Speaker 1: Welcome to Good Game with Sarah Spain, where we're all
Speaker 1: eyes on wings fire Tonight Dallas can clinch the final
Speaker 1: WNBA playoff spot with a dub.
Speaker 2: It's Tuesday, August.
Speaker 1: Twenty fifth, and on today's show, we're skipping the need
Speaker 1: to Know and getting straight to my conversation with author
Speaker 1: Julie Kleegman about their new book, Finding Renee Richards, The
Speaker 1: Groundbreaking Story of Tennis's trans Pioneer. We discuss how a
Speaker 1: fact checking question changed a major part of the book,
Speaker 1: the one topic Julie wishes they pushed Renee on for
Speaker 1: more answers, and how much Julian Renee differ in how
Speaker 1: they view trans identities. Plus who wore Ellie Best? Don't
Speaker 1: stop here? And friend trips and gay shit. It's all
Speaker 1: coming up right after this, Joining us now. They're the
Speaker 1: author of the new book, Finding Renee Richards, The Groundbreaking
Speaker 1: Story of Tennis's trans Pioneer, and a copy editor at
Speaker 1: Pro Public Up. They're a regular guest on podcasts, and
Speaker 1: their writing has appeared in outlets including The New York Times,
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated, The Washington Post, The Ringer and Defector. A
Speaker 1: copy etter and copy chief at multiple outlets. They've also
Speaker 1: taught journalism to undergraduates, a Northwestern grad themselves. They also
Speaker 1: wrote mind Game and Inside look At the Mental Health
Speaker 1: Playbook of Elite Athletes. And we've both dressed up as
Speaker 1: Ellie the Elephant. It's Julie Clegman. Hi, Julie, Hi, Sarah.
Speaker 3: How's it going?
Speaker 1: I mean, I have to say my Ellie was more complete. Oh,
Speaker 1: the jersey, I had the hair, I had the full
Speaker 1: ensemble all the way down to the Jays.
Speaker 2: But your Elephant was suitable. It was good enough. Huh, Okay, serviceable.
Speaker 2: I should say.
Speaker 3: You know, in some iterations I have had a jersey
Speaker 3: and a braid. So I think you just need to
Speaker 3: catch up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I need to do more digging.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I settled for the first Ellie, but there were multiple
Speaker 1: iterations of your Ellie journey. I'm so excited to talk
Speaker 1: about this book. I found it fascinating, and I find
Speaker 1: Renee Richard's story in general fascinating, but knew very little
Speaker 1: about it. So learning so much about her through this
Speaker 1: book was really a gift. But before we get to
Speaker 1: all the takeaways, I want to ask how you came
Speaker 1: to write it and how you earned Renees trust in
Speaker 1: order to talk to her for so much of the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I came to write the book because I had an
Speaker 3: assignment from another magazine called book Forum to write about
Speaker 3: a couple of Rene's memoirs, and that was basically my
Speaker 3: introduction to her. And I was like, well, if I
Speaker 3: don't know this story, who else doesn't know this story?
Speaker 3: Probably a lot of people. And so I earned her trust.
Speaker 2: I don't know. We emailed.
Speaker 3: She wrote me back like after a day to my
Speaker 3: first email, which was great. I mean, to her credit,
Speaker 3: she was so receptive to talking. We jumped on the phone,
Speaker 3: and then I went to visit her and got lunch
Speaker 3: with her and her platonic partner. I think we just
Speaker 3: kind of hit it off, and you know, I was patient.
Speaker 3: I didn't push for an immediate answer, which I think
Speaker 3: was helpful, and ultimately, I think part of it was
Speaker 3: just catching her at a good time. She was ret
Speaker 3: hiring from ophthalmology, and I think retirement is a good
Speaker 3: of time as any to reflect on your life and
Speaker 3: to talk to someone about.
Speaker 2: It well, and certainly not the first time.
