Bonus #26: All In

Billie Jean King. 2021.

I was really looking forward to this book. There is so much about Billie Jean King to like and admire.  She has so many good stories here of how her fierce determination and unparalleled leadership changed women's sports and impacted the "battle of the sexes."  It is truly amazing to think that she was able to organize players on a tour where they played against each other all the time.  Unifying most of them behind equal pay, walking out & creating their own tour, and so forth is as amazing when being retold all these years later as I am sure it was at the time.  

I was quite disappointed, though, in her discussion about trans and non-binary athletes and some of the other language she used was out of date. For such a warrior for Queer rights, I was surprised that apparently no one she has proofread or edit realized how rally offensive some of the book was.  Deadnaming Renee Richards, just as one example, was completely out of line and unnecessary and showed a real lack of understanding of contemporary standards.  It was especially shocking that she did that when she was purporting to be supportive of Renee being on the women's tour.  It was a strange juxtaposition that seemed anachronistic.  I just do not understand why no one in a position to edit did something about that or told her how offensive that entire section was.  Maybe they did and she didn't care, but that is just too much disappointment for me to bear.

Despite that issue and particularly if you can get past that, I recommend the book anyhow because she is such an icon and so much of the book is a detailed account of what it took behind the scenes to do all that.

​Recommend. 

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