# Non-political, pure-sports discussion about how women compete against trans athletes **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [May 7, 2026, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893 "2026-05-07T18:34:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 11
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2026, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893/11 "2026-05-08T02:37:32Z")
> [@Jasmine](#): > > I did some research and found that Renee Richards was the first transgender WTA player. Found the following: “WTA/Open Career: Following the court victory, she played on the professional tour, reached the 1977 US Open doubles final, and attained a career-high ranking of No. 20 in 1979.” Nothing to write home about here. Two things to note: - Richards was born in 1934, and transitioned around 1975, at age 41. - She was not permitted to compete in professional tennis until 1977, when she was 43. So, she was playing at a high level, as a woman, in her early 40s. When she reached #20 in the rankings, she was 45 years old. It’s also important to remember that, while some elite athletes are, today, able to compete at a high level well into their late 30s and 40s, thanks to much better sports medicine and sports nutrition, that wasn’t the case in the 1970s; it was extremely rare for a tennis player to succeed at that level in their 40s, in that era. As far as I can tell, prior to transitioning, in the 1960s, Richards was a very good men’s player, but to the level of being a high-ranking amateur, and not at an elite professional level – and that was five to ten years before she began playing on the WTA tour as a woman. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/non-political-pure-sports-discussion-about-how-women-compete-against-trans-athletes/1029893)._