Speaker 1: And you benefited from the fact that there is a
Speaker 1: ton of source material in the form of previous books
Speaker 1: Second Serve nineteen ninety nine spy Night Renee as someone
Speaker 1: who has spoken a lot about her life and career
Speaker 1: and journey, and being able to pull from all that
Speaker 1: also offered you a lot of insight to how she
Speaker 1: felt about things in that time as opposed to now,
Speaker 1: or how her opinions and feelings changed over the years.
Speaker 1: So it was really really helpful to have you be
Speaker 1: able to pull from all that source material. You know,
Speaker 1: I wonder as someone whose fame was mostly gone by
Speaker 1: the seventies, which was well before you were even born,
Speaker 1: but as a non binary trans person, why going backwards
Speaker 1: into discovering and understanding her life was so meaningful to you.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people think that the trans
Speaker 3: athlete debate we're having sort of came out of nowhere,
Speaker 3: and I knew that wasn't the case because I had
Speaker 3: heard of her, and I think going back is really
Speaker 3: important to understand what she faced at the time, and
Speaker 3: that's important from a historical perspective. It was also important
Speaker 3: to me as a trans person, just because there are
Speaker 3: so few trans athletes that we can learn from and
Speaker 3: who have competed at such a high level. As Renee has,
Speaker 3: and that meant a lot to me. Whether or not
Speaker 3: she's a perfect, you know, kind of spokeswoman for the
Speaker 3: trans rights movement, which I think she would be the
Speaker 3: first to admit she is not. It's still, yeah, important
Speaker 3: to understand people in all their complexities, and I really
Speaker 3: appreciated that part of this process.
Speaker 1: And I frankly did not know much about what it
Speaker 1: would be like to be trans and to transition and
Speaker 1: get the advice and help of psychologists and medical professionals
Speaker 1: and everybody else at that time, So that was really
Speaker 1: fascinating too. To your point, as a spokesperson for the
Speaker 1: trans community, not only is she unwilling or uninterested in
Speaker 1: being that, but there is so much what feels like
Speaker 1: internalized homophobia and transphobia to her. That is such a
Speaker 1: bigger part of this story that I want to get into.
Speaker 1: And that also played into how you wrote about her,
Speaker 1: and it went against the guidelines for writing about a
Speaker 1: trans person, And can you take me to those conversations
Speaker 1: and the battle that you had with what you felt
Speaker 1: was the right way to write about her transition and
Speaker 1: her life as Renee, and how she wanted you.
Speaker 2: To talk about her sort of duality.
Speaker 3: So for those who may not know, in journalism, when
Speaker 3: you're writing about a trans person, similar to if you're
Speaker 3: talking about a trans person in real life, you want
Speaker 3: to use their current name and their current pronouns, regardless
Speaker 3: of how they identified or what they called themselves in
Speaker 3: the past. So that was the approach I had taken
Speaker 3: into writing this book, and that was how the first
Speaker 3: draft of this book was set up. And it wasn't
Speaker 3: until a fact checking conversation with Renee where I ran
Speaker 3: through all these questions I had for her, and then
Speaker 3: kind of at the end of I was like, by
Speaker 3: the way, this is how I'm referring to you. And
Speaker 3: I guess part of me knew that she might have
Speaker 3: an issue with that, or I wouldn't have said anything.
Speaker 3: She really really had a problem with me using Renee,
Speaker 3: and she her to refer to her experiences pre transition.
Speaker 3: So she's like, how would it make sense to say
Speaker 3: that she pitched a high school baseball game, for example,
Speaker 3: And so I think that's a really interesting divide. Part
Speaker 3: of it is generational. I think I'm so much younger
Speaker 3: than her and norms have really changed a lot since
Speaker 3: her heyday, And the other part of it is just
Speaker 3: her identity and how she sees herself and how she
Speaker 3: saw herself as Dick Raskind wrestling with Renee Richards emerging,
Speaker 3: and the push pull of those two identities as she
Speaker 3: saw them.
Speaker 1: I think it works really well understanding the guidelines and
Speaker 1: knowing them, and yet in reading it does give a
Speaker 1: little bit of clarity, especially in the way she viewed
Speaker 1: to your point, Renee sort of like pushing back, coming
Speaker 1: back over and over again and insisting that she was
Speaker 1: the real identity that needed to be acknowledged and fed
Speaker 1: in a way, and that's easier to sort of display
Speaker 1: when you write about it the way you did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's fascinating.
