Serena Williams has often been called an “ape” and “gorilla” across the dark caverns of social media; her body has been described in language not unlike the kind you’d find in old timey slave auction advertisements or Old English freak show exhibits; her deep brown skin, her cheekbones, her muscular physique – the physique of someone who takes their sport seriously, with the trophy case to prove it – are all used as grounds to question the sex she was born at birth or whether she came by her athleticism naturally.
In 2014, a high-ranking Russian tennis official snarkily referred to Serena and her sister Venus as “the Williams brothers”.