16: Pauli Murray, In Their Own Words

In this episode of Assigned Sex, Unarchived , Shaun tells the story of Pauli Murray : writer, lawyer, poet, civil-rights strategist, and Episcopal priest. The episode sits with the question of Pauli Murray’s gender without forcing an answer Murray never had the language or safety to give publicly.

Murray wrote about feeling like “a girl who should have been a boy,” sought hormones and medical intervention in the 1930s and 1940s, used the name Oliver during a 1940 arrest, and described wanting to move toward their masculine side. Scholars disagree on how Murray would identify today; Shaun centers Murray’s own words, which point in several directions at once.

If you are searching for information about Pauli Murray’s gender identity, Jane Crow, Pauli Murray’s role in Brown v. Board of Education , Black transgender history, or the life of the first Black woman Episcopal priest, this episode is for you.

Follow Assigned Sex on Facebook and Instagram at @assignedsex, and subscribe to the Assigned Sex newsletter on Substack for episode updates and extended conversations. Credits: Host: Shaun Dawson · Audio Engineer: Aaron Freeman · Producers: Shaun Dawson & Nandikayyy · Sound Design: Nandikayyy Sources: — Oral History Interview with Pauli Murray, February 13, 1976 — Southern Oral History Program Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: Documenting the American South — “Pauli Murray the Pixie Priest: ‘Tiny as My Little Contribution Is, It Makes a Difference’” — Pauli Murray Center : SoundCloud - “Rosalind Rosenberg on the Life and Legacy of Pauli Murray” — Oxford Academic (Oxford University Press) : YouTube — “Civil Rights Pioneer Pauli Murray Getting Increased Recognition” — CBS New York : YouTube