophthalmologist. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Renée, Richards and tennis.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q455868. VIAF identifies the subject as 11198538. The Library of Congress control number is n82131073. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1934, 1976, 1982 and 1983.
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This entry incorporates text from “Renée Richards” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.