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Kye Allums
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Kye Allums (born October 23, 1989) is an American former college basketball player for the George Washington University women's team who in 2010 came out as a trans man, becoming the first openly transgender NCAA Division I college athlete.[1][2][3][4] Allums is a transgender advocate, public speaker, artist, and mentor to LGBT youth.
Key Information
Personal life
[edit]Allums graduated from Centennial High School in Circle Pines, Minnesota, United States. He played three seasons as a guard on the women's basketball team at George Washington University, the George Washington Colonials.[5] Allums's teammates called him "Kay-Kay".[2] Allums began telling people to call him "Kye".[6] He came out as a trans man in 2010.[7] He told sports website Outsports, "my biological sex is female, which makes me a transgender male."[2]
In May 2011, GWU announced that Allums had decided to leave the GWU basketball team.[8] He graduated from George Washington University in 2011 with a bachelor's degree in Fine Arts.[9]
In 2014, Allums told the Huffington Post that he had attempted suicide in 2011 after receiving transphobic harassment due to an article written about him by ESPN.[10]
George Washington statistics
[edit]| GP | Games played | GS | Games started | MPG | Minutes per game |
| FG% | Field goal percentage | 3P% | 3-point field goal percentage | FT% | Free throw percentage |
| RPG | Rebounds per game | APG | Assists per game | SPG | Steals per game |
| BPG | Blocks per game | PPG | Points per game | Bold | Career high |
| Year[11] | Team | GP | Points | FG% | 3P% | FT% | RPG | APG | SPG | BPG | PPG |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008–09 | George Washington | 11 | 35 | 28.6 | 18.8 | 38.1 | 2.2 | 1.3 | 0.2 | 0.1 | 3.2 |
| 2009–10 | George Washington | 26 | 193 | 37.8 | 37.1 | 75.0 | 4.6 | 1.1 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 7.4 |
| 2010–11 | George Washington | 8 | 54 | 47.4 | 30.0 | 63.2 | 3.4 | 0.6 | 0.6 | 0.3 | 6.8 |
| Career | George Washington | 45 | 282 | 37.7 | 32.7 | 62.5 | 3.8 | 1.0 | 0.6 | 0.2 | 6.3 |
Advocacy
[edit]Allums began traveling around the country to talk about life as a transgender person.[7] He visits high schools, colleges and universities to discuss the transgender community and how it is possible to be transgender and play on a team.[12] He gives advice on confronting bullies when being trans.[13]
He starred in Laverne Cox's documentary The T Word.[7] The film follows young transgender individuals and explains what they go through.[14]
Allums produced a project called "I Am Enough", which encourages other LGBTQ individuals to come out and talk about their experiences.[15] The project allows individuals to submit their stories, thereby showing people who share the same issues that they are not alone.[16]
In 2015, he was inducted into the National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame.[17]
Published work
[edit]Allums published a book called Who Am I?, which features poems and letters he wrote about his parents and himself.[18]
References
[edit]- ^ "First transgender athlete to play in NCAA basketball". CNN. March 23, 2010. Archived from the original on October 13, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ a b c Brady, Erik (November 4, 2010). "Transgender male Kye Allums on the women's team at GW". USA Today. Archived from the original on March 15, 2012. Retrieved September 2, 2017.
- ^ "LGBT History Month: Kye Allums, first openly transgender NCAA athlete". October 2011. Archived from the original on August 5, 2018. Retrieved May 4, 2012.
- ^ "21 Transgender People Who Influenced American Culture". Time Magazine. May 29, 2014. Archived from the original on August 5, 2016. Retrieved June 4, 2014.
- ^ "Kye Allums". Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013.
- ^ Moore, Elliott (February 19, 2013). "Kye Allums Discusses His Personal History as a Transgender Athlete". www.glaad.org. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ a b c Steinmetz, Katy (October 28, 2014). "Meet The First Openly Transgender NCAA Division I Athlete". Time. Archived from the original on May 1, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ "Kye Allums Leaving Basketball". May 19, 2011. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ Allums, Kye. "About". kyeallums.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ Nichols, JamesMichael (January 21, 2014). "Kye Allums, Trans Sports Star, Reveals He Wanted To Kill Himself After ESPN Profile". HuffPost. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ "NCAA® Career Statistics". web1.ncaa.org. Archived from the original on May 11, 2019. Retrieved May 24, 2016.