Speaker 1: You know. I read an interview you did about the
Speaker 1: book and you said, I want readers to wrestle with
Speaker 1: the complexities of a prominent transfigure who holds views that
Speaker 1: may be uncomfortable, and to acknowledge that a trans elder
Speaker 1: came up in a different time, dealt with everything in
Speaker 1: a different time, and might have a different belief system
Speaker 1: because of that time. Is complicated, but doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: their story should be discarded.
Speaker 2: It can still be discussed.
Speaker 1: And the way you do that by inserting yourself as
Speaker 1: the author occasionally is really useful because it doesn't just
Speaker 1: acquiesce to her desire, it acknowledges it and also provides
Speaker 1: the context and nuance required to understand why other people
Speaker 1: might not believe the same or agree with that, and
Speaker 1: it really makes for a really fascinating read. I want
Speaker 1: to get to a little bit of her bio before
Speaker 1: we get into some of the takeaways, So for those
Speaker 1: who aren't super familiar with the arc of her life,
Speaker 1: I'd love for listeners to get a little bit of
Speaker 1: a big picture bio from you, of course.
Speaker 3: So, Renee Richards is a transgender woman who transitioned in
Speaker 3: the mid seventies, and she had played tennis as a
Speaker 3: man when she was identifying as Dick Raskind in New
Speaker 3: York growing up, and she was a pretty good male
Speaker 3: amateur player. This was before the Open era, so she
Speaker 3: didn't turn professional playing against men, but she transitioned moved
Speaker 3: out to California because at the time, when you transition,
Speaker 3: that was just sort of what was done, is like
Speaker 3: you would kind of start over in a different area.
Speaker 3: And by the way, Renee is French for reborn, so
Speaker 3: that plays into it too. So she's in California and
Speaker 3: she's playing tennis and she gets outed by Tucker Carlson's dad,
Speaker 3: who was a TV reporter.
Speaker 2: That through line really sings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and that's how she starts playing tennis under
Speaker 3: the name Renee Richards and she becomes famous as she
Speaker 3: sues for her right to play in the nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: seven US Open and she wins.
Speaker 1: Okay, I want to go back to the youth because
Speaker 1: there's a fascinating dynamic between Renee and her sister and
Speaker 1: mother and also father. And you even acknowledged that Renee
Speaker 1: thinks about nature versus nurture in the case of her
Speaker 1: being trans that, yeah, she acknowledges that you could try
Speaker 1: to create a line from the treatment that she received
Speaker 1: from her mom and sister to her decision to transition,
Speaker 1: But that there are so many trans people who don't
Speaker 1: have to do any of that searching into a childhood
Speaker 1: to find something that might be a provocative moment. They
Speaker 1: just are trans. They were always trans and it has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. Can you share some of
Speaker 1: those stories from being a kid, and particularly at that time,
Speaker 1: how many people probably would have seen that as the
Speaker 1: root quote unquote cause of Renee's decision to transition from
Speaker 1: a very young age.
Speaker 3: Rene's mother and sister kind of forcibly addressed her in
Speaker 3: women's clothes. They thought it was cute and funny. There
Speaker 3: was a really memorable Halloween where they dressed Dick raskind
Speaker 3: up as a little girl and she, I guess passed
Speaker 3: at a Halloween party. And at the same time, Renee
Speaker 3: was feeling this sense of shame because she felt like
Speaker 3: the whole world could see her and knew that she
Speaker 3: was part of her at least was at peace with
Speaker 3: this this costume, this attire. Josephine, Renee's sister, was by
Speaker 3: Renee's account, abusive at times. And by the way, I
Speaker 3: couldn't talk to Josephine for the book, she has dementia,
Speaker 3: as I understand it. So yeah, there's this really complex
Speaker 3: family dynamic where her sister is occasionally her abuser, and
Speaker 3: her mother is very overpowering, definitely runs the household. Her
Speaker 3: dad is by all accounts more mild mannered and kind
Speaker 3: of takes a back seat, but loves her very much.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, there's this question of nature versus nurture
Speaker 3: for and also for the doctors and psychological professionals she'd
Speaker 3: go on to see, and I think at the time
Speaker 3: it was the common wisdom that this experience is what
Speaker 3: led to Renee's transgender or at the time transsexual identity.
