Saturday, as you may or may not be aware, is International Transgender Day. One suspects that Dr Renée Richards – the world-renowned eye surgeon – wouldn’t need reminding.

But despite her status as the first transgender woman to play professional sport, Richards rarely speaks about her trailblazing past.

It’s hard to blame her, when she has been back and forward over this extraordinary story so many times.

There have already been two autobiographies and two movies, in the first of which she was played by Vanessa Redgrave.

Here is the plot summary. Renée Richards was born in 1934 as Richard Raskin. The son of a surgeon and a psychiatrist, Dick Raskin was part of New York’s Jewish intellectual elite, and a fine athlete too.