Keinan Carpenter always dreamed of playing professional basketball.
When Carpenter, founder of the Trans Masculine Alliance Sports Club, started transitioning at 22, he kept playing women’s basketball and flag football, and found inclusion, though he still faced misgendering, among other issues.
But on Sunday, teams of all genders and ages took to the courts for a three-versus-three basketball tournament held ahead of Tuesday's International Transgender Day of Visibility.
It was the first of its kind for Carpenter and Mars Cantino, an organizer with WNBGAY, who put the event together as a way to combat the exclusion they and other trans people have faced in sports.
“We shouldn’t have to sacrifice our identity to be included,” said Carpenter, 25. “If I can’t play professionally, how can I make a space that’s professional athletics for queer and trans people? So that’s the goal, there’s no limit, there’s no ‘I can’t’ — let me just make the space.”
The court, split into competitive and recreational sides, pitted players against each other for 15-minute matchups. Carpenter and Cantino first met three weeks ago and worked to coordinate their groups to make the tournament happen.
Supportive cheers filled the gaps between sneaker squeaks and the sound of the ball hitting the Center on Halsted’s hardwood gym floor.
Gia drives to the hoop during a Transgender Day of Visibility 3x3 basketball tournament at Center on Halsted in Chicago on Sunday.
Talia Sprague/For the Sun-Times
But it comes as trans people are further governed out of athletics.
As of Thursday, transgender women athletes are banned from women’s events at the Olympics after the IOC — whose Olympic Charter states that access to play sport is a human right — agreed to a new eligibility policy that it says aligns with President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Games. Only one openly trans woman has ever competed in the Olympics: weightlifter Laurel Hubba
