“George Washington University will become a part of history soon when the first transgender athlete, Kye Allums, will play in NCAA Division I Basketball on their women’s basketball team. Allums, who was born a woman,
will play on the women’s basketball team at the University, as he has done for years, but this time, he will be taking the court as a man, according to Terra. Allums is allowed to play under NCAA guidelines as long as he doesn’t take any testosterone treatments. Allums was happy about his decision to change genders and wants others to follow suit if they so chose.”
“Allowing transgender athletes in sports has been a controversial topic for quite some time now, and this latest decision will make transgender people more accepted in American society.” According to Lauren Finnegan.
According to Kevin BlackStone, “Four years ago, Keelin Godsey at Bates College won his second women’s NCAA Division III hammer throw championship after changing his name from Kelly and announcing, much like Allums, that he was transitioning from a lifelong designation as female.
Godsey sought, however, not to stand out any more than necessary. Allums sounded this week as if he has decided to confront how people may look differently at him head on.
“I used to feel like trans- anything was really weird and those people were crazy, and I wondered, ‘How can you feel like that?’” Outsports.com quoted Allums on Monday. “But I looked it up on the Internet and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m one of those weird people.’ And I realized they’re not weird. It’s all in your mindset and how you think.”
Allums, like Godsey, won allowance from the NCAA to continuing participating as a woman because, an NCAA spokesman informed me Tuesday, the NCAA believes that following the gender classification of student-athletes’ state identification documents, like driver’s licenses, and each school’s gender designation of the athlete is the best way for now to determine sex.
Only if Allums sought hormonal treatment in transitioning to becoming a male would his eligibility to compete with and against women come into question because hormones, including testosterone, are banned by the NCAA as performance-enhancing substances. Allums echoed Godsey and said Monday he was putting off such treatment until after his college career.”
According to Kathy Orton, “A day after the news first broke that George Washington women’s basketball player Kye Allums had begun to identify as a man, Allums was amazed by the reaction he’s gotten.”
“I was kind of shocked,” he said in a telephone interview on Tuesday afternoon. “I didn’t know what to expect. I didn’t think this many people would find out or even care this fast. I thought it would take weeks or months, but in two days? I have people from Germany saying they had already heard about it and how they wish more people were like me or more people would be able to say something and it’s crazy.”
