From 2a44b095ce9d3c029674ed71b66c03f0850138a1 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Madison Scott-Clary Date: Sun, 28 Jan 2024 16:30:10 -0800 Subject: [PATCH] update from sparkleup --- writing/florilegium/naming/index.html | 4 ++-- 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/writing/florilegium/naming/index.html b/writing/florilegium/naming/index.html index 3d671440e..3661e4f07 100644 --- a/writing/florilegium/naming/index.html +++ b/writing/florilegium/naming/index.html @@ -42,7 +42,7 @@

Do I write this as a prose poem?

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Names bear power, I promise myself, my characters promise each other. Names bear power and yet we are in so many ways beholden to them. They bear power over us, even if we don’t want them to. They bear power over us sometimes because we don’t want them to. We don’t choose them, do we? At least most of us don’t. The vast majority don’t, even, to the point where the joke goes in trans circles, “Nice name, did your mom pick that out for you?”

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Names bear power, I promise myself, my characters promise each other. Names bear power and are in so many ways beholden to them. They bear power over us, even if we beg that they not. They bear power over us sometimes because we beg that they not. We so rarely, if at all. The vast majority will never name themselves — nice name, did your mom pick it out for you? — and of those that do, how many name themselves in a vacuum, without considering the whims of the world around them?

It’s true enough, more often than not.

I was born Matthew Joseph Scott.

My mom, when asked, said that the choices for my first name were either Nicholas or Matthew. “They were just the two most common names for boys,” she said. “If you’d been born a girl, we would’ve named you Sarah.”

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I was Matthew Joseph Scott. I was Matthew to my teachers and even most of my friends.