Speaker 1: Dick Raskin was what Renee was called as a youth,
Speaker 1: and David was her dad, and Renee trying to reconcile
Speaker 1: some of those youthful experiences with also what was usually
Speaker 1: a mild mannered father, except for when it came to
Speaker 1: things like sports.
Speaker 2: Right, right.
Speaker 1: So, one of the quotes from the book, Renee said,
Speaker 1: when I would lose my father especially would let me
Speaker 1: know how disappointed and ashamed of me he was, and
Speaker 1: immediately this would trigger in me a period of doing
Speaker 1: a lot of dressing up in women's clothes. If I
Speaker 1: can't be a successful boy, I'll be a girl. That's
Speaker 1: something Renee Richards told a previous biographer, and that sort
Speaker 1: of thing too, of even Renee associating failures as a
Speaker 1: quote unquote man, which is not really what was happening.
Speaker 1: If you lose the tennis match, it's not failing to
Speaker 1: be a man, that's just losing a sport. But with
Speaker 1: the desire to then get further away from that identity
Speaker 1: is another kind of like young through line. You know,
Speaker 1: that this idea of escaping from things by leaning into
Speaker 1: the part of herself that she sometimes didn't want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge but was unavoidable and kept coming back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely, I mean there are a couple of through
Speaker 3: lines through her life, especially the first half of it.
Speaker 3: One is tennis being a refuge for her. But yeah,
Speaker 3: when that failed, she would kind of sink deeper into
Speaker 3: the Renee side of this stick raskin personality, I guess,
Speaker 3: and dress up more so it was an outlet in
Speaker 3: a way, even if she would rather it didn't exist
Speaker 3: at all.
Speaker 1: One of the most fascinating things in this whole book,
Speaker 1: as I alluded to earlier, is what it feels like
Speaker 1: internalized transphobia for Renee. She is of the belief that
Speaker 1: there is a life as Dick and a life as Renee,
Speaker 1: and there is no transition, there's no moment of in between.
Speaker 1: She actually says, my identity has always been from Dick
Speaker 1: to Renee. Whether you think of Dick as ultramasculine partially masculine,
Speaker 1: or Renee as ultra feminine partly feminine, whatever it doesn't
Speaker 1: make any difference. There was Dick, there was Renee. You
Speaker 1: can attach any kind of sexual ranking, label, profile to
Speaker 1: each person, but not trans. Trans to me is in between,
Speaker 1: and I was never essentially trans. How did you reconcile
Speaker 1: that belief that it was a switch almost that flipped
Speaker 1: from one to the other and never an in between.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a little weird for me because as a
Speaker 3: non binary person, I kind of relish that in between.
Speaker 3: So that's one way in which we see trans identity
Speaker 3: as being super different. I wouldn't say Renee has a
Speaker 3: great understanding of it means to be non binary. And
Speaker 3: I'm also, to be fair, not sure how well I
Speaker 3: was able to articulate that to someone who has such
Speaker 3: a binary understanding of gender.
Speaker 1: Right, and she's in her nineties now we should remind folks.
Speaker 1: I guess they're unaware of how old she is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and so I think it was interesting comparing views
Speaker 3: like that. And Yeah, it was to the point where
Speaker 3: she even didn't like saying, yeah, I am a trans woman.
Speaker 3: She prefers to say I'm a woman, which is certainly
Speaker 3: her prerogative, but I think it's at odds with a
Speaker 3: lot of the way that trans people talk about their
Speaker 3: identities today.
Speaker 1: I've never had this conversation with someone, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: about that, because trans women are women. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like the trans is necessary or does it make sense
Speaker 1: that she would say, I am not trans anything.
