My path towards becoming a professor has involved exploding a lot of binaries! The majority of these binaries are binary stars, that is two stars who orbit around one another, that sometimes ‘get in each other’s way’ creating violent and unusual explosions. The other binary I’ve ‘exploded’ is the idea that gender is only binary. I’ll talk about some exciting discoveries about the lives of binary stars and how they have shaped our Universe. I will also be discussing my own personal and academic path that I’ve followed while doing astrophysics. I’ll reflect on how someone who was first in their family to go to university became a professor in Aotearoa New Zealand while challenging the understanding of gender.