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Thursday June 6, 2019
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com MICHIGAN IN COLOR

Pride month feature: “Not my binary”

When I was five years old, I found myself 
on a muddy, cold football field. I was in kin-
dergarten playing flag football in Saginaw, 
Michigan. I was the only girl. That day, I 
didn’t think about being the only girl on the 
field, I only remembered being forced onto 
my back by an illegal tackle and scoring a 
touchdown the following play. My anger 
seemed to propel me to the end zone, my 
father screaming for joy when I crossed the 
threshold unscaved.
From five years old, I’ve loved the rug-
gedness of contact sports and the masculin-
ity associated with such sporting events. I’ve 
found solace in the volatility of a basketball 
game, the ebb and flow of organized sports. 
I fell in love with the way my father com-
municated with me through the analysis of a 
turnover or a missed shot. Sports was my lan-
guage, my love. But, as I became older, I real-
ized that my masculinity was only supposed 
to be regulated within the lines of a basketball 
court or flag football field.

Growing up, I always felt more like one 
of the “boys” than the “girls.” Back then, I 
thought my masculinity was weird and wrong. 
It was often times critiqued by the extremely 
heterosexual, feminine Christian women 
that I grew up around. I was not girl enough. 
To them, my body language screamed mas-
culine, while my body screamed feminine. To 
them, my actions screamed man, while my 
words screamed woman. 
At that age, I didn’t 
understand the magni-
tude of the restrictions 
being placed on me, of 
the incorrectness asso-
ciated with those state-
ments, and how they 
would affect me in the 
future. It took me sixteen 
years to perform the mental gymnastics to 
evade the language spewed to misinform my 
true identity, and it may take me many more 
to stick the landing.
At twenty-one years old, I can say with 
complete assurance FUCK THE BINARY! 
The binary system that we’ve created within 
our society is trash. In this regard, it focuses 

on gender, but we’ve done ourselves a great 
disservice in every aspect of binaristic life. 
We live in a world where there are usually 
two choices: right or wrong, good or bad, 
straight or gay, man or woman. We restrict 
our mobility so much that our muscles begin 
to atrophy into binaristic semblances of once 
healthy tissue. Life cannot be a binary wheth-
er you’re talking about gender or anything 
else. The shades of grey 
that we live within are so 
vivid, yet society hates to 
admit that they exist.
My biological female 
frame does not inform 
how I must live my life; 
I don’t have to reside 
within the confines of 
a socially constructed 
binary to fit the aesthetic of “woman.” I am 
womxn because I feel innately womxn. I 
am womxn with the coarse hair that grows 
throughout my body, with the wide hips that 
extend back to generations of Black bodies. I 
am womxn with my snapback and my baggy 
shorts. I am womxn with my tight black shirt 
and my close-fitting denim. I am womxn with 

oversized hoodies and loose-fitting denim. I 
am womxn with a constant sweater-to-boot-
to-tennis shoe ratio.
I am womxn without a fresh face of the lat-
est foundation. I am womxn without groom-
ing my eyebrows or shaving my armpit hair. 
I am womxn with my stud earrings. I am 
womxn with my thick 4c hair. I am womxn 
with braids extending from the front of my 
head to the very back. I am womxn with mini 
twists that morph into gorgeous locs. I am 
womxn without manipulating my tight curls 
after I arise from my slumber. I am womxn 
with a freshly shaven bald head. I am womxn 
with my arms wrapped around another 
womxn, she/them lying on my chest in the 
warmest embrace, our heartbeats producing 
a melodic symphony of revolutionary love 
and anti-binaristic, holistically-loving badas-
sery.
I AM WOMXN BECAUSE I SAY I AM.
And however my masculine and femi-
nine energies decide to reside in my biologi-
cally female frame, I’ll let them. Since I was 
five years old, my body restricted the binary 
because it was never made to live within it, 
but wherever it wanted to.

I AM WOMXN 
BECAUSE I SAY I 
AM.

DIERRA BARLOW
MiC Podcast Editor