Speaker 2: I'm a woman. That's who I am.
Speaker 1: That's how I've always known my identity, and that's how
Speaker 1: I present. Where is the trans in me being a
Speaker 1: woman at this point?
Speaker 3: Right? I think that's such a fair question, and I
Speaker 3: would say that at the time that she was growing up,
Speaker 3: it makes a lot of sense that she never wanted
Speaker 3: to identify with the trans label, because the whole goal
Speaker 3: at that time, and you know it still is today
Speaker 3: for some people, was to pass in the gender you
Speaker 3: felt like you were right, and so that was how
Speaker 3: you avoided discrimination and prejudice. So it makes total sense
Speaker 3: to me that she doesn't want to be seen as
Speaker 3: like other Attaching the label trans wasn't a means of
Speaker 3: identifying with a community as it is for me. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for her, it was something to avoid.
Speaker 1: I wonder if also, and you obviously would know better,
Speaker 1: but maybe embracing the trans word means embracing being part
Speaker 1: of the in between and that's not of interest to her.
Speaker 1: She hopes that people don't see her that way, and
Speaker 1: that's part of that internalized transphobia throughout.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I guess for me,
Speaker 3: I wish she could embrace the joy that comes with
Speaker 3: being trans, or that at least can come with being trans,
Speaker 3: despite all of the hardship we face at times. But
Speaker 3: you know, it's how she identifies. She's like we said
Speaker 3: in her nineties, I don't think this vio is going
Speaker 3: to change, and I think that's okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you mentioned she was forced to come out publicly.
Speaker 1: Tucker Carlson's dad, Richard Carlson described as a scoop hungry,
Speaker 1: award winning San Diego broadcast journalist intent on uncovering what
Speaker 1: he'd heard about this sort of mysterious tennis player. And
Speaker 1: I wonder if you think that Renee would have pursued
Speaker 1: professional tennis anyway, or do you think the fact that
Speaker 1: she was outed meant that she didn't have to consider
Speaker 1: hiding in tennis because originally she wanted to play in
Speaker 1: club tournaments.
Speaker 2: She wanted to compete, but wanted.
Speaker 1: To do so while being able to live this new
Speaker 1: life undiscovered Once she's outed, it's like, well, I'm out.
Speaker 1: Should I just keep playing and at the highest level
Speaker 1: I can find? Do you think that would have happened anyway?
Speaker 3: Renee doesn't like being told no, So I think it's
Speaker 3: no surprise that once she was out in and there
Speaker 3: were all these questions about whether she would be eligible
Speaker 3: to play in the Open. I think once that happened,
Speaker 3: she was like dead set on, like now I must
Speaker 3: play in the Open. But if she hadn't been outed,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I mean, it seems kind of inevitable
Speaker 3: to me that she would have been outed eventually, if
Speaker 3: not then and there by that person, then by someone else,
Speaker 3: because she really just couldn't resist playing tennis, which is
Speaker 3: such an understandable impulse because, like I said, like that
Speaker 3: had been her comfort area growing up and something she
Speaker 3: had loved throughout her life as Dick and as Renee.
Speaker 3: So to lose that I think would have been near
Speaker 3: impossible for her, and it also would have been near
Speaker 3: impossible to conceal her identity right forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, and not even to lose it wholeheartedly, but not
Speaker 1: to keep pursuing it at the highest levels, like that
Speaker 1: competitive side of it was very important, the winning of it,
Speaker 1: not just the playing of it. The push and pull
Speaker 1: is so dominant in her life. I mean that language
Speaker 1: sounded very similar to the language around her saying I
Speaker 1: want everyone to know my opinion on this, but I
Speaker 1: don't want anyone to come and ask me about it.
Speaker 1: Right Like throughout there these moments where she wants to
Speaker 1: be a voice on things but also doesn't want anyone
Speaker 1: to come ask her about them. And it's that sort
Speaker 1: of like she can't resist the ophthalmology side of things.
