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Second Serve: The Renee Richards Story

1984; American Medical Association; Volume: 251; Issue: 15 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1001/jama.1984.03340390068034

1538-3598

Virginia A. Sadock,

Medicine and Dermatology Studies History

Renee Richards was born a male, Richard Raskind, and underwent a sex change operation at the age of 40 years. By that time she had become a successful ophthalmic surgeon, married, fathered a child, and divorced. Second Serve is her view of her life. The book focuses on her desire to become and be accepted as a woman, and is of particular interest to physicians involved in the treatment of gender-identity disorders. However, the reader should be aware of the author's bias that surgery is the treatment of choice for transsexuals. She believes that she was badly served by the medical profession in general and by psychiatrists in particular because they prevented her from undergoing surgery sooner than she did. Richards, with a brief nod to biochemical theories of gender identity disorders, describes her childhood in a brilliant but seriously disturbed family: "If I sat down to write a case