Put some bass in your voice.

My authenticity was radical before my identity was.

And my state of being came before my sexuality.  Before I could even conceptualize liking someone of the same sex 

males around me perpetuated homophobia and sexism to veer me away

from my natural state of femininity. 

I was a mild-mannered, docile child. 

I followed the instructions given to me, talked back just a little, and minded the business that entertained me.

Beyonce, comes to mind.

I always had an infatuation for femininity as a child. High treble tones, bold colors, and soft fabrics always intrigued my mind.

I watched Beyonce flow and twirl on sandy beaches with oiled up skin and heavenly vocals 

I was enthralled with what I saw 

it was beautiful

It was sacred. 

It was what my brain gravitated towards. 

Despite my mind being feminine

it was not quite my social reality. 

Growing up

My mom was masculine

She is gorgeous and has a figure that most plus size women dreamed of, 

but her inkling was to wear baggier clothes, earthier hair, and masculine scents.

Her fear was anger

And her happiness was ego

A true aries at heart 

She is expression personified 

She had the pull and personality of a male comic

And while she is feminine now

Androgyny was her baseline 

My grandfather was the epitome of a man.

His toxic, abusive masculine phase was overshadowed by his newfound love and upheaval of Christ. 

He wasn’t toxic about his masculinity, but he was still manly.

His energy was strong. 

Actually the strongest 

He dominated most spaces he entered 

Every room he was in centered him 

He didn’t have to speak.

He was a man. 

A quiet one.

An honest one. 

He didn’t over speak,

He didn’t over express. 

He action was his words

His rest was masculine

So how in the hell did I become so feminine? 

Before those Beyonce films 

my voice was always as high as can be.

Yes, I was young, but my natural inflection skewed high. 

It was normal to me, 

But in 2nd grade

On my first bus ride to school 

a 4th grader told me I “sounded like a fag”

All I said was

Hi, I’m Jailon. 

To express my young feminity

I walked in my grandma’s heels 

With t-shirts on my head pretending I had a messy bun

It was authentic. 

Very much organic

And nothing about my experience felt like an emulation.

It just felt like nature.

Until I met the world of black manhood

outside of my safe haven of a home. 

My mom is a suburban raised woman,

Who spent her life around ratchet shit. 

She was kicked out her home at 17 for being gay, so she found lots of comfort and solace in the hood. 

Because of this my mom would frequently drag me out of the city so she could mix and mingle with her friends and lovers because the suburbs are boring. Together they’d drink, smoke, play cards, and dominos while I sat in a room upstairs with whatever other children were there to congregate and avoid the weed smoke. Our parents were respectful about their substance indulgences. 

While she was living her life, I was getting acquainted to mine with my peers in these spaces. I had never deemed myself to be a sheltered child because I couldn’t conceptualize it at the time, but I sure as shit was because these kids always seem far more advanced than me sociologically. They understood sexuality, race, sex, and so much more before I could even grasp what the lyrics to a song meant because it was their reality. While mine was west county. 

In these rooms, the boys would always be thrown off by my presence. After our congregation I’d notice how their fathers never really let me play with them much after, and how most of us could just never get along aside of our mutual enjoyment of video games. Hell, even that was a bit of a conflict because I was whopping ass with all girl characters. I’d always get swooned with the “why do you always use girl characters?” question somewhere into the 3rd or 4th ass whooping. 

Because what I found in my early socialization was that my femininity was taboo to everyone I encountered. It was unnatural, it was uncanny, and it was unnecessary to most. A common phrase I’d hear from the black males I’d meet in my urban socialization was “put some bass in your voice.” It was always jarring. There was always an immediate silence of every other male in the room too. It was like an initiation to see if I would comply to what manhood was. Oddly enough, my radical, unsocialized, sheltered ass would go, “for who?” Because why on God’s green earth would I fabricate a deeper tone and inflection for another man’s satisfaction?

It was so funny to witness other men fume at the mere fact that I refused to submit to other men. Faggotry was perpetuated onto me, but I was the least faggiest in the room. For, I lived for myself. I didn’t care about the male validation. I care about what was comfortable. And being high -pitched and nasally, worked for me. 

I think often about how my slightly sheltered nature and household norm of my speaking my unfiltered mind protected me from the socialization that is black manhood and masculinity. I think about what life would have been like if I had a family that heavily policed and beaten my natural instincts out of me. 

For a long time I used to think white spaces were safer because they were more accepting of my queerness. I’d later find out them niggas started this shit and it was in fact, NOT safer to be queer in white spaces. 

All I know is, I’m glad that I never did put bass in my voice.