Speaker 1: I did not know, and not just that I knew
Speaker 1: that she was a doctor, but that so celebrated, so accomplished,
Speaker 1: and the success that she had as an ophthalmologist before
Speaker 1: moving to California post transition and deciding to really get
Speaker 1: into tennis, and then going back to ophthalmology all the
Speaker 1: way up until she was basically eighty years old. And
Speaker 1: it inspired a headline that you mentioned in the book, Doc.
Speaker 2: Says, do as I say, not as I do.
Speaker 1: And it comes back to the very personally curious person
Speaker 1: that she is deeply excavating her own feelings about identity
Speaker 1: and herself, but largely uneducated, unexplored person when it comes
Speaker 1: to other people's journeys with identity and gender, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if you ever pushed back on that or asked
Speaker 1: her why the exceptions were for herself and for those
Speaker 1: she knew quite well, and not for others.
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly, that's an area where I wish I had
Speaker 3: pushed a little bit more. And how she views other people,
Speaker 3: especially other trans people. I think she is someone who
Speaker 3: has some trouble thinking outside of herself and her own experiences,
Speaker 3: and I think there are understandable reasons for that. She's
Speaker 3: been through so much, and at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: I think it can be kind of exhausting to consider
Speaker 3: everything you've been through and also stay open minded to
Speaker 3: how other people's experiences may have been different. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean, I also think part of this is like
Speaker 3: her doctor brain, because she is like, well, in my mind,
Speaker 3: the research is settled, and the research shows that trans
Speaker 3: athletes have unfair advantages, and if she had known that,
Speaker 3: she wouldn't have pursued the lawsuit. Of course, we knew
Speaker 3: very little about this at the time. There was no
Speaker 3: research on trans athletes. Even now, there's very little research
Speaker 3: on trans athletes, and I should say it's far from
Speaker 3: a settled issue. There's no conclusion that trans women and
Speaker 3: girls have serious, real tangible advantages over cisgender women and girls.
Speaker 3: But I think in her mind she has decided the
Speaker 3: issue is settled, and therefore, you know, she thinks. There's
Speaker 3: a quote in the book about how trans women might
Speaker 3: have to accept that there are women in ninety nine
Speaker 3: percent of respects, but not that last little one percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she says, I think maybe the transgenders, which of
Speaker 1: course is her language, should be happy that they can
Speaker 1: live their lives in socially accepted realms as women and
Speaker 1: not insist on being allowed every privilege of their newly
Speaker 1: arrived sex.
Speaker 2: And I say that as the.
Speaker 1: One person in the world who did insist on being
Speaker 1: allowed the privileges of her new sex. I'm the incarnate
Speaker 1: of that person. But I'm saying to you that I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure that's correct anymore. And I'm thinking that
Speaker 1: maybe transgenders should be satisfied with being maybe ninety nine
Speaker 1: percent a woman, but competitive sports being the one percent
Speaker 1: not allowed. And this is the crux of it is
Speaker 1: the doctor says, do as I say.
Speaker 2: Not as I do, right, ye?
Speaker 1: And I wonder what the impact of elder trans folks
Speaker 1: who have established names, whether that's Renee Richards or Caitlin Jenner,
Speaker 1: there are very few but their word. Along with folks
Speaker 1: like Martina and Avratilova who you spoke with for the book,
Speaker 1: who are anti trans inclusion, I wonder how you reflect
Speaker 1: on the outsized impact of their words because of their
Speaker 1: established agency and voices and profiles, and how it might
Speaker 1: conflict with the generations below that have a very different
Speaker 1: idea of what it is to be trans and trans inclusion.
Speaker 3: I think it's really hard having those most recognizable names
Speaker 3: be anti trans inclusion in sports, because I think there
Speaker 3: are younger generations of trans athletes. Chris Moser comes to mind,
Speaker 3: the trans masculine do athlete. He's great, but his name
Speaker 3: doesn't have the same cachet as Renees or Caitlin's, And yeah,
Speaker 3: that's a little bit of a shame. And at the
Speaker 3: same time, we're like quashing future generations of trans athletes
Speaker 3: by not letting them have the chance to even compete.
