No Way Renee: The Second Half of My Notorious Life

A candid personal account by a pioneering doctor and tennis player who underwent sex reassignment surgery in 1975 discusses her pursuit of legal rights, her perspectives on gender issues, and her relationship with her son. 50,000 first printing.

Tennis star turned transsexual, Richards retreads much ground from her 1986 autobiography, Second Serve, while opening a window on the consequences of her choices. Born in 1934, Richard Raskind was a Yale tennis star, had a navy stint and became a well-known eye surgeon. Always feeling that he was a woman, Raskind was on and off hormone therapy from the early 1960s, but married in 1969 and fathered a son. Six years later, he underwent sex reassignment surgery and became Renée Richards. What's new are the personal elements of Richards's life since then: her friendship and coaching experience with Martina Navratilova and her evolving, often conflicted relationship with son Nick. Holding Rastafarian beliefs and resenting his father, Nick skipped off to Jamaica at the age of 13 and had to be kidnapped back to the U.S. While the family fights and complications of surgery take place in the context of the author's transsexualism, they are mostly ordinary, as is much of her current life as "an old-fashioned American." More interesting is Richards's discomfort with current radical transgender identities and politics and her searing list of regrets at the end of the book, where she finally opens up emotionally. B&w photos. (Feb.)
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In 1975, at the age of 40, the author, born Richard Baskin, underwent sex-reassignment surgery. She didn't mean to become an international celebrity, but, as a ranked amateur tennis player (not to mention a top surgeon), Renee Richards attracted the kind of attention that seemed like it would never go away. Now, three decades later, Richards has lived, in effect, two complete lives: one before 1975 and one after. This memoir focuses on her life since her sex change. Her lively storytelling and sense of humor elevate the text far above the usual, movie-of-the-week "triumph over adversity" tale. Her book offers new insights into gender dysphoria and a deeper understanding of what it is that makes us who we are, but none of this thematic heft overshadows the simpler story of a woman, her family, and her dreams. David Pitt
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