- ^ Allums, Kye. "Booking". Kyeallums.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ Moore, Elliott (February 19, 2013). "Kye Allums Discusses his Personal History as a Transgender Athlete". GLAAD. Archived from the original on May 18, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ Laverne Cox (host). "Laverne Cox Presents: 'The T word'" (Full Documentary).
- ^ Allums, Kye. "Who am I?". kyeallums.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
- ^ Mase III, J (December 17, 2013). "Are You Enough? Kye Allums Thinks So". HuffPost. Archived from the original on October 7, 2014. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- ^ Jim Buzinski (July 27, 2015). "9 inducted into National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame". Outsports. Archived from the original on December 8, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2016.
- ^ Allums, Kye. "Who Am I?". www.amazon.com. Retrieved May 4, 2015.
External links
[edit]- GW Transgender Player Deals With Wave of Publicity, AP
- Allums, Kye (January 22, 2014). "Grantland, Dr. V and Being Enough". The Nation. ISSN 0027-8378. Retrieved April 5, 2022.
- Official website (archived)
Kye Allums
View on GrokipediaEarly Life and Background
Childhood and Family
Kye Allums was born on October 23, 1989, as a biological female in Daytona Beach, Florida, before moving to and growing up in the small town of Hugo, Minnesota.[8][1] Allums was the oldest of four siblings, including two younger brothers and one younger sister.[8][1] The family provided a supportive environment during Allums' formative years, though specific details on parental occupations or dynamics remain limited in public records.[9] From childhood, Allums displayed tomboyish preferences, such as favoring boys' clothing and activities, and repeatedly stating a belief in being a boy despite biological sex.[1][10] These behaviors, observed around age 12 when Allums noted divergence from peers' experiences, align with patterns seen in some youth but lack established causal links to adult outcomes without further longitudinal data.[1] Family responses to such nonconformity emphasized accommodation rather than overt pressure, per Allums' later accounts.[9]Initial Sports Involvement and High School Career
Allums grew up in Hugo, Minnesota, and developed an early interest in basketball, participating in youth leagues that honed fundamental skills as a perimeter player. By high school, this foundation positioned Allums for competitive success at Centennial High School in Hugo. Standing at 5 feet 11 inches tall, Allums played as a guard, leveraging agility and shooting ability to contribute significantly to the team.[5][11] During her high school career, Allums earned three-time honorable mention all-state recognition from the Minnesota Girls Basketball Coaches Association, reflecting consistent performance across seasons. She averaged 15.8 points and 7.8 rebounds per game, demonstrating scoring efficiency and rebounding prowess for a guard. In her senior year of 2008, Allums was named a candidate for Miss Basketball, Minnesota's top individual honor, underscoring her impact on the court despite the team's overall record.[8][12] These achievements drew interest from college programs, culminating in recruitment by George Washington University, where coaches valued Allums' perimeter skills, height advantage for the position, and high school production metrics. Allums committed to the Colonials' women's basketball team, transitioning seamlessly from prep to collegiate athletics based on verified athletic merits.[5][11]Gender Identity and Transition
Development of Gender Dysphoria
Kye Allums, biologically female at birth, reported experiencing a sense of incongruence with her sex from childhood, identifying internally as a boy while raised in Hugo, Minnesota.[1] She described dressing in tomboy attire and feeling discomfort with her female anatomy, leading her to secretly pack boys' clothing in a backpack to change at school and avoid her mother's insistence on feminine dress.[1] Around age 12, Allums noted heightened awareness of differences from peers assigned female, experimenting briefly with makeup and skirts before reverting to masculine presentation, which she found more congruent with her self-perception.[1] In high school, she adopted a lesbian identity for several years as a partial explanation for her rejection of traditional female roles, though this label ultimately failed to capture her experiences.[1] During her freshman year at George Washington University in 2008, Allums first encountered formal terminology for transgender experiences in a human sexuality course, prompting her to recognize and publicly articulate an identity as male despite her unchanged biological female physiology.[4] No medical interventions, such as hormone therapy or surgery, occurred during this period; Allums delayed such steps until after her college athletic eligibility ended in 2011 to comply with NCAA rules for women's sports participation.[3] These self-reported feelings emerged amid broader cultural discussions of gender variance in the late 2000s, though Allums attributed her prior lack of explicit awareness to limited prior exposure to relevant concepts.[4]Public Coming Out and Transition Decisions