Speaker 3: So it's like, who are even going to be the
Speaker 3: authority figures on this issue going forward? It's hard to
Speaker 3: say because there simply aren't gonna be future trans athletes
Speaker 3: unless we really change course here and take it more seriously.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you talk about in the book how this book
Speaker 1: is not about fighting the fight for trans inclusion in sport.
Speaker 1: It's really just a story of a person and those
Speaker 1: issues are tentacles from that. But you do mention that
Speaker 1: the acceptance that Renee found in tennis and in medicine
Speaker 1: likely wouldn't happen today. And even the thirty for thirty
Speaker 1: that ESPN did it twenty eleven, the film was called Rene,
Speaker 1: the tone around transathletes was completely different. And one thing
Speaker 1: that you mentioned that this is gonna be a little
Speaker 1: bit spicy, but I'm curious of your take on it.
Speaker 1: I in no way endorse the criticisms of quote unquote
Speaker 1: woke as something that turned people away. I consider myself
Speaker 1: quite woke. I think the rewriting on that is being
Speaker 1: done in terms of what feels politically advantageous as opposed
Speaker 1: to people's true feelings about the issues at hand, and
Speaker 1: also a very short term memory about the battles that
Speaker 1: were being fought that were very valid. But that being said,
Speaker 1: one thing you write is that the tone around transathletes
Speaker 1: was ignorant, but there was casual acceptance modeled throughout the
Speaker 1: film the twenty eleven Thirty for thirty. It was years
Speaker 1: before Martina and Abertilova's He'll Turn. Richard's friends shared slightly
Speaker 1: off color opinions and giggled about the side of her addresses,
Speaker 1: but they also clearly loved her despite what they saw
Speaker 1: as her quirks or neurosis. And I wonder if the
Speaker 1: chiding of how to embrace and love a trans person
Speaker 1: turned people away, and again that that is not an
Speaker 1: excuse for them, and I hate when people make this argument.
Speaker 1: I just wonder if at the time, when it was
Speaker 1: a loose appreciation and love without fully understanding, if that
Speaker 1: allowed more people in Because now, if Renee's friends were
Speaker 1: kind of making fun of her, we would be so
Speaker 1: mad about that, rightfully so. And yet is it hard
Speaker 1: for people, even Renee Richards herself of a different time,
Speaker 1: to really understand the nuances And is that grace the
Speaker 1: only way to get more people to be accepting.
Speaker 3: That's really interesting. So I think that a lot of
Speaker 3: people who are cis gender and maybe aren't used to
Speaker 3: exhibiting trans allyship, they have this fear sometimes that if
Speaker 3: they use the wrong prone once or say the wrong
Speaker 3: thing once that they're going to be vilified totally cast aside.
Speaker 3: I don't think that's actually the case for like most people.
Speaker 3: I think trans people are happy when they see someone
Speaker 3: trying and caring, right, and that doesn't mean always being
Speaker 3: one hundred percent. I think there is this fear that
Speaker 3: grows of like, if I'm not the perfect trans ally,
Speaker 3: then should I be a trans ally at all? And
Speaker 3: I don't really understand that logic myself, but I think
Speaker 3: there is something to what you were saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's an intentional fear mongering on the
Speaker 1: side that wants there to be less allyship. If they
Speaker 1: can convince you that you have to be perfect or
Speaker 1: don't show up. It's easy to not show.
Speaker 3: Up, right, That's true, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so I get that that's scary, But also it's
Speaker 1: the same thing as every other person of privilege, which
Speaker 1: is you do the work to show up in the
Speaker 1: right way. Don't expect that people who are marginalized to
Speaker 1: do it all the time. And it's shocking to think
Speaker 1: that the seventies would be a better time for someone
Speaker 1: to compete and live as a transperson potentially than in
Speaker 1: some of the ways that it's changed to now when
Speaker 1: you're looking at what you hope to achieve with this book,
Speaker 1: what did you learn from her and what do you
Speaker 1: want others to learn.
