Renée Richards: Beyond the Icon

 

In 1975, at the age of 41, Renée Richards underwent gender-affirming surgery and began living openly as a woman. Two years later, she would become one of the most consequential figures in the history of transgender participation in sport. Born in New York in 1934, Richards had already lived an extraordinary life before becoming a public symbol: she was a highly accomplished tennis player, captain of the Yale men's tennis team, and an ophthalmologist. In 1976, after she was outed as transgender by broadcaster Richard Carlson, she was barred from entering the U.S. Open women's competition because she refused to submit to the chromosome test demanded by the United States Tennis Association. She challenged the decision in court, and in August 1977 the New York Supreme Court ruled in her favor. At the 1977 U.S. Open, the 43-year-old Richards finally entered the women's draw. She lost her opening singles match to Virginia Wade, but reached the doubles final, where she and her partner lost to Martina Navratilova and Betty Stöve. Richards subsequently became a coach, working with players including Navratilova, and her name became inseparable from one of the earliest and most important legal battles over transgender participation in professional sport.

 

Yet the woman at the center of this history is far more complicated than the historical shorthand of "transgender tennis pioneer" suggests. Now in her nineties, Richards remains a deeply contradictory figure. The person who once went to court to establish her right to compete as a woman now argues that trans women who experienced male puberty should not compete in women's sport. That tension is at the heart of Finding Renée Richards, because the book is not interested in turning Richards into a convenient icon. Instead, it tries to recover the complicated human being behind the headline, the lawsuit and the history-making moment. And it is this woman, with all her contradictions, achievements, struggles and complexities, that journalist and author Julie Kliegman set out to find. Kliegman has spent much of their career exploring the places where sport, identity and the human stories behind public controversies intersect. Their work has appeared in publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Sports Illustrated, The Ringer, Slate, The Verge, Vox and Texas Monthly. They have worked as a reporter, editor and fact-checker, served as Copy Chief at Sports Illustrated, and written extensively about transgender athletes, women's sports and mental health. And now that Julie Kliegman has published Finding Renée Richards, I am delighted to welcome them to The Heroines of My Life to talk about the woman they spent years trying to understand, the extraordinary journey of researching and writing her story, and what they discovered along the way.

Interview with Sofía Diéguez

 

Sofía Diéguez is an Argentine transgender actress, singer, performer, playwright and cultural worker. She was born on December 8, 1986, in Buenos Aires and grew up in Lanús. She began studying acting at the age of thirteen and later trained in theatre, musical theatre, ballet and singing, including studies at the Teatro Colón. Her acting training also included work with Alicia Zanca, Ana María Campoy, Pepe Cibrián and Julieta Vallina. At sixteen, she was cast in Pepe Cibrián's El fantasma de Canterville, appearing in the production during the 2003 and 2004 seasons. She subsequently continued her theatrical training and toured Latin America with children's theatre productions. At the age of twenty-five, Sofía began her gender transition and temporarily stepped away from acting and performance. She later returned to the profession with a role in Un gallo para Esculapio.

 

Her subsequent television work included El Marginal, where she played La Luli, and Telefe's Pequeña Victoria, where she played Violeta. Her theatre career includes Crianzas, el musical, based on the work of Susy Shock, for which she received the 2021 ATINA Award for Female Performer. She later wrote and starred in Magenta, una sirena más allá del mar, a children's musical inspired by the figure of the mermaid and addressing identity and freedom. Her later theatrical work has included Estar System, in which she also participated in the creative and dramaturgical process, and Teoría de la Sirena, a musical biodrama and autobiographical work combining theatre, music and elements of her own life. In 2023, she made her feature-film debut in Natural Arpajou's Unicornio. In 2025, she appeared in El suelo que sostiene a Hande, a Buenos Aires theatre production inspired by the life of Turkish transgender activist Hande Kader. Alongside her acting career, Sofía is a singer and songwriter who performs under the artistic identity La Sirena. In 2022, she released her first single, La Sirena, followed by an EP featuring La Sirena, Medusa, Sola and La Poderosa. She writes her own lyrics and melodies and has also participated in musical performances and live cultural productions. Outside the stage and screen, Sofía has worked as a tutor at the Mocha Celis educational project. Her career encompasses theatre, television, cinema, musical performance, songwriting, dramaturgy and autobiographical work, alongside public work on transgender visibility, representation and trans childhoods.

Interview with Stevie Bennett

Stevie Bennett is a British transgender woman, writer, software architect, former quantitative trader, Ironman finisher and father of three. After spending decades suppressing her gender identity, she transitioned in middle age and has since documented her experiences through her writing and social media. Stevie built a long career in software development and architecture and also worked in quantitative trading. Before transitioning, she was married and became the parent of three children. She met her future wife in Dublin when she was thirty-six, and the family later lived in London and rural Ireland. Endurance sport became another important part of her life. After taking up cycling and triathlon, Stevie completed a full Ironman in 2016. Medical investigations into her hormone levels later became an unexpected turning point in her life. After discovering unusually low testosterone and experiencing subsequent hormonal and physical changes, including feminisation, she began confronting the transgender identity she had spent much of her life trying to suppress.

