The Nonbinary Blackness of Pauli Murray and Ornette Coleman: Constraint and Freedom within the Glandular Imaginary

Abstract

Abstract: This short essay reflects on desires for body modification expressed by civil rights activist Pauli Murray and jazz innovator Ornette Coleman to offer some preliminary thoughts on the concept of “nonbinary Blackness.” It compares the different ways Murray and Coleman negotiated the “glandular imaginary” that informed mid-twentieth-century ideas about sex, gender, and identity, and influenced decisions they made about their own bodies. The transmasculine Murray reconciled to living as a woman once medical examinations determined that there was no hormonal or gonadal cause for her/their masculine identifications, while Coleman, a seemingly cisgender man, drew creative insight from his decision to undergo the genital surgery of circumcision.