Renee Richards 1963-64 Dunlop Tennis Racket

The second artifact that I would like to talk about is a Renee Richards 1963-64 Dunlop tennis racket. This racket is a symbolization of one of the most tremendous milestones that the LGBT community has encountered, Renee Richards coming out as transgender. The material of this tennis racket is wood and it is clearly used and is in fair condition, as there are visible distinguishing marks and blemishes. In 2014, Richards donated the racket and other significant belongings of hers to the Smithsonian Museum. What makes this racket so meaningful to the LGBT community is that it belonged to one of the first professional athletes to come out as transgender. Before transitioning, in 1964 Richards won the New York State men’s title as Richard Raskind using this racket. She then came out as trans eleven years later and went on to fight for her right to compete in the 1977 tennis women’s title (Elam 1). The New York supreme court then ruled in her favor, allowing her to play (Elam 1).

Renee Richards earned her right to play after the United States Open said that her assigned gender at birth gave her an unfair advantage. In a 2015 article called “Sports: Transgender Issues,” by Carolyn Kraus of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, the author states “Richards eventually won the case and competed as a woman in the 1977 United States Open Tennis Championship, establishing a legal precedent for transgendered athletes but by no means ending a tangled and emotionally charged historical controversy” (Kraus 2). Even though Renee Richards was able to set the precedent for transgender athletes by being legally able to participate in women’s sports after transitioning, she has still faced a plethora of obsticles within being accepted into the sports community as a trans woman.

Richards was able to start to pave the way for LGBT athletes, but the LGBT had and still has a long way to go when it comes to being accepted into the sports community. In another part of the article Kraus also states, “Further complicating the landscape for transgendered athletes is the fear that men masquerading as women might invade and dominate women's sports. Gender fraud has frequently been confused with the issues of transgendered and intersexed athletes whose struggles to be allowed to compete are only one piece of a profound and genuine struggle for identity” (Kraus 3). This is another big problem that transgender individuals face within all sports in general. People are afraid that a man might fake being transgender in order to compete in women’s sports and gain an unfair advantage. What people fail to see though, is that this is not the LGBT community’s fault. If a cisgender person were to masquerde as transgender, they are clearly the ones that are causing problems and leaving transgender athletes to deal with the backlash. Simple and unnecessary issues like these ones are entities that Richards’ tennis racket represents.

In another article called “Mixed Doubles: Renée Richards and the Perpetuation of the Gender Binary in Athletics'' by Lindsay Parks Pieper of The Ohio State University Pieper states, “In addition, rather than provide blanket acceptance for transsexuals in professional sports, the ruling pertained only to Richards and women’s tennis. The idea of an overarching transsexual policy in athletics remained largely ignored for the following three decades. Not until 2003 did a multi-sport institution raise the issue” (Pieper 4.) Even after Renee Richards fought for her right to play as a woman, the sports community still continued to ignore LGBT rights. This is not saying that Renee Richards did not do enough for the transgender community, it is the fact that people did not want to accept the fact that the LGBT community had started to gain more acceptance in sports, therefore they ignored it. People are afraid of change and will always want to keep life in general as “traditional” as possible. In the same article Pieper states, “As she participated in other tennis tournaments, however, she challenged more than basic policy. Her presence in women’s divisions threatened the long-standing gender binary in athletics; men and women have traditionally competed in different divisions in sports. This fundamental organization of sport was based on differences attributed to biological sex and reflective of socially constructed understandings of masculinity and femininity. Yet Richards did not “fit” into either of the two segregated spaces circumscribed by athletics'' (Peiper 8.)  There is a stigma surrounding transgender individuals and not being seen as the gender they actually are or people seeing them as not fitting of one or the other. Although this is unfortunately true, it is a good thing that the sports community was forced to see someone coming out as themselves and continuing to play sports. Athletes usually do not come out as a part of the LGBT community while they are still playing sports so that they do not risk getting kicked off the team and having to face the repercussions. This is another thing that the racket stands for, transgender individuals facing the  negative stigma surrouding their true gender and how people will always invalidate them and make them feel dysphoric.

Ultimately, there are so many meaningful matters to the LGBT community that Renee Richards’ racket constitutes. Foremost, it represents Richards’ courage and how she decided to risk everything and come out as herself. It represents all the discrimination that transgender athletes face in and even outside of sports. It symbolizes the false rumors that LGBT athletes have to dispel. It is also a message to future transgender athletes that they can be come out as whoever they are inside and outside of sports and still be successful. Overall, the racket symbolizes Renee Richards’ journey and the fights she had to undertake along the way.

Kraus, Carolyn. “Sports: Transgender issues.” GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian. 2002, pp. 1-4.

Pieper, Lindsay Parks. “Mixed Doubles: Renée Richards and the Perpetuation of the Gender Binary in Athletics.” The Ohio State University. 2010, pp. 1-81.