But I 39-m. Cheerleader Apr 2026

It took a philosophy professor—of all people—to cure me. We were discussing performative utterance, the idea that saying something makes it so. I raised my hand and gave an example from the football field: a cheerleader shouts “Defense!” and suddenly thirty thousand people are stomping in unison. The professor smiled and said, “That’s not performative. That’s magic.”

So go ahead. Underestimate the girl with the pompoms. but i 39-m. cheerleader

Because the but was a lie. The but suggested that my real self was hiding behind the pompoms, that the skirts and the chants were a distraction from the actual me: the reader, the debater, the future lawyer. But here is the secret I have learned, standing on the sideline of my own life: It took a philosophy professor—of all people—to cure me

So I did. And for the first time, I wrote “I am a cheerleader” without the but . The professor smiled and said, “That’s not performative