 

Her transition brought both profound personal fulfilment and significant upheaval. Her marriage ended, and she has written openly about the joy of finally living as herself, alongside the grief and loss connected with the changes to her family life. Stevie has since undergone gender-affirming surgery and continued to document her experiences through her publication, Fast Track Femme, where she writes about transition, family, divorce, surgery, ageing, dating, technology and artificial intelligence. Alongside her writing, she continues to work in technology and has explored the use of AI agents in software and creative projects. Today, at fifty-seven, Stevie is continuing to build a new life while remaining a parent, technology professional, endurance athlete and writer. Her story is an unusual combination of a decades-long hidden transgender identity, family life, elite endurance sport, an unexpected hormonal journey and a rapid public transition later in life.

Interview with Luly Arias

Luly Arias is an actress, activist, educator and nurse from San José, Catamarca, Argentina. She began her gender transition during adolescence and, at 16, was expelled from her family home. She later studied Pedagogy and Social Education, graduating in 2009 before moving to Buenos Aires, where she continued her education in nursing. Her professional and artistic trajectory developed alongside her activism. She became involved in Cooperativa Arte Trans, a pioneering theatre collective created to provide transgender and travesti people with opportunities in the arts, and appeared in productions including Made in Lanús. She was also one of the protagonists of Guillermo Bergandi's documentary Reina de Corazones and later joined the cast of Telefe's prime-time series Pequeña Victoria in 2019. Education has remained central to Arias's work. She taught at the Bachillerato Popular Travesti Trans Mocha Celis, where she worked with trans and travesti students, and later worked within the diversity area of the Buenos Aires Province Ministry of Health, including training healthcare professionals in inclusive care.
 

Luly has also participated in projects such as Unides por la Música, bringing together trans, travesti and non-binary artists from Argentina and Uruguay, and has written extensively about trans representation, employment, housing, healthcare, cultural inclusion and historical memory. Her work combines artistic practice with activism, with particular attention to the opportunities available to transgender people outside the stereotypes traditionally imposed on them. From a small town in Catamarca to theatre, television, public health and activism in Buenos Aires, Luly Arias's trajectory has crossed many of the institutions from which transgender people have historically been excluded, while she has continued working to make those spaces more accessible to others. 

Remembering Liz Eden

 

Long before it was safe, or even really possible, to live openly as a trans woman in America, Liz Eden did it anyway, loudly, unapologetically, and on her own terms. Born Ernest Aron in Brooklyn in 1946, she lost her mother at fourteen, left home at eighteen, and remade herself in Greenwich Village, taking a new name after Elizabeth Taylor and finding a chosen family among the drag balls and after-hours clubs of the city's queer underground, in the same orbit as Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn. Fate handed her a strange kind of fame: her partner John Wojtowicz's botched 1972 bank robbery, carried out in part to fund her surgery, became the basis for Dog Day Afternoon (1975), one of the most celebrated films of the decade. Yet Liz herself was reduced to a deadnamed, misunderstood footnote in it. She refused to stay a footnote. She used the notoriety to pay for her own transition, told her story in her own words in a 1977 magazine piece, and kept living boldly and openly through the rest of her life, eventually settling in Rochester. She died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1987, at just 41, but not before insisting, in her own writing, that hers was a story worth telling. This interview, and Anni Arbour's research behind it, are an answer to that wish.

 

Anni Arbour writes Trans Ascending , a Substack publication devoted to telling transgender history and contemporary trans lives with the depth and accuracy they're too rarely given elsewhere. Her subjects have ranged from Lynn Conway, the pioneering computer engineer who transitioned decades before it was safe to do so publicly, to working artists, activists, and everyday trans women whose stories don't usually make it into print at all. The Herstory of Liz Eden , published across eight parts in late 2025, is Anni's most ambitious project to date. It is a full-length reconstruction of a woman who has spent fifty years as a footnote in someone else's story, first as a side character in a magazine article, then in a Hollywood film, and now, finally, as the subject of her own. Built from archival research, original manuscripts, and interviews others overlooked, the series recovers Liz Eden's own voice from underneath five decades of secondhand telling. I am so happy and grateful that Anni agreed to sit down and chat with me about this work.

Interview with Cassandra Cass

 

Cassandra Cass is the kind of woman who seems to have stepped out of a dream and decided to make that dream real. An actress, showgirl, burlesque performer, glamour model and television personality, she has spent decades creating herself as both a woman and an artist, with a career that has taken her from the drag bars of the American Midwest to the stages of San Francisco and, eventually, to Hollywood. Audiences came to know her through productions including CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (2004), Trantasia (2006), Wild Things (2010), What's the T? (2012), Strut (2016) and Hooked on the Look (2017). But behind the larger-than-life blonde bombshell is a story that began with a little girl in Iowa who simply knew there was another version of herself waiting to emerge.

