Black Femme Queen Theology: The Archive Is Alive (Part 2) By M.I.T Nala Toussaint
Reclaiming Our Sacred Ancestors: Rooted in Lineage, Claimed in Spirit
You can’t name a theology like Black Femme Queen Theology and stop at the pulpit. You have to keep going. Because this theology lives in our blood, our breath, our banter, our ballroom, our back rooms, and our breaking.
This isn’t a closed canon. This is a living, breathing archive.
This offering is for the lineages that run beneath our theology; the Black diasporic wisdom, the erased names in scripture, the rootwork that still holds us. It’s for what was removed from the canon but never left our bones. For what was buried under colonial shame but continued to rise through griots, midwives, priestesses, and queens.
This theology drinks from rivers that were never dammed by doctrine. It flows through Kongo cosmograms, Ifá odu, Dagara grief rituals, Akan naming ceremonies, and Afro-Caribbean femmes who baptized us in coconut oil and eye contact. It lives in the hands of those who read both palms and Psalms, who dream in Yoruba and quote Revelation. It lives in the kitchen, the altar, the bush, the braid. It lives in trans bodies that do not apologize for bending binaries because our ancestors have always known that power doesn’t need permission to shift shape.
This Theology Has a Pulse
Black Femme Queen Theology is not theory; it has hips. It vogues. It weeps. It cackles. It carries pepper spray and Florida water in the same purse. It refuses to be footnoted.
This is a theology that dances at the altar and leaves glitter in the baptismal pool. It walks like Tracey Africa and sings like Jackie Shane. It knows that the ancestors speak through cowrie shells and communion wafers. That spirit is not bound by sanctuaries.
This theology doesn't begin and end with the Bible; but it blesses it like any other sacred text. It adds footnotes from Enoch and Sirach. It lines the margins with palm leaves and parables from grandmothers who spit truth through their gold teeth. It holds the Gospel of Mary, the whispers of Lilith, the fire of Oya.
“If you couldn’t name me in your scripture, I will name myself in your silence.”
This theology honors the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8; baptized without prerequisite. No gatekeeping. No gender tests. No doctrinal gymnastics.
We remind ourselves that gender expansiveness isn’t new. It was in the Orisha. It was in the Fon cosmologies. It was in the court of Kush. It is in us.
We draw from the Ethiopian Bible; which includes sacred books colonizers removed because they were too feminine, too African, too free. We remember Judith, Susanna, Sophia, and the Wisdom literature. We remember the unnamed ones: the eunuchs, the prophetesses, the intercessors who didn’t need a temple to be holy.
To walk in this theology is to reclaim what was redacted. To practice it is to bring ashé and anointing oil to the same altar.
We bring Oshun and Magdalene. We bring honey, tarot, and ancestral water. We bring Psalms and praise breaks and protection jars. We bring scripture and shadow work. We bring breath. We bring brilliance.
Imagining What Was Erased: The Ethiopian Eunuch as Sacred Mirror
Let us pause with the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8.
They have no name in scripture; but they were everything: Black. Gender-expansive. Wealthy. Curious. Devout. Educated. Othered.
They were reading Isaiah 53:
“In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation?”
That’s not just coincidence. That’s resonance.
Maybe they saw themselves in those lines. Maybe they were looking for someone who, like them, had been denied justice and misnamed. Maybe they were hoping, like many of us, for someone who knew how to read silence; and still respond with love.
They weren’t just baptized. They were claimed. No prerequisites. No purity tests. No pronoun interrogation. Just Spirit. Just water. Just God.
And yet, we’ve erased their voice. We’ve erased their femininity, their queerness, their African cosmology; and most of all, their agency.
Thought provoking questions: But what if the eunuch didn’t just encounter Christianity that day? What if they carried a cosmology older than Rome and richer than Greek? What if they arrived already knowing God and simply invited confirmation?
And if we zoom out ; beyond just Acts 8, we find that this idea of expansive gender identity didn’t begin there. African cosmologies have always known how to make room for what Western traditions tried to shrink.
Gender Expansiveness in African Spiritual Traditions
Honestly, this whole idea that gender’s just male or female? That’s a Western export. In so many African spiritual traditions, folks knew better. Take the Dagara of Burkina Faso; people who vibe with both femme and masc energy? They’re not just accepted; they’re kind of a big deal. Spiritual gatekeepers, literally holding it down between worlds. Not a “third gender” as a loophole; more like a cosmic VIP pass.
And don’t even get me started on Yoruba culture. Obatala, the OG sculptor of people? Sometimes he’s male, sometimes she’s female, sometimes they’re just…beyond. Same goes for Elegua, Oya, Yemaya—these Orisha aren’t stuck in any gender box. In some places, they straight up switch it up, rocking whatever energy the moment calls for. Gender? Flexible. Divine? Always.
Then you’ve got the Congo Basin; priests and spirit workers called Ndoki. Gender norms? Nah, they left that at the door. These visionaries bounced between worlds, and their power actually came from being outside the usual gender lines. It wasn’t some weird contradiction; it was the point. Their existence was a doorway, not a mistake.
The Shona in Zimbabwe, the Igbo in Nigeria; same story. Power lived in the in-between. Those who walked the line between worlds, who embodied ambiguity, weren’t just “tolerated.” They were rockstars. Revered, even.
Which brings me to the Ethiopian eunuch. Why do we act like they were “confused” or somehow lesser? Maybe they were closer to the divine than any of the so-called “normal” folks in the room. Ever think of that?
Black Femme Queen Theology gets it: the eunuch wasn’t some footnote. They’re an ancestor, a trans-ancestral theologian, a sacred text on legs. Not some rare exception; part of an ancient, divine tradition. Long before colonizers showed up with their rulebooks.
We call them holy. We say the names history tried to erase. We honor the theology they carried; in Black skin, a body that refused the binary, and that scroll they held tight.
🎥 A Gospel Archive: Neverending Nina — How I Got Over
Let’s take a ritual pause.
On October 26, 2024, Neverending Nina, a Black trans woman, stood on the steps of Mt. Moriah Missionary Baptist Church in New Orleans; Mahalia Jackson’s spiritual home, and sang “How I Got Over.”
This wasn’t just a performance. It was a sermon in song.
A Black trans body taking up sacred space. A testimony dressed in truth.
She didn’t just sing a hymn; she became the living gospel that Mahalia herself may have longed to name, but never could, in a time that wouldn’t have let her.
Neverending Nina’s voice carried the power of the Ethiopian eunuch; showing up without apology, asking for no permission, declaring what has always been true:
This moment reminds us that Black trans femmes have always been preachers, prophets, and praise leaders; even when the Church refused to listen.
Let this be your altar.
Let this be your mirror.
Let this be your moment to breathe, remember, and rise.