In the glittering salons of interwar Europe, where royalty mingled with film stars and empire still shaped the social order, Leslie “Hutch” Hutchinson moved with effortless grace.

Born in Grenada and rising to prominence in London, Hutch became one of the most celebrated cabaret singers of the 1920s and 30s.

His rumored romances with aristocrats and public figures unsettled rigid racial and sexual hierarchies, placing him at the fault lines of class, empire, and desire. In a society obsessed with appearances, he embodied both assimilation and quiet defiance.

This episode was made with care. It's based on established scholarship and publicly available information from credible sources. If we've made an error, please let us know at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://embracingallofme.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Embracing 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.

Born into the churn of Reconstruction-era Georgia, Ma Rainey, born Gertrude Pridgett, carved a voice that refused silence.

Long before the blues was archived, categorized, or commercialized, Rainey lived it, on tent-show stages, in juke joints, and in a life that unsettled respectability politics.

Known as the “Mother of the Blues,” she sang openly of desire, migration, and survival, leaving lyrical traces that scholars still parse for their radical honesty. Rainey’s recordings and rumored relationships complicate neat binaries of gender, sexuality, and propriety, offering instead a textured portrait of Black self-definition in the early twentieth century.

This episode was made with care. It's based on established scholarship and publicly available information from credible sources. If we've made an error, please let us know at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://embracingallofme.org⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Embracing 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.

Born into Jim Crow and refusing every box it tried to seal, Pauli Murray lived at the fault lines of American law, race, gender, and faith. Episode 6 of Binary Bashers, traces a life spent translating personal struggle into constitutional vision: from early challenges to segregated education, to legal theories that helped shape Brown v. Board of Education, to arguments against sex discrimination in Reed v. Reed that later undergirded Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s work.

Murray’s journals and letters reveal an interior life wrestling with identity beyond rigid binaries. As a poet, lawyer, activist, and eventually the first Black woman ordained an Episcopal priest, Murray insisted that justice must be capacious enough to hold contradiction, vulnerability, and hope.

This episode was made with care. It's based on established scholarship and publicly available information from credible sources. If we've made an error, please let us know at ⁠⁠⁠https://embracingallofme.org⁠⁠⁠⁠ Embracing 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.