The group discussed Dr. Richards’ landmark case Renee Richards vs. the United States Tennis Association that was decided in Aug. 1977 and allowed her to play in the U.S. Open in Forest Hills where she lost to Virginia Wade in the singles competition, but made it to the finals in doubles.

“In 1977, a landmark decision on transgender rights was decided Judge Alfred M. Ascione in the NYS Supreme Court,” said Coffey. “It was such a landmark case that in 1989, over a decade after it was decided, the longest paragraph in the NYT obituary was [dedicated to the case].

“Dr. Richards was certainly not the first transgender person, and certainly not the first to file a lawsuit,” Coffey continued. “While there were other pioneers before her, it was Richards’ case that received the most media coverage and arguably has the most impact.”

Weiss discuss the impacts of the case and how it affects the legal landscape today, and pointed out that it was likely the first statue that recognized that transgender people are entitled to constitutional rights.

“There have been three dozen other cases that have been decided since 2001 so nobody is really talking that much about Richards vs. the USTA, but they should be,” Weiss said. “It’s not just that the claim was brought on the basis of the human rights law, it was also brought on the basis of the 14th Amendment. Nobody was thinking of the constitutional rights of transgender people back then.”

Skinner then discussed the work he is doing as part of the Richard C. Failla Commission and explained that the most immediate work is focused on changing existing statutes to recognize the rights of transgender people.

“The first thing we’re trying to do is an amendment of the various court nondiscrimination rules to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and gender expression by attorneys, judges and non-judicial court employees,” Skinner explained. “These amendments would happen in four places, the attorney rules of professional conduct, the rules of judicial conduct, the unified court system code of ethics for non-judicial employees, and the rules of the chief judge career service equal opportunity.”

BWBA’s next event, as part of its celebration of its 100th anniversary, will be a Women’s History Month event at the Tenement Museum in Manhattan. The group will go on a tour of the Lower East Side museum that will celebrate the Puerto Rican, Chinese and Holocaust surviving families that moved to New York.

“Part of our mission is that we embrace people of every different nationality. The tenement museum is part of our mission,” Mirman said. “We’re going to have a talk with a historian on the last 100 years of women’s history.”

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