JORDYN HOLKA
Reverb Editor
Michael Jordan. Kobe Bryan. Shaquile O’Neal. Kye Allums.
Above is a list of male basketball players who have made a name for themselves playing the sport they love. The first three individuals on the list have become household names, and the last individual on the list is well on his way to becoming one.
Kye Allums, who is to be the keynote speaker at the Pride Queer History Month Closing Ceremony on Thursday, Oct. 30, is the first and only openly transgender athlete in history to play in the National Collegiate Athletic Association, or the NCAA. He was a shooting guard on the George Washington University women’s basketball team during his college years. He now actively fights for the acceptance of transgender individuals, as well as speaks to audiences on trans issues and self acceptance for all, no matter what one’s identity is. Allums was recognized this year as one of the “21 transgender people who influenced American Culture” by Time Magazine.
As Allums is a transgender African American activist and an athlete, he is being brought to Fredonia through efforts put forth by Pride Alliance, Black Student Union, the Center for Multicultural Affairs, Student Affairs and Interdisciplinary Studies.
“It’s a lot of different intersecting identities, [so] we were able to get groups to co-sponsor,” said Amanda Pruden, president of Pride, as well as a senior double major in public relations and women’s and gender studies.
Although the Athletics Department is not officially co-sponsoring Allums’ visit to campus, Pruden hopes athletes will attend the event, because she believes Allums’ words are as relevant to them as they are to members of the queer community.
Moreover, “athletes never really come to Pride, and people in Pride don’t really go to athletic events,” Pruden added, “so it’s a good way to kind of bridge those two groups of people on campus.”
Allums’ talk will be the main event at the Closing Ceremony, which will bring the celebration of Queer History Month to a close. In the past, Pride has hosted a dinner for its members as the closing ceremony, but this year the group decided to spend all of the money it normally would have spent on food to bring Allums in; this allows Pride and all of the other event co-sponsors to reach a larger audience than has been reached in the past.
During the summer of 2013, Allums traveled around the United States and the United Kingdom, spending a day in the life of eight different transgender individuals. Each individual’s story was filmed and put together into a short documentary Allums created as a way to spread transgender awareness.
His documentary and the speeches he gives to athletics departments and universities around the country are part of his project, “I am Enough,” an organization and initiative which, according to its YouTube channel, is “a storytelling platform dedicated to promoting self-love, acceptance and respect for everyone on the gender spectrum.”
Allums’ talk at the Closing Ceremony will focus on his intersecting identities and will be followed by a question and answer session open to the entire audience, which Pruden notes is a safe space for individuals to inquire about information that they may not normally feel comfortable acquiring on their own terms.
“I would like non-Pride members to take away that there is no one way to fit into a label; there are so many different aspects of everyone, and everyone walks around with 10 different jobs they have to do — 10 different identities — and they’re just constantly trying to juggle those and how they affect each other,” said Pruden. “I think it’s really important, because sometimes it’s easy to label someone as one thing.”
The Pride Queer History Month Closing Ceremony will take place in Thompson Hall, room 101, from 7 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30. The event is free and open to the public.