A Clippings Scrapbook: Conservative Media and Other Rackets

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A woman in a tennis dress stands in front of a brightly lit window. The woman and the room are bathed in ominous shadow, and she holds a wall phone that she is speaking into. Her body language is anxious.
In 1976, a tennis player got a call from a man intent on turning her into an example. Dick Carlson, father of the now-infamous conservative political commentator and transphobe Tucker Carlson, had found her out. After many days of grilling her over the telephone, Dick threatened to expose Renee Richards as a transsexual who enrolled in the US open as a woman. “I’m just a private citizen who played in an amateur tennis tournament. Why do you want to punish me for that?”, Richards asked him, telling him that, if he went public with this, “you will bear the responsibility for ruining my life.” Carlson responded “Duly noted”, and hung up. The next day, he broke the story live on television, outing her. Carlson didn’t ruin her life, but that story and a subsequent news conference she held six days later did make her a national celebrity. It also led the United States Tennis Association to attempt to bar her from the tournament, subjecting her to sex testing to prove that she was born female should she wish to compete.
However, Renee did play in the US Open, thanks to an unlikely ally; Trump’s personal attorney and closeted gay man Roy Cohn, who took Renee’s case against the United States Tennis Association. As Richards recounts in her autobiography Second Serve: The Renee Richards Story, Roy answered the door in his bathrobe, “held up his hand and said:”I know, I know. You want to play in the U.S. Open.” I was unnerved by his directness…He held up his hand again and said, “I’ll take the case.”” And take the case, he did–and won. On August 16, 1977, Judge Alfred M. Ascione ruled that the sex testing requirement was “grossly unfair, discriminatory, and inequitable”, further pointing out that “the unfounded fears and misconceptions of defendants must give way to the overwhelming medical evidence that this person is now female.”
Renee Richards, a femme in her forties with shoulder-cropped hair, hoop earrings, and dark eye makeup, holds a tennis racket in front of a crowd of people.
A tennis racket sits against a courtside boundary wall on a clay court, with multiple tennis balls sitting next to it.
Surprisingly, in her later years Richards came to regret her decision to compete, stating in an interview with CNN’s Leah Asmelash, “It’s too bad that any of us decided to participate in sports, because it takes away from the main issue of the sadness of having been born with this tendency.” But despite Richards’ feelings on her own transness or whether or not trans folk should be allowed to compete, the fact remains that (as Ascione pointed out back in 1977), “there are very few biological males, who are accomplished tennis players, who are also either pre-operative or post-operative transsexuals.” As fellow TJA member and author of the book Finding Renee Richards Julie Kliegman put it, The escalating attacks on trans athletes were never made in a vacuum… Sports aren’t for everyone, but they’re for a lot of us. They bind us emotionally.” A young Renee found her place on the court, as did many young trans folk. And when trans folk get to play, we get to belong.

Sources:

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/19/us/renee-richards-trans-athletes-pioneer-cec

https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/5914

Finding Renee Richards, Julie Kliegman

No Way Renee, Renee Richards with John Ames

Second Serve – The Renee Richards Story, Renee Richards with John Ames

Piper Bly is a professional illustrator and underground cartoonist. When she’s not busy plowing away at her drawing board, singing dirges in the moonlight, or wandering throughout the United States, she can often be found tending to her ivies, frying up some biscuits, spending unreasonable hours in the gym, or floating above the Mississippi River at midnight, waiting for the tide to wrap her in its loving embrace and take her away. Her whereabouts are currently undisclosed. You, however, can find her at piperbly.com.

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