BY LYNDEN HARRIS
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/2011/01/12/61858/when-we-dont-quite-fit.htmlSo, what does it feel like to wake every day uncomfortable in your own skin? To rise every single day feeling completely at odds with the body you inhabit and its place in the world? As part of the Pauli Murray Project, Hidden Voices is developing a performance about Pauli Murray's extraordinary life and activism. The overt discrimination she faced as a woman and as a person of color was grueling and constant wherever she went, from North Carolina to New Haven. But her most profound disconnect was between her innate sense of self and her ability to allow that truth free reign. Pauli Murray identified as a male.
In a world where women, especially Negro women, were the most oppressed and overlooked group, it must have been powerfully alluring to identify with a group that had agency. Who wouldn't rather be male, with their options for careers and education, freedom of travel and self-determination?
But it wasn't just that Pauli was active, ambitious, and exceptionally smart, qualities thought problematic, even psychotic, in females. She was a guy.
