Che Flores Comes Out as the NBA’s First Transgender Referee

metroweekly.com:

an interview with GQas the league’s first nonbinary and transgender referee.A Los Angeles native who uses the pronoun “they,” Flores worked 35 games last season, and 12 games as a non-staff official during the 2021-2022 season.When Flores first became an NBA official, the league touted an announcement that two new women referees had been added to the mostly male referee corps — something Flores found alienating, knowing that, in private, they had begun to identify as transgender.“One piece I was missing for myself was that no one knew how I identified,” they said. “Being misgendered as she/her always just felt like a little jab in the gut.”But since coming out to some of their colleagues during a preseason meeting last month, Flores now feels more at ease and less constrained, even when it comes to little everyday choices like dressing in a manner that matches their gender identity.“When I started refereeing, you had to look a certain way,” Flores told GQ. “This is the first time I’m comfortable expressing myself through my own fashion and not having to worry about it.

I feel one hundred percent myself now.“I can go through the world and even my job a lot more comfortably.”Flores’s coming out arrives as transgender identity is under extreme attack in society, with conservatives demanding that businesses and organizations scuttle any efforts to celebrate or recognize trans identity.It also comes at a time when 23 states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes — primarily transgender female athletes or nonbinary individuals who were assigned male at birth — from competing on sports teams matching their gender identity.Much of the justification has centered around those athletes, whose participation denies cisgender females the chance to compete for honors and awards, critics say.Additionally, several governing bodies of sports for elite athletes, including those for track and field, swimming, and boxing, have banned transgender athletes from competing as.