# data[].attributes.body
Before I am recognized, I exist in a space where I am not seen—neither man nor woman. This space is one of erasure, where Blackness is ignored and gender doesn’t exist. As C. Riley Snorton writes, "gender functions as an effect of plantation visuality, wherein captive flesh expressed an ungendered position that defines race as the sine qua non of sex" (Snorton, 104). My body, in this moment, doesn’t fit into any category. It’s not that I don’t have identity, but that I’m not allowed to have one that’s visible or understood in the way society demands.

In this space before recognition, I’m not just undefined—I’m erased. My Blackness and gender are invisible, and I’m reduced to an "ungendered flesh," like Snorton describes. This isn’t a neutral space; it’s one that’s been created by history and the refusal to allow Black people the ability to define themselves on their own terms.

When interpellation arrives, when I’m finally called into visibility, it’s not because I’ve chosen to be seen—it’s because the world has forced its own idea of who I am onto me. But before that, I’m nothing. I’m not even a person to be understood, but only something to be erased and remade by the standards of others. This space before recognition is where my identity is both denied and where I am left with the possibility of creating something new.

# data[].attributes.body
The flash hits me—sharp and sudden—but it doesn’t reveal who I am. My hands instinctively rise to shield my face, blocking the harsh light. In that moment, my Blackness blends into the darkness, while the whiteness of my palms becomes visible in contrast. The flash doesn’t really see me; it captures my body, but not what’s inside. My Blackness disappears in the shadows, and only a piece of me is left behind, shaped by the light.

I’m caught in this tension—named by the flash, but still invisible. The light makes me visible, but not in the way I want. It forces me into a mold that isn’t mine, only showing a fragment of who I am, not the whole picture. As Butler said, “the ‘I’ draws what is called its ‘agency’ in part through being implicated in the very relations of power that it seeks to oppose” (Butler, 83). The flash wants me to be visible, but not on my own terms.

I often joke about turning on the lights when I’m around white people, because I know I won’t be seen fully otherwise. But even in that light, I’m still not truly visible. The light may reveal my form, but it doesn’t capture me as I am—it only shows the version of me that fits someone else’s idea.

# data[].attributes.body
Masculinity is here—structured, imposed, undeniable. And yet, it stands in my way. The suits, the buttons, the suitcase—objects of formality, objects of power—are meant to belong to me, but instead, they form a barrier. I peer through them, trapped behind their weight, smothered by their rigidity. They do not stretch, do not shift. They were made for someone else—someone I will never be.

But I want them. I want masculinity, yes—but not as a cage. I do not want to wear it as a straightjacket. I want to breathe inside it. So, I linger in the tension, I think—because I will need one of my own. One that has space for all that I am.

Preciado writes about the pharmaceuticalization of the body, "Once captured, the ape says he had no choice: if he did not wish to die locked up in a cage, he had to accept the ‘cage’ of human subjectivity" (Preciado, 12). The suit is not just clothing—it is a cage, demanding conformity. But, like Red Peter, I must navigate the cage, remaking it to fit my body. Unlike Red Peter, I will thrive in this cage, and allow myself to breathe.

Butler adds, "One does not stand at an instrumental distance from the terms by which one experiences violation...but it is also the occasion to work the mobilizing power of injury, of an interpellation one never chose" (Butler, 83). My desire for masculinity is not about fully adopting it, but reshaping it. I choose to occupy the cage and redefine what it means for me.

# data[].attributes.body
This is not my hand. This is not my choice. The grip is firm—possessive. My chest, my body, rendered unacceptable, yet still claimed, held down, pushed flat, forced into a shape it cannot hold. Masculinity is not offered—it is imposed, external, and violent. As Preciado observes, the body is a "colony of disciplinary institutions"—a space continually shaped and reshaped by forces that demand compliance (Preciado, 26). My chest, this softness, does not belong to that mold. It resists. It fights against flattening—against the erasure of its truth. The grip insists that I become something I cannot be, and in that insistence, I find the violence of the cage.

Heteronormative masculinity does not know what to do with my body—it cannot measure up, it cannot flatten into the lines of a firm chest. The pressure mounts, the standards grow tighter, but the chest refuses. It is a site of non-conformity, a place where the body refuses to bend to the cage it is supposed to inhabit. As Judith Butler writes, "Identifying with a gender under contemporary regimes of power involves identifying with a set of norms that are and are not realizable" (Butler, 86). Masculinity is one of those norms—an impossible ideal that is both demanded and unattainable. But this chest resists. The pressure does not relent, but neither will I. I will not fold myself into something I am not, no matter how tightly the grip tightens.

This chest, then, is not just a site of refusal against masculinity—it is a declaration of what I am. It is not about what I cannot be, but about the paradox of being pressed into conformity while insisting on staying whole. The fullness, the roundness, the softness—it is the antithesis of the cage, the antithesis of the external forces that demand I fit within them. My chest cannot be flattened. It cannot be erased. It is not just resistance—it is my defiance, my freedom within a system that demands otherwise.

# data[].attributes.body
Masculinity hails. It calls, shapes, and positions. Judith Butler reminds us that interpellation does not offer an exit—it does not ask, Do you accept this role? It simply places you within it, and in that placement, you become. The suit, the objects, the markers of a masculinity that was not mine but was imposed upon me—those are what others see, what is visible. My body—my body—was an afterthought, often obscured, difficult to see.

Masculinity, then, was an external force, something affixed to me, rather than something I possessed.

But here, in this image, that external force is gone. In its absence, I stand fully present, visible, in a suit that I choose. The contrast lies not in light but in my autonomy: I am the one who decides what I present. My hands rest over my chest, gently caging it. The chest—soft, full—resists, yet I hold it in place, crafting my own constraints.

As Hortense Spillers reminds us, “the fact of domination is alterable only to the extent that the dominated subject recognizes the potential power of its own ‘double-consciousness.’” I see it, and I love it. The suit is not a tool of erasure—it is my frame, my choice, my construction. The suit does not obscure me; it holds me together, a paradox of self-definition in an unavoidable structure.

I do not resist masculinity. I perform it willingly, embracing the paradox of being confined while also free. Butler reminds us that we do not escape interpellation, but we can mold it, reshape it—not by breaking free, but by choosing our own constraints.

Here, I cage myself—and I love it.