Renée Richards

[zanahoria]

Can you explain your reasoning on why you don’t think trans women should play women’s sports? Do you just mean pro or elite sports?

Richards: It could be amateur, or it could be pro. It doesn’t make any difference. I don’t distinguish between whether it’s professional golf or whether it’s professional tennis or whether it’s women’s basketball or whether it’s swimming.

If a male who becomes a female went through male puberty, that person has an advantage over other females who were never males in the beginning and didn’t develop larger long bones and bigger chest cavities and larger hearts and a greater amount of muscle mass and bigger cardiac output and lung capacity. Even if they are deprived testosterone by their transition, that’s only part of the story. It’s not enough.

It does limit them a lot. I can tell you that through personal experience, but it doesn’t limit them to the point of equality. I know what I became, compared to what I had been.

edition.cnn.com/2026/08/19/us/renee-richards-trans-athletes-pioneer-cec

He may now think that he shouldn't have been allowed in the womens category for playing sport but still thinks there's no issue with him being in the womens changing room.

What do you say to the common right-wing argument that it’s unsafe to have trans women in women’s locker-rooms?
Richards: That’s all just stupid. Those are stupid people. Who cares about the men in the women’s locker rooms? Who cares about this kind of overrunning of the world by the transgenders? That’s gobbledygook. When I was with Martina at the French Open in the women’s locker room, the men masseuses were walking around in there all over the place.

Yeah, was about to post the same thing. He’s 92 and still has no issue with men transgressing women’s boundaries.

Having men in the women's locker rooms may have been 'OK' at one point, as RR claims, but the discovery of the number of abusive male coaches etc. in women's sports e.g. Larry Nasser in gymnastics, probably happened after the time RR is talking about.

The number of abusive male authority figures in women's sport - and children's sport too - is an acknowledged problem by now, so the context is different.

RR apparently isn't up to date on the issue.

Useful comments, though, about trans-IDing men still having an advantage over women.

Richards is still missing the point. The purpose of a sporting event for women is to find the best woman, therefore eligibility is determined by the definition of the term "woman." All this stuff about advantages and disadvantages is irrelevant.

It's a pity he didn't think any of this about advantages when he was playing in women's tennis. He only came out with all this once he'd retired. They brought in testing for sex because of him and he was the only player who refused to be tested.

There's an interesting documentary about him that occasionally gets shown on one of the sports channels, well worth watching.

I can’t help feeling that there has to be a link between Martina Navratilova’s stance against TW in female sports and her previous enthusiastic support for Renee Richard’s. I suspect she now feels she was manipulated by him in the past - or worse, perhaps was actually abused in some way. Or if not her personally then some other woman she’s close to.

But (and I am not condoning this or supporting Trump). Isn’t one of the many things against Trump that he was walking in to women’s changing rooms
during a beauty pageant? I am sure Mr Richards would be one of the first condemning Trump for this, but he’s fine with other men walking into women’s changing rooms. Another hypocritical man. 🙄🙄🙄

Oh CNN, that explains the "...common right-wing argument", any point that is made that the lefties don't like is 'right-wing'. What about 'common sense argument' or 'reasonable for normal people argument'.

"Who cares about the men in the women’s locker rooms?" women care, and he calls other people stupid, 92 and still as stupid as he ever was.

I think that is one hell of a leap. Martina was unsure, but tended to think it should be women only. A TRA told her to educate herself and she politely agreed she should do so.

She went away and researched it, and then came back fully sure trans identifying men have no place in women's sport.

Above all illogical. If it's all the same then he should be suggesting mixed-sex changing. Now THAT would save a shitton of money as opposed to letting a few select men, and the masseurs, enter the women's changing room.

He doesn't mind another man in there with him.

So he thinks it's OK to have men in there with him.

Many elite female athletes are used to men doing relatively intimate things to them, such as coaches positioning or supporting their bodies, or physios treating them.

So he thinks it's OK to have men in there with women.

It's commonplace nowadays for there to be male cleaners cleaning women's toilets.

So he thinks it's OK to have men in there with women.

He thinks he speaks for women.

He does not see - or refuses to see - that:

He has no right to give consent for women.
Men such as coaches and physios have history of abusing women in their charge or care.
If it's OK to allow some men into women's spaces, it's OK to allow all men in. Which is not OK.
If it's OK to allow some men into sportswomen's changing rooms, it's OK to allow all men into all women's changing rooms. Which is not OK.

Who cares about the men in the women's locker rooms? Women care. And men who have an ounce of commonsense or compassion care.

I found the question phrased as the common right-wing argument more annoying than the answer.

It's probably worth pointing out that RR underwent full reassignment surgery before embarking on the tennis career. To me that is quite important when it comes to the changing room question (the eligibility question less so). I'm not sure that RR was a self- described 'trans' person until after the surgery. RR may not quite appreciate how attached many modern day TW are to their 'girldicks'.

"Men masseuses"? The bloke's very confused about the difference between men and women, isn't he? If they were men, they were masseurs.

Still a misogynistic bloke whatever surgeries he’s had. He knew he was male and had no business in female sports or changing rooms Selfish dickhead

You'd think a man who chose Renee for his ladyself would get the French stuff right wouldn't you.

If a male who becomes a female went through male puberty, that person has an advantage over other females who were never males
This says it all - seeing as its impossible to change sex, males can never ‘become’ female.

I accept it’s complete speculation, but the reason I suspect it is because she didn’t “go away and think about it”.

Instead she had personal experience of it: Renee Richards was her coach and she was an enthusiastic supporter of trans rights at the time.

When did she change and was it really unrelated to her experience with RR? That would be quite strange if her reading of other people’s opinions and experiences overrode her own.