But I 39-m. Cheerleader <Windows>

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.”

She’s used to it. And she’s already counted you in. but i 39-m. cheerleader

We are not a series of contradictions. We are a routine: each move flowing into the next, the high-energy chant making space for the quiet huddle, the fall making the recovery mean something. It took a philosophy professor—of all people—to cure me

The room went still. He blinked. I watched him try to fit that square peg into the round hole of his insult. In his mind, cheerleader meant pompoms, spirit fingers, the girl who lifts others up so they can score. It did not mean logical fallacies, eye contact during a rebuttal, or a closing statement that made the judge nod. He had called me frivolous. I had agreed with him—and then redefined the entire dictionary. The professor smiled and said, “That’s not performative

So when I say “but I’m a cheerleader” now, I mean something specific.