Che Flores Comes Out & Makes History As NBA's First Trans Nonbinary Referee

Che Flores just became the NBA’s first transgender referee when they came out recently as transgender and nonbinary in a GQ article published Monday.

Flores, who is entering their second season as an NBA staff referee, decided to finally open up to their colleagues about their identity at an preseason meeting last month in the hopes of finding peace, though some NBA executives were told about how Flores identifies several months ago.

“One piece I was missing for myself was that no one knew how I identified,” the basketball ref said. “Being misgendered as she/her always just felt like a little jab in the gut.” Adding, “I can go through the world and even my job a lot more comfortably.”

Although trans athletes in sports is a contentious issue right, Flores hasn’t faced any push back in their role as referee. In fact, Monty McCutchen, head of the NBA’s referee training program, immediately switched pronouns once he was told about Flores’ identity and distributed their new pronouns to the league’s officiating operations.

For the first time a Denver announcer checked their pronouns before a game and both players and coaches were referring to them as Che on the floor. “It allowed me to be, I guess, free in a way,” Flores said. “I was like, ‘All right, cool. I’m here.’”

Flores has worked as a referee for about a decade in both the G League and the WNBA and have worked some to of basketballs biggest events like, the G League Finals, the WNBA Finals and the NCAA women’s national championship game.

Flores is hopeful that coming out will have an impact on young LGBTQ+ kids. “I just think of having younger queer kids look at somebody who’s on a high-profile stage and not using it,” Flores explained. “And I’m not using the league to an advantage in any way. This is just to let young kids know that we can exist, we can be successful in all different ways.”