On November 1, 2010, Kye Allums, then a junior guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team, publicly disclosed his transgender male identity through an exclusive interview with Outsports, marking him as the first openly transgender athlete to compete in NCAA Division I sports while assigned female at birth and adhering to women's eligibility criteria.[13] [14] In the announcement, Allums stated that he had begun correcting others on his preferred male pronouns earlier that year, emphasizing a desire to live authentically without yet pursuing hormone therapy.[13] This disclosure positioned Allums as competing in the women's category based on biological sex, as NCAA rules at the time permitted participation without testosterone supplementation, which would have reclassified him for men's sports and potentially ended his eligibility on the women's team.[14] [15] Allums explicitly chose to postpone testosterone therapy to maintain compliance with NCAA women's division regulations, a decision driven by the need to preserve scholarship and competitive opportunities in the sport he had pursued since high school.[16] [17] Under the prevailing NCAA policy, which aligned with international standards prohibiting male-typical hormone levels in women's competitions, initiating testosterone would have rendered Allums ineligible for the women's team, creating a direct causal trade-off between advancing medical transition and sustaining athletic participation as a biological female.[15] [3] Allums confirmed plans to begin hormone treatment post-eligibility, prioritizing short-term access to women's basketball over immediate physiological changes.[8] The initial social transition involved legally changing his name from Kay-Kay Allums to Kye Allums and insisting on male pronouns in daily interactions, which Allums described as alleviating the psychological burden of concealment and fostering personal authenticity.[18] [19] George Washington University supported this step by updating official records and team communications accordingly, while affirming that Allums remained biologically equivalent to female teammates for competitive purposes.[20] [21] These changes prompted immediate interpersonal adjustments among coaches, teammates, and opponents, with Allums reporting a sense of relief amid heightened public scrutiny, though without altering his physical presentation or training regimen for the ongoing season.[19] [17]College Basketball Career at George Washington University
Recruitment and Pre-Coming Out Seasons
Allums, a 5-foot-11 guard from Hugo, Minnesota, earned a scholarship to join the George Washington University women's basketball team after her high school career, which included selection as a third-team All-Met by The Washington Post in 2008.[22][18] Recruited for skills including perimeter shooting and rebounding ability for her position, she enrolled at GWU in 2008 under head coach Mike Bozeman, transitioning directly into NCAA Division I competition in the Atlantic 10 Conference without noted eligibility or performance issues related to biological sex.[11][5] In her freshman season of 2008–09, Allums played in multiple games, averaging 3.2 points, 2.2 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game as a reserve contributor to a Revolutionaries squad that compiled a 17–14 overall record and 9–5 mark in conference play, securing fourth place in the A-10.[23][11] Her role emphasized standard guard duties in a balanced rotation, with the team advancing to the Atlantic 10 Tournament but focusing on developmental play rather than dominant individual outputs.[24] As a sophomore in 2009–10, Allums earned a starting position in 20 of the 26 games she appeared in, boosting her averages to 7.4 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 1.1 assists over 24.9 minutes per contest, while shooting 37.1% from three-point range on 62 attempts.[5] These metrics reflected reliable scoring and rebounding from the perimeter in a struggling GWU team that finished 6–22 overall and 3–11 in the A-10, placing 11th and missing postseason play.[25] Her contributions remained consistent with typical female Division I guard production, absent any contemporaneous reports of atypical physical advantages or team disruptions tied to sex-based factors.[5]2010 Announcement and Eligibility Under NCAA Rules
