SI Swimsuit's Leyna Blooms's Take on Boxes and Binaries - Swimsuit | SI.com

SI Staff | Mar 18, 2022

"I love sports. Growing up, certain people around me [said], oh, well you're too feminine to like sports. Okay, well, I can throw a really good football. I could race. I'll show you how feminine I am. I can't go to a basketball court and celebrate the Bulls because I'm transgender?

We put so many boxes on people. That's why ballroom is so important because we can't go into those spaces. So we create our own. But we need to get to a point where those people that are in ballroom can go into a basketball court and be flamboyant and be trans and be this ray of rainbow and still [the] basketball team [says] thank you for being here.

Thank you for bringing your community. Let's all enjoy this game together. We need more people like me in a position of power in those spaces. Before I leave this earth, I just want to make sure for education[al] reasons, we need to put all different types of people from all different walks of life into schools.

So when they're not in school, when they're out in the real world, it will be just kind of like 'I had an anatomy teacher and she was transgender. I understand. She taught me about my body.' Imagine how important that is, to learn about your body from a trans woman. I think that's powerful."

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