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