diff --git a/Cargo.lock b/Cargo.lock
index eaea58bd0..a28eaf122 100644
--- a/Cargo.lock
+++ b/Cargo.lock
@@ -177,7 +177,6 @@ dependencies = [
  "clap",
  "clap_mangen",
  "fn-error-context",
- "gvariant",
  "hex",
  "indicatif",
  "indoc",
diff --git a/lib/Cargo.toml b/lib/Cargo.toml
index e553c9294..4289e0802 100644
--- a/lib/Cargo.toml
+++ b/lib/Cargo.toml
@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ clap_mangen = { version = "0.2.20", optional = true }
 cap-std-ext = { workspace = true, features = ["fs_utf8"] }
 hex = "^0.4.3"
 fn-error-context = { workspace = true }
-gvariant = "0.5.0"
 indicatif = "0.17.8"
 libc = { workspace = true }
 liboverdrop = "0.1.0"
diff --git a/lib/src/lsm.rs b/lib/src/lsm.rs
index af0306658..d801a8f88 100644
--- a/lib/src/lsm.rs
+++ b/lib/src/lsm.rs
@@ -19,8 +19,6 @@ use cap_std_ext::cap_std::fs::{Metadata, MetadataExt};
 #[cfg(feature = "install")]
 use cap_std_ext::dirext::CapStdExtDirExt;
 use fn_error_context::context;
-#[cfg(feature = "install")]
-use gvariant::{aligned_bytes::TryAsAligned, Marker, Structure};
 use ostree_ext::gio;
 use ostree_ext::ostree;
 use rustix::fd::AsFd;
@@ -177,12 +175,12 @@ pub(crate) fn selinux_set_permissive(permissive: bool) -> Result<()> {
 #[cfg(feature = "install")]
 /// Check if the ostree-formatted extended attributes include a security.selinux value.
 pub(crate) fn xattrs_have_selinux(xattrs: &ostree::glib::Variant) -> bool {
-    let v = xattrs.data_as_bytes();
-    let v = v.try_as_aligned().unwrap();
-    let v = gvariant::gv!("a(ayay)").cast(v);
-    for xattr in v.iter() {
-        let k = xattr.to_tuple().0;
-        if k == SELINUX_XATTR {
+    let n = xattrs.n_children();
+    for i in 0..n {
+        let child = xattrs.child_value(i);
+        let key = child.child_value(0);
+        let key = key.data_as_bytes();
+        if key == SELINUX_XATTR {
             return true;
         }
     }
@@ -419,3 +417,19 @@ where
         f(w)
     })
 }
+
+#[cfg(test)]
+mod tests {
+    use super::*;
+    use gio::glib::Variant;
+
+    #[test]
+    fn test_selinux_xattr() {
+        let notfound: &[&[(&[u8], &[u8])]] = &[&[], &[(b"foo", b"bar")]];
+        for case in notfound {
+            assert!(!xattrs_have_selinux(&Variant::from(case)));
+        }
+        let found: &[(&[u8], &[u8])] = &[(b"foo", b"bar"), (SELINUX_XATTR, b"foo_t")];
+        assert!(xattrs_have_selinux(&Variant::from(found)));
+    }
+}