The first individual meeting I attended was titled “Women’s and Girl’s Empowerment through Sport”. The primary topic that was addressed was the inclusion of transgender athletes in women’s competitions. This has been a very heated topic over the past decade or so. There are two conflicting principles that are at odds with each other. The first is that of inclusion, ensuring that anyone that wants to compete has the opportunity to do so. The other is the idea of fairness, ensuring the competition is balanced and equal. A secondary issue on the non-inclusion side of the debate is safety. That comes into consideration, particularly in the case of contact sports, like rugby, basketball and combat sports.
This panel at the UN offered a very one-sided discussion focusing nominally on the fairness side of the debate and largely ignoring the inclusion side. The two primary speakers were female athletes from different generations and different sports that spoke about how they felt “cheated” out of victories. The first was British swimmer Shannon Davies, a 3-time Olympic swimmer who competed against, and lost to, East German swimmers during the peak of the East German doping scandals. She was beaten by female swimmers that were systemically fortified by unnatural elevation of testosterone levels. The second athlete was a recent US high school female track athlete who lost out on state titles and trophies to transgender females.
The session was organized by ADF (Alliance Defending Freedom) International. This is a Conservative Christian based organization that advocates for a very conservative agenda under the banner of “Freedom”. In addition to organizing hearings like this one at the UN, ADF is also supporting the US track athlete in her legal efforts to block the participation of transgender athletes.
I said this has become a heated topic over the last decade or so. But that ignores a case from the 1970s that my pre-teen self had a better than front row seat for! For a number of years the world of pro tennis had a US Open tune-up event in August basically in my back yard and the highlight of the summer of for all of kids was being a ballboy or a ballgirl at this tournament. I got to be on the court for all the big names of the day - John McEnroe, Roscoe Tanner, Stan Smith, Rod Laver, Ilie Nastase and on and on… There was also a Women’s tournament going on as well. Most years, it was kind of week long bit of excitement in the dog days of summer. Ball kids would often get free sneakers, t-shirts, and other swag.
But in 1976 things really changed! One of the competitors on the women’s draw was a 40-something year old doctor who went by the name of Renée Richards. For those unfamiliar with the name, I suggest google. I’m not going to go too deep into the backstory. The short version of the story is Dr. Richards was formerly Dr. Richard Raskin, a very accomplished amateur tennis player, in addition to being an ophthalmologist and had transitioned (that wasn’t a word we used in the 70s) and was now living and competing as a female. Dr. Richards was interested in trying to compete in the US Open and was hardly the only person at my neighborhood tournament tuning up for the big event later that month.
There were court cases and rulings and protests and Dr Richards did not compete in the 1976 US Open but after a win in a law court, in 1977 Dr. Richards got to compete on the tennis court in Forrest Hills (this was before the US Open moved to the big venue in Flushing). The 2 years that Dr. Richards competed in NJ, I was right there on the court during a couple of the matches. Thanks to my prestigious status as ball boy, I was closer to the action than anyone who wasn’t playing.
Other years, it would be typical for local sports writers from the Newark paper to maybe come and report, or maybe not. But the two years Dr. Richards competed, Frank DeFord of Sports Illustrated was there, Howard Cosell (of Howard Cosell) was there, CBS Sports was there. It was huge! And I was a pre-teen and had no real idea what the big deal was, but it was obviously a big deal.
On the court, Dr. Richards dominated the lower ranked women. They couldn’t compete with the power and strength and the uncommon lefty play. There weren’t many lefties back then. But as the tournament went on and the opposition got better, the 40-something amateur couldn’t really compete with the top 20-something women on the other side of the court.
I hadn’t been to law school yet when this all happened. I also hadn’t been to medical school either (still haven’t done that). If I ever get back in a law school class maybe I’ll unpack the peculiarities of the the NY State Human Rights law that made it hard to exclude Dr Richards from competing at the US Open. Success on the singles court was elusive. There were some wins competing in doubles. And then it all just kind faded away, until the past decade or so.
I think this is just a long, round about way to admit, I don’t know how to balance the competing issues of inclusion and fairness. But I think there is an answer, and admittedly it’s likely an answer that won't please everyone.