Renee Richards

In 1975, at the age of forty, Richard Raskind, a renowned eye surgeon and highly ranked amateur tennis player, underwent what was to become the most public and highly scrutinized sex reassignment. It wasn’t until Renee Richards, Raskind's post-operative identity, was discovered playing in an amateur tennis tournament that the world took notice. Extensive media coverage and criticism thrust Renee reluctantly into the spotlight, sparking an intense public debate over her private life. Now, at seventy-two, Richards looks back and speaks frankly about all aspects of her complicated and often notorious life in her memoir, No Way Renee. Having lived as a woman almost as long as she lived as a man, Richards draws on a personal history that illuminates thirty years of remarkable change in society's attitude toward gender issues. She joins Larry Mantle to talk about her new book.

In 1975, at the age of forty, Richard Raskind, a renowned eye surgeon and highly ranked amateur tennis player, underwent what was to become the most public and highly scrutinized sex reassignment. It wasn’t until Renee Richards, Raskind's post-operative identity, was discovered playing in an amateur tennis tournament that the world took notice. Extensive media coverage and criticism thrust Renee reluctantly into the spotlight, sparking an intense public debate over her private life. Now, at seventy-two, Richards looks back and speaks frankly about all aspects of her complicated and often notorious life in her memoir, No Way Renee. Having lived as a woman almost as long as she lived as a man, Richards draws on a personal history that illuminates thirty years of remarkable change in society's attitude toward gender issues. She joins Larry Mantle to talk about her new book.