Kymora Johnson and her team, the Charlottesville Cavaliers, were well on their way to the finals at the National Travel Basketball Association's annual tournament when officials up and decided the Cavaliers were no longer eligible to take part. Why?
Because Johnson, 10, is a girl.
Despite a five-game winning streak at the tournament, Johnson, a point guard and shooting guard, and the rest of her 10-player team were disqualified due to the fact that Johnson is female, according to Petula Dvorak of the Washington Post.
"I was, like, shocked," said Kymora. "And disappointed."
The Charlottesville, Va., native joined the Cavaliers at age 5 after her mother, Jessica Thomas-Johnson, discovered there were no girls-only teams in that age group.
"I can't believe this is 2015, and my daughter isn't allowed to play with boys," Thomas-Johnson said. "What message does this send to other girls? What message does it send to boys?"
Kymora has joined her male teammates at the tournament for the past two years, without incident. At some point this year, though, tournament officials decided that while girls are allowed to play in league games and scrimmages, they cannot take part in the tournament.
When Kymora learned that the team would be disqualified because of her presence, she offered the coaches the option to just disqualify her.
"I wanted my team to be able to make the championships, to be able to play," Kymora told Dvorak.
Oddly, Kymora's team wasn't the only one disqualified. Another squad was removed from the tournament after officials realized they also had a female player. Both girls had to check in at the beginning of the tournament and present birth certificates.
"Kymora had her hair down. She had a headband on. She had hot pink nail polish on her nails," Thomas-Johnson said. "They knew she was a girl."
NTBA President John Whitley argued that the tournament had made its new boys-only rule quite plain and that officials didn't stop Kymora from participating because she was mostly on the bench.
"We have no problem with the girls sitting on the bench," Whitley told the Charlottesville Daily Progress. "We don't care who sits on the bench with the teams, that goes for anybody ... to sit on the bench."
Despite the disqualification, Kymora said that her teammates continued to be kind to her. They even went so far as to don pink shirts in support of her as the team that took their place in the finals took the court.
"They were nice and supportive. They were all, like, 'It's not your fault!'" she said.
"The kids," Thomas-Johnson said, "were behaving better than the adults in this case."
Kymora, despite the tournament's decision, doesn't have any plans to stop playing with the Cavs anytime soon.
"You have to fight for your freedom," she said. "You have to fight for the right to do it."
