Queer lineage matters...
When I was a child, we lived in a huge decrepit mansion that used to belong to my mum’s family.
There was a gloomy dining room with a long dark Jacobean table down the middle of it and pictures of the ancestors on the walls.
I hated it there because it was dark and spooky and whenever we ate there we had to be on our best behaviour.
My dad told me that when my mum was pregnant with me they walked round the room together looking at the ancestors’ names and choosing what my name would be.
There were a few women there among them, I imagine in their capacity as wives, but he never told me what my name would have been if I’d been born the girl they both wanted.
He told me they wanted John to be my name; but they also wanted me to be called Robert. And because John Robert Clifford didn’t sound very good; they called me Robert John.
And so there was a bit of confusion around my name from the very beginning; and when I looked at the picture of John Bill and the picture of Robert Bill I didn’t like any of them very much…
And as I grew up I came to hate my lineage, and its values, and the snobbery of being attached to a family that had been around since the 1600’s…
And maybe that’s one reason why I always skipped this chapter of Matthew and didn’t see any meaning in it all.
But then obviously in the context of the First Nations lineage matters enormously; and I love the poetry and the power of the names they choose.
And yesterday a trans theatre artist I greatly admire wrote to ask my permission to use an extract from Jesus Queen Of Heaven and said they wanted to include it because they were speaking of their trans lineage and how it mattered so much to them…
…And I think, yes, yes, that’s so right now that legally our identities have been obliterated, and yes, it really matters.
So here is the final list of ancestral names: