Many know Pauli Murray for their 1940 arrest on a bus. Or for coining intersectionality’s predecessor, “Jane Crow.” But in 1931, a younger Murray, struggling with their gender and sexuality, was “running away.” After making the “dreadful mistake” of marrying a man at 20, Murray and their friend Dorothy, clad in Boy Scout uniforms, hitchhiked across the country. They stopped to use a restroom in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Bathrooms were questions. What are you?, they asked. Man? Woman? Or Colored? When Murray exited the men’s room and Dorothy the women’s, a Traveler’s Aid Society representative called the police. Understanding the stakes of this category trouble, Murray told the cops they were only pretending to be a boy as a prank and were released.
This incident has been aptly compared to North Carolina’s HB2, the bathroom positioned to police one’s assigned gender at birth. It’s relevant today, too.
Trump’s first actions included executive orders targeting LGBTQ+ communities and banning DEI programs. He claims to resist “socially engineer[ing] race and gender into every aspect of public and private life” and “forge a society that is colorblind and merit-based.”
History exists in patterns. As we navigate the present, remembering ancestors like Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray, who would successfully influence civil rights and gender equality movements, reminds us that survival is possible as our true selves.