Binary Bashers

History Loves Neat Categories.

We Don’t.

BINARY BASHERS is an original audio docu-series produced by Embracing All of Me. The first volume explores Black historical figures whose lives challenged the rigidity of race, identity, desire, gender, and belonging.

The series brings into focus individuals whose emotional, relational, and embodied complexity has systemically been flattened, or excluded, from dominant historical narratives.

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What is a Binary Basher?

“I mean to be fully and freely all that I am“

JUNE JORDAN

Binary Bashers: Volume I challenges the idea that Black U.S. and global majority histories must be singular or easily categorized to be valid or recognized. Binary Bashers restores depth to these legacies by tracing how desire, relationships, embodiment, and social life have long moved beyond colonial, heteronormative, and monosexual frameworks. Rather than imposing modern identity labels, it excavates and reads archives, creative work, and community memory to understand how complex ways of living were expressed and recognized in their own time.

“Multiplicity is not confusion.
It’s capacity.“

DR. IBRAHIM FARAJAJE

Binary Bashers is a historical audio documentary series for mature audiences (16+).
Episodes contain discussions of racial violence, trauma, and systemic oppression.
Parents: please preview episodes before sharing with younger listeners.

Featured Figures: Volume I

sources page
faqs

Methodology

In Binary Bashers, “bi-coded” is an interpretive lens, used to translate historical figures own writing, art, and lived experience into modern times. “Bi-coded” is not a retroactive identity label. It’s a contextual and historically situated interpretative lens that asks how would we interpret this figure’s work and where they may fit socially if we knew what we know now.

TermWhat it impliesEvidence needed
Bi/bisexualAttraction to multiple genders (self-defined)Self-identification in speech, writing, or interviews
“Bi-coded“Attraction to multiple genders (inferred)Documented relationships, diaries, letters, oral accounts, works, and credible historical accounts
“Queer-coded“Broad nonconformity, Non-heterosexual or non-normative identity signals, politics, culture, themes, no clear evidence of multi-gender attractionThemes, gender expression, speculation
Binary Bashers Framework Table

Queer-coded is broader and usually means the person’s life, art, gender expression, or relationships challenge heteronormativity, but there may be no clear evidence of multi-gender attraction. Because queer-coded figures can easily drift into lesbian or gay histories, leaving the bi option as a gap.

RESEARCH & SOURCES

Grounded in primary and secondary sources, including:

Full citations and resources provided on the Sources page

“The machinery of racial discrimination operates through laws, customs, and practices which, taken together, form a comprehensive pattern.”

PAULI MURRAY

Themes & Topics

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Season Finale: Hard in America – Frances Thompson – BINARY BASHERS

Frances Thompson, a formerly enslaved Black trans woman, lived her womanhood in public despite escalating danger in post, Civil War Memphis. She survived the white supremacist violence of the 1866 Memphis Riots and testified before Congress, placing her voice into the national archive at a time when Black women were rarely heard.Later arrested under laws policing gender nonconformity, Thompson's life reveals how race, gender, and state power intertwined during Reconstruction era United States — and why her testimony still matters as debates over bodily autonomy and public identity continue 150 years later in 2026.Music: "Hard in America" by Gabriel Kelley, licensed through Epidemic Sound.A Note on Sources:This episode was made with care. It's based on established scholarship and publicly available archival records. If we've made an error, please let us know at https://binarybasherspodcast.comEmbracing All of Me is a storytelling and advocacy platform for the multi, complex, and in-between, uplifting the voices of Bi+ people of color, our kin and friends. Visit our FAQs and Sources page to learn more about how this episode was developed.Topics: Frances Thompson, Black trans history, Black transgender history, Reconstruction era, 1866 Memphis Riots, Congressional testimony, Black women's history, gender nonconformity, trans resistance, bodily autonomy, LGBTQ+ history, Black queer history, post-Civil War America, trans historical figures
  1. Season Finale: Hard in America – Frances Thompson
  2. Too Much At Once, Just Right for History – Pauli Murray
  3. Multiplicity Was the Point – Dr. Ibrahim Farajajé
  4. Beyond the Bars, Beyond the Binary – Kuwasi Balagoon's Revolution
  5. Fully and Freely All That I Am – June Jordan
  6. Tired of Being a Saint – Alice Dunbar-Nelson
  7. Between Thunder and Lightning – Countee Cullen
  8. The Fluid Life of Leslie Hutchinson
  9. She Sang What She Couldn't Say – Ma Rainey