Kye Allums (born October 23, 1989) is a former

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

player for the

George Washington University , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , preside ...

women's team who in 2010 came out as a

trans man A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that incl ...

, becoming the first openly transgender

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest level of College athletics, intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major ...

college athlete. Allums is a

transgender A transgender (often abbreviated as trans) person is someone whose gender identity or gender expression does not correspond with their sex assigned at birth. Many transgender people experience dysphoria, which they seek to alleviate through tr ...

advocate, public speaker, artist, and mentor to

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

youth.

Personal life

Allums graduated from Centennial High School in

Circle Pines, Minnesota Circle Pines is a city in Anoka County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 5,025 at the 2020 census. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Lake Drive ...

, United States. He played three seasons as a guard on the women's basketball team at George Washington University, the

George Washington Colonials The George Washington Colonials are the athletic teams of George Washington University of Washington, D.C. The Colonials compete in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) as members of the Atlantic 10 Conference for mo ...

. Allums's teammates called him "Kay-Kay". Allums began telling people to call him "Kye". He came out as a trans man in 2010. He told sports website ''

Outsports ''Outsports'' is a sports news website concerned with LGBT issues and personalities in amateur and professional sports. The company was founded in 1999 by Cyd Zeigler, Jr. and Jim Buzinski. ''The Outsports Revolution'' (Alyson Publications), by ...

'', "my biological sex is female, which makes me a transgender male." In May 2011, GWU announced that Allums had decided to leave the GWU basketball team. He graduated from George Washington University in 2011 with a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in Fine Arts. In 2014, Allums said that he had attempted suicide in an

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

story.

George Washington statistics

Advocacy

Allums began traveling around the country to talk about life as a transgender person. 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. He gives advice on confronting bullies when being trans. He starred in

Laverne Cox Laverne Cox (born May 29, 1972) is an American actress and LGBT advocate. She rose to prominence with her role as Sophia Burset on the Netflix series ''Orange Is the New Black'', becoming the first transgender person to be nominated for a Pri ...

’s documentary ''The T Word.'' The film follows young transgender individuals and explains what they go through. Kye produced a project called "I Am Enough", which encourages other LGBTQ individuals to come out and talk about their experiences. The project allows individuals to submit their stories, thereby showing people who share the same issues that they are not alone. In 2015, he was inducted into the

National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame The National Gay and Lesbian Sports Hall of Fame was a hall of fame established in 2013 to honor LGBT and allied personalities, as well as organizations "whose achievements and efforts have enhanced sports and athletics for the gay and lesbian co ...

Published work

Allums published a book called ''Who Am I?'', which features poems and letters he wrote about his parents and himself.

References

External links

GW Transgender Player Deals With Wave of Publicity
AP * * (archived) 1989 births Living people African-American basketball players George Washington Colonials women's basketball players LGBT African Americans American LGBT sportspeople Sex segregation Transgender sportsmen LGBT basketball players LGBT people from Minnesota Basketball players from Minnesota People from Circle Pines, Minnesota {{1980s-US-basketball-bio-stub