“Unique, Divine, Unrepeatable”: S. F. Makalani-MaHee and the Black Trans Christian Archive

research article

Elizabeth Pérez

abstract

The late Bishop S. F. Makalani-MaHee (1972–2017) was a minister, activist, actor/singer, composer, and spoken word artist. His essays, songs, poetry, plays, and sermons reflect his “Blackpentecostal” and Southern Baptist upbringing as well as his embrace of liberation theology, womanism, and Black feminist thought. This article analyzes his only published collection of poems, Don’t!, as a profound repertoire and theological manifesto with the aid of his autobiographical writings, performances, and eponymous archive housed at the Stonewall National Museum and Archives. Don’t! contests patriarchal, cisgender-sexist constructions of masculinity by paying homage to Black grandmothers, mothers, femmes, and cisgender (or “nontrans”) “sister friends.” This article argues that Don’t! is a declaration of his woman-centered theorization of transmasculinity and his queer/trans Christology, which should be brought into conversation with texts in the womanist canon. The article further contends that Don’t! enriches the Black trans Christian archive and disrupts the “whitewashed” master narratives of LGBTQ experience.

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