In November 2010, Kye Allums, a junior guard on the George Washington University women's basketball team and a biological female, publicly announced identifying as a male, marking the first such open declaration by an NCAA Division I athlete.[14][13] The announcement, first detailed in an Outsports interview on November 1, 2010, emphasized Allums' decision to delay hormone therapy and surgery until after the 2010-2011 season to retain eligibility and scholarship on the women's team.[13][17] Under NCAA policies effective in 2010, which aligned with guidelines from sport-specific governing bodies like the NCAA itself for emerging cases, a transgender female-to-male athlete remained eligible to compete in women's divisions without undergoing testosterone therapy or genital surgery, as these interventions were deemed to confer no competitive advantage absent physiological changes.[14][13] George Washington University officials confirmed with the NCAA that Allums qualified for continued participation on the women's team, given the absence of such treatments, allowing seamless integration without altering team rosters or scholarships.[14][26] This approach reflected the era's regulatory framework, which prioritized biological sex at birth for category assignment unless hormone-induced changes occurred, enabling Allums to compete as originally recruited.[27] The university and coach Mike Bozeman responded supportively, with GW issuing a statement on November 2, 2010, affirming backing for Allums' personal choice while upholding NCAA compliance, and Bozeman expressing team unity in media interviews.[26][21] Allums noted surprise at the lack of opposition from coaches and teammates, who had been informed privately earlier.[21][16] Media coverage surged post-announcement, with outlets like The New York Times and NBC framing it as a pioneering milestone for transgender inclusion in college sports, though reports highlighted the strategic postponement of medical transition to preserve athletic opportunities under existing rules.[14][18] This visibility underscored the policy's allowance for identity-based participation without immediate biological alteration, sparking early discussions on regulatory equity.[28]2010-2011 Season Performance and Retirement
Allums' 2010–2011 junior season with the George Washington Colonials women's basketball team was severely limited by injuries, particularly concussions sustained early in the campaign. Following his public announcement in November 2010, he appeared in the season opener against Wisconsin–Green Bay on November 12, but subsequent head injuries sidelined him for most of the year. He played in only 8 games, starting 1, while averaging 16.9 minutes per game.[29][30][31] Statistically, Allums averaged 6.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 0.6 assists per game, with a field goal percentage of 47.4%, three-point shooting at 30.0%, and free-throw accuracy of 63.2%. Two concussions occurred during games early in the season, marking his eighth overall, which led to persistent memory issues and forced him to miss the majority of contests. Medical advice emphasized the risks of further head trauma, prioritizing long-term health over continued participation.[29][30][32] On May 18, 2011, Allums announced his retirement from intercollegiate athletics, forgoing his senior year eligibility due to the cumulative effects of concussions rather than any shifts in NCAA policy or gender-related factors. He stated that doctors had warned of potential permanent damage from additional impacts, rendering further play untenable despite remaining athletic eligibility. This decision concluded his college basketball career after three seasons at George Washington.[33][3][34]Overall Statistical Record
Kye Allums appeared in 45 games across three seasons (2008–09, 2009–10, and 2010–11) for the George Washington University women's basketball team in the Atlantic 10 Conference, logging 933 total minutes.[11] Career totals included 282 points, 171 rebounds, 47 assists, 27 steals, and 9 blocks, alongside 78 turnovers.[11] Allums shot 100 of 265 field goals (37.7%), 32 of 98 three-pointers (32.7%), and 50 of 80 free throws (62.5%).[11] Per-game career averages were 6.3 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.0 assist, 0.6 steals, and 0.2 blocks in 20.7 minutes, reflecting a rotational guard role without leading scoring or rebounding contributions on the team.[11] In the 2009–10 season, Allums started 20 of 26 games with 7.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game, the highest output among the three years, but production declined in limited 2010–11 appearances (6.8 points in 8 games).[11] No professional or further collegiate athletic records exist post-2011.[11]| Season | GP | MPG | PPG | RPG | APG | FG% | 3P% | FT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008–09 | 11 | 13.7 | 3.2 | 2.2 | 1.3 | .286 | .188 | .381 |
| 2009–10 | 26 | 24.9 | 7.4 | 4.6 | 1.1 | .378 | .371 | .750 |
| 2010–11 | 8 | 16.9 | 6.8 | 3.4 | 0.6 | .474 | .300 | .632 |
| Career | 45 | 20.7 | 6.3 | 3.8 | 1.0 | .377 | .327 | .625 |