Speaker 3: I think I learned, or really had hammered home, that
Speaker 3: trans people are messy, and that's okay, and that's beautiful,
Speaker 3: and we all disagree about everything sometimes, and I just
Speaker 3: want people to come away with an understanding of her
Speaker 3: beyond the headlines. If you even knew the headlines going
Speaker 3: in which a lot of people, especially my age and
Speaker 3: younger may not have known. It's a good practice reading
Speaker 3: the book, hopefully and cultivating some empathy for trans people,
Speaker 3: trans elders specifically, and even more specifically for Nay Richards,
Speaker 3: and you know, cultivating an appreciation of her life story,
Speaker 3: and hopefully I give some clues toward understanding how we're
Speaker 3: in this mess we're in now.
Speaker 1: And do you have any hopes for how this might
Speaker 1: land today in a sports environment that's so riddled with
Speaker 1: transphobia and so many of the bad faith protect women's
Speaker 1: sports groups out there.
Speaker 3: It's a little hard because I don't really expect people
Speaker 3: in those camps to read this and take it seriously.
Speaker 2: But you could have stopped it read.
Speaker 3: Probably yes, But I do hope for anyone who might
Speaker 3: have actual good faith questions about trans athletes, I hope
Speaker 3: they can learn something and I hope it's a good
Speaker 3: history lesson for anyone.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks so much for coming on to talk
Speaker 2: about it. Really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sarah, Thanks again to Julie for taking the time,
Speaker 1: and don't forget. You can now watch full length Good
Speaker 1: Game interviews on the Iheartwomen's Sports YouTube channel.
Speaker 2: We have to take another break. When we come back.
Speaker 1: Grab your favorite power straits.
Speaker 2: We're going to Portland. Welcome back, slices.
Speaker 1: We love that you're listening, but we want you to
Speaker 1: get in the game every day too. So here's our
Speaker 1: good game play of the day by Julie's book Finding
Speaker 1: Renee Richards, which is out now.
Speaker 2: We'll put a link in the show notes.
Speaker 1: We always love to hear from you, so hit us
Speaker 1: up on email Good Game at wondermedianetwork dot com or
Speaker 1: leave us a voicemail at eight seven two two O
Speaker 1: four fifty seventy and don't forget to subscribe. Rate and
Speaker 1: review slices. It's easy watch GAYFC rating three gay couples
Speaker 1: and two power Straights. Review Slice Al reached out to
Speaker 1: tell me they'd be in Portland last weekend when I
Speaker 1: was there, but not for the epicenter of women's sports
Speaker 1: summit for their annual GAYFC trip.
Speaker 2: No, not BAFC. GAYFC.
Speaker 1: Three gay couples and two power streets who ditched their
Speaker 1: husbands hitting the road to catch a couple women's sporting events.
Speaker 1: Last year the group did the Bay Area one day
Speaker 1: double Valkyrie's and BAFC, and this year they did back
Speaker 1: to back Portland Thorns and fire Games. Seven folks from Boise,
Speaker 1: one from Vegas, all converging on Portland to take in
Speaker 1: some sports. Take this as you're signed to plan your own.
Speaker 2: Women's sports vacation.
Speaker 1: Now it's your turn, Rate and Review. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: See you tomorrow. Good game, Julie, Good game, GAYFC, you
Speaker 1: outing people talking to you, The Ghost of Tucker Carlson's dad.
Speaker 1: Good Game with Sarah Spain is an iHeart women's sports
Speaker 1: production in partnership with Deep Blue Sports and Entertainment. You
Speaker 1: can find us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Production by Wonder Media Network,
Speaker 1: our producers are Alex Azzi and Bianca Hillier. Our executive
Speaker 1: producers are Christina Everett, Jesse Katz, Jenny Kaplan and Emily Rudder.
Speaker 1: Our editors are Emily Rutterer, Lucy Jones, Britney Martinez and
Speaker 1: Gianna Palmer. Production assistants from Avery LOFTUS and I'm Your
Speaker 1: Host Sarah Spain