New York
(Reuters) — As Renee Richards, the world's most
famous transsexual athlete, looks back on her life, she
has one regret -- the fame she attained.
Richards, who was born
Richard Raskind, had managed to create a new life for
herself as a woman after a sex change operation in 1975
but a year later made a decision that was to have an even
greater impact.
She decided to take the
United States Tennis Association to court for banning her
from playing in women's events at the U.S. Open as she
was a transsexual -- and she won, winning headlines
globally as a pioneer for transsexual rights.
Richards, now 72 and
without a partner, said she does not regret the sex
change operation at the age of 40 -- although she might
have liked to have gone through the process a bit earlier
-- but she does have misgivings about her
notoriety.
"I made the fateful
decision to go and fight the legal battle to be able to
play as a woman and stay in the public eye and become
this symbol," Richards, an ophthalmologist, told Reuters
in an interview in her Manhattan offices.
"I could have gone back
to my office and just carried on with my life and the
notoriety would have died down. I would have been able to
resume the semblance of a normal life. I could have lived
a more private life but I chose not to.
"I have misgivings about
that. I am nostalgic about what would have happened if I
had done it the other way," said the 6-foot-2-inch tall
Richards with an unmistakable air of sadness as she folds
her man-sized hands in her lap.
Richards went on to play
tennis professionally until 1981 then coached Martina
Navratilova for two years before returning to the
practice of ophthalmology.
Fleeting
Fame
Fame came at a cost for
Richards, who as Richard Raskind graduated from Yale,
served in the Navy, become a prominent ophthalmologist
and internationally known amateur tennis player. Raskind
also married and fathered a son, Nick.
Her son, who is now 34
and still refers to her as "Dad" in private, attended
many schools and struggled academically. He bounced
between jobs before finally settling into a career as a
real estate broker specializing in New York lofts.
"I am sure that had a lot
to do with the chaos I went through in his childhood,"
said Richards, who refers to her son as "the apple of my
eye."
Although Richards' mother
died before her sex change operation, her father refused
to acknowledge her sex change, and her sister still
denies Richards' existence to friends.
Richards' former wife,
who remarried and had another son, only talks to her when
they need to discuss their son.
"We don't have a
friendship," said Richards.
Forming relationships
with men has proved difficult since she gained such
notoriety, with Richards only having a couple of
long-term boyfriends.
"With my first romances,
they didn't know who I was but then I was found out," she
said.
"You have to be a pretty
strong character to have a relationship with someone who
has been a man originally, and famous. I haven't had any
romance in a number of years."
Richards, who spends her
time between her home in upstate New York and a Manhattan
apartment she shares with her son, found fame was also
fleeting.
In the mid-1970s and when
her memoir, "Second Serve: The Renee Richards Story,"
came out in 1983, was treated as an curiosity and
besieged by television chat shows.
But with the release this
month of her second memoir, "No Way Renee, The Second
Half of My Notorious Life," few came knocking and
television showed no interest.
"It is annoying to me,"
said Richards. "I'm so ordinary now; they're not
interested. There's lots about transsexuals now."
