In this body of work, I reflect on the role of hair and protective styling as a means of understanding my queerness through the lens of my blackness. The braiding of afro-textured hair serves, both in this work and in the cultural practices that this work references, as a means of self-transformation that exists uniquely within blackness. As such, I seek to address the ways in which the visual cues often associated with queerness intersect with the visual aesthetics of blackness, where hair occupies a space somewhere between body and ornament.