Accepting myself and the other Jefferies I’ve been

by | Jul 1, 2024 | 0 comments

Who I am as a queer person is a huge part of who I am and will continue to be. I don’t imagine myself any less queer in the future. Growing up, I had to separate and change how I acted depending on who I was with. It was exhausting but I had learned from a young age no one will like the real Jeffery, so I must split myself apart to be accepted. I had to change how I spoke when I would ask for things, and I always found myself mirroring others.

I’ve always felt different, maybe it was how I was raised, or how I applied myself in school, but there was always a level of disconnect with things like my gender or just me in general. I officially started going by Jeffery in fifth grade. It started out as a nickname when I was in fourth grade, and it just grew from that. I was so happy that people stopped calling me by that awful name my father gave me, and I started to realize I hated how gendered things were in school. I went to a couple uniforms schools, and when I was forced to wear a dress or skirt, I would always switch to pants or shorts to feel more comfortable with myself.

I loved it. My deadname was being forgotten, and I didn’t even realize I was socially transitioning until in sixth grade when I expressed to one of my teachers that I felt uncomfortable with girlhood and manhood. I knew I wasn’t a girl, but I couldn’t shake what society had viewed me as, and the teacher recommended I look into the queer community. She even started using he/him for me, and it made me feel like the pieces of the puzzle that I was always searching for were finally connecting.

My first look around was the world of the internet, where I had a lot of good and bad experiences and learned a great deal about myself.

I’m a trans person—more on the nonbinary spectrum. I consider myself a man, but a man thing? I recently made a discovery that I might be asexual, and the label “queer” has felt better-suited for me.

Getting into the community 

Getting into the community, I was first so worried about labels, because that’s who the loudest people are at first, and once I started to enter queer spaces, I realized I had to start fighting with myself again.

Being black and queer is one of the most lonely feelings in this world. I was well used to racism, because I had gone to a Christian white school. But I had assumed a community who had faced similar problems would be free of such views. I was very wrong to discover there’s only certain things a black queer person can do or look like. Trying to find resources or even just someone else who looks like you is hard. Online spaces were the only ones a young child like me could access.

Things weren’t always so bad. I joined a Discord full of different people who helped shape parts of me. The me of today is different from the me from yesterday, and the me of today will also be different from the me of tomorrow.

The community had not welcomed me warmly at first. My changes were still being accepted at home; when I came out officially to my mother as bi, she said she knew I was gay already. However being queer and trans seem to also be different things. Once Covid started, my identity was able to grow, and soon I had changed my name in the MPS school system, and my first year in high school really added to my experience.

Meeting another black queer person is an awakening. It’s like, “I’m not the only one.”

I’m not the only one 

Finally, I wasn’t the only gay kid in the room, but being a trans kid was a whole ‘nother story. I was an even rarer Pokémon, and everyone just seemed to ask me weird questions at every turn. It felt like no one would ever understand that I was a man. The transphobia didn’t seem to end during those times. As I stayed at Marshall, it became less and less, because people just grew up and didn’t really care that I was the trans kid anymore. There were people who made me feel so small and others who made me stand proud as I do now. The friendships I made then, and the ones I continue to have now, have made being queer in such a close-minded city all the more easier.

I have so much joy for both my communities, but also a feeling of sadness that I will never truly fit in. But that’s who I am! I’m Jeffery, and you are you! I was never supposed to fit in a box. We are supposed to grow and enjoy life as we have it. Our identities shape us, but do not have to chain us. I stopped letting transphobia, homophobia, and racism affect me because I realize life is far too short for me to allow myself to be miserable simply because others believe I should. I may change, but who I am as Jeffery—and the many different Jefferies I have grown from or I will grown into—won’t be any less queer or black than I am now.

I am simply me

I feel like I probably won’t be able to truly date anyone; the sad price of not fitting in is the fact that finding love will always come with a price. I feel like I’ll always be asked to hide a part of who I am, but I am not going to lower my stunning personality for someone or some people to appreciate me.

My advice: Don’t let yourself be unhappy because the world is. We are human beings. We only have so much time to enjoy and find out who we are. Stand proud that you are capable and worthy of that happiness, just as I am learning I am also deserving of it. There’s no shame in being queer. You are who you are because you are so many beautiful things at once. Being queer or being queer and black is a beautiful thing.

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