 

Cassandra was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, in a family with four boys. From childhood, she gravitated toward traditionally feminine toys and activities, including My Little Pony and Cabbage Patch dolls. Her mother encouraged her to explore those interests, while her father initially struggled to understand and accept her femininity. Her mother would eventually become an important figure in Cassandra's life, and her death from cancer would leave another lasting mark on her story. As a teenager, Cassandra discovered the world of drag and began sneaking into gay bars to perform. Drag gave her something precious, a place where femininity was not something to hide but something she could explore, celebrate and transform into art. At approximately 18, she left Iowa for Florida and began attempting to live as a woman. The reality was far less glamorous than the dream. She struggled to find employment while presenting as a woman and was even confronted with offers of sex work, which she refused.

Interview with Petra Hristova

Petra Hristova is a Bulgarian transgender woman, writer and activist whose personal struggle for legal recognition became one of the most significant transgender rights cases in Bulgaria. Born in 1998, she grew up in northern Bulgaria, moving between Veliko Tarnovo, Lyaskovets, Kozarevets and Gorna Oryahovitsa. Her childhood was marked by isolation and bullying, including physical violence, and she has spoken publicly about growing up without the freedom and security that many children take for granted. At the age of twelve, Petra came across an interview with a Bulgarian transgender woman living abroad. It was a turning point. At a time when little information about transgender identities was available in Bulgarian, she began researching the subject herself, often relying on English-language sources to understand feelings she had struggled to name. Education became an important part of Petra's life. She earned a Bachelor's degree in Applied Linguistics, studying English and Korean, followed by a Master's degree in English Philology. She also obtained a professional qualification in organisational psychology. Later, she enrolled in studies in midwifery, inspired by the idea of helping bring new life into the world. Petra began her medical transition after her first year at university and started hormone therapy in September 2015. Finding appropriate medical care proved difficult, as she encountered specialists who lacked experience with, or were unwilling to treat, transgender patients. In January 2022, she underwent gender-affirming surgery at a private clinic in Greece. 

Interview with Barbara Herr

Barbara Herr is a transgender woman, actress, cabaret artist, showgirl and activist whose remarkable life spans more than five decades of LGBTQ+ performance history. Born Robert Hernández in the Bronx, New York, in 1955 to Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrant parents, she grew up between New York and Puerto Rico, an experience that would shape both her identity and her extraordinary artistic career. Barbara moved to Puerto Rico as a teenager and began performing in 1973 under the name Bobby Herr. During the 1970s and 1980s, she became part of the island's vibrant world of drag, cabaret and nightclub entertainment, performing in venues such as Bachelor in Santurce and Stars in Condado. She also worked in theatre and television and toured with a revue connected with the legendary Héctor Del San Juand and Ed Vachan. Later, she toured the Caribbean as a solo artist, headlining her own show during hotel residencies in the Dominican Republic. Two important figures helped shape her artistic life. Antonio Pantojas, one of Puerto Rico's most celebrated entertainers, became her mentor, teacher and close friend, while the legendary Lady Catiria became an important artistic influence. Through them and many other performers of her generation, Barbara became part of a rich Puerto Rican and Nuyorican tradition of transgender and drag performance that has only recently begun to receive the historical recognition it deserves.

Interview with Martina Sobková

When I first spoke with Martina Sobková, I talked to a woman who was redefining what beauty, ambition, and femininity could look like. At 36, she had already made history as the first transgender woman from the Czech Republic to compete at Miss Trans Star International in São Paulo, where she earned the title of Miss Evolution. But even then, it was clear that Martina’s journey was only beginning. Now, she has stepped onto another, even bigger stage: Miss International Queen 2025, one of the most prestigious and internationally recognized pageants for transgender women. Getting there required far more than a beautiful gown, a polished catwalk, and a sash. Martina had to prepare a national costume and talent, balance intense preparation with her career in finance, and somehow keep going even when she was physically exhausted. What makes this second chapter particularly interesting, however, is that Martina does not look back on Miss International Queen simply as a glamorous achievement. Beneath the glitter, she discovered something much more personal. She learned how easily the pursuit of perfection can make us lose sight of ourselves, and how important it is to remember that our lives cannot be reduced to one competition, one appearance, or one moment on stage.

Interview with Catherine Burton

 

Catherine “Cat” Burton has spent most of her life navigating worlds in which she was never expected to belong. Born into an aviation family, she began flying professionally in 1972, at a time when there were no female professional pilots in the United Kingdom. What followed was an extraordinary career spanning some 45 years, during which she flew everything from Vickers Viscounts to Boeing 747s and eventually became a long-haul captain with British Airways. Yet while aviation gave Cat a life she loved, it also provided a remarkably effective place to hide a part of herself that she had not yet fully understood.

 

Cat eventually came out as transgender in her late fifties and returned to the flight deck as herself, supported by British Airways and, as she discovered, by many of the colleagues she had feared might reject her. Her story is not simply about transition or aviation. It is about identity, courage, humour and the extraordinary freedom that comes from finally stopping the exhausting work of pretending to be someone else. It is also a story about what happens when a workplace chooses not merely to tolerate difference, but to recognise the value of the person standing in front of them. Cat went on to become a diversity champion, an advocate for women and minorities in aviation and, after retiring from British Airways, a flying instructor who clearly has no intention whatsoever of slowing down. As she puts it rather succinctly, there will be “plenty of time for that when I’m dead.”