Who am I?

I had a burning bush moment this week, watching my favourite TV show. In the scene, one of the characters has been ‘outed’ as gay, as a result of intimate photos being leaked. A journalist confronts him and asks ‘who are you?’. He responds:

“Who am I? Do you mean where I’m from? What I one day might become? What I do? What I’ve done? What I dream? Do you mean … what you see or what I’ve seen? What I fear or what I dream? Do you mean who I love? Do you mean who I’ve lost? Who am I?

I guess who I am is exactly the same as who you are. Not better than, not less than. Because there is no one who has been or will ever be exactly the same as either you or me.”

This speech is from the Netflix series ‘Sense8’, written by the Wachowski sisters famous for the Matrix films. It echoes and inverts the ancient declaration Moses receives in Exodus at the burning bush. Moses asks God what his name is and God answers: ‘I am who I am’. A concise but cryptic evasion.

The scholarly consensus is that Exodus was initially composed during or after the exile in Babylon. In that region and time, it was commonly believed that names were strongly connected to the essence or power of the person or god they named. To name was to know, and to know was to control.

By refusing to tell Moses his name, God is asserting that he cannot be manipulated or controlled by humankind. Instead, he reminds Moses of his mystery and sovereignty, while also reassuring his chosen people Israel of his presence with them.

God does then tell Moses his name, Yahweh, but it’s another wordplay on ‘He is/will be’, offering presence rather than control. It becomes taboo to speak the name aloud – a tradition which persists and brings to mind the Monty Python sketch in the Life of Brian. I remember as a child seeing other kids get scolded for saying ‘Oh my god’, as this was seen as breaking the commandment, ‘do not take the Lord’s name in vain’.

These sorts of beliefs about names aren’t peculiar to a time or place, but appear across geography and history, suggesting deep patterns in how we understand language and identity.

While naming appears in fairytales like Rumpelstiltskin or Rapunzel, a bigger influence on my generation was the villain Lord Voldemort in the Harry Potter series. Voldemort’s birth name is the mundane, ‘Tom Riddle’, but he rejects this name and his humble origins and names himself ‘Lord Vol-de-mort’ – meaning to flee death. Characters in the books avoid saying his name, instead referring to him as ‘You-know-who’, ‘He-who-must-not-be-named’ or ‘The Dark Lord’.

In Voldemort we see the different ways a name can exert power. In the Harry Potter world, some of that power is literally magical, but much of it is ‘human created’ psychological power. We see the power of a name to shape a person: Voldemort feels derided and constrained by his birth name, so chooses his own identity and name when coming into his power. We see how his name can create fear in his supporters and enemies, or courage and defiance in those brave enough to speak it.

The wisest character in the books warns Harry, ‘Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself.’

Belief in the power of naming remains strong in our culture. Parents are encouraged to help children name their feelings and adults are taught the same in therapy. Naming is crucial to most schools of psychotherapeutic practice, particularly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, which accounts for around 70% of therapy practice in the UK. Studies have found naming feelings can observably change brain activity on an MRI.

In schools, teachers are told to ‘label the behaviour and not the child’. This means saying, ‘You’re being naughty’ rather than ‘You’re a naughty boy’. Your behaviour is something you do, not something you are. If you tell a child they’re the naughty one, it reduces them to that one trait, setting their expectations and inevitably making them more likely to misbehave in future. Children who become labelled as the problem-child or underachiever are more likely to fulfil that expectation, so the reality of their life is affected.

‘Person-first’ language is the norm in the NHS where I work. We say ‘people with depression’, not ‘depressives’. This avoids reducing people to their condition alone. For stigmatised conditions, like obesity, substance misuse or mental illness, research shows that stigmatising language correlates with measurably poorer outcomes.

People sometimes prefer ‘identity-first’ language. Some people with autism prefer to say ‘I am autistic’ rather than ‘I have autism’. They are choosing to name themselves, asserting that autism is not something they have but something they are.

Gay people have given the same answer historically, first in claiming the name Gay, and more recently reclaiming Queer. It’s no coincidence that the most long-lasting and popular gay anthem is, ‘I am what I am’. Trans people today face an intense battle over the right to say ‘I am a woman’ or ‘I am a man’ and have that recognised legally and socially. The intensity of resistance to trans self-naming, and its very real consequences in access to healthcare, violence and societal stigma, shows how much power remains bound up in the question of who gets to name whom.

Whether it’s in the hospital, the classroom, or the culture wars, the ancient pattern holds: to name is to know, and to know is to control.

When marginalized groups insist on naming themselves, they’re doing what God did at the burning bush: refusing to be bound or manipulated by the names others give them. The conservative fury at changing language reveals what they understand instinctively: that language shapes reality, and losing control of the language means losing control of the culture. By claiming the right to name ourselves, we assert our transcendent freedom. We say, like God, like the hero in Sense8: I am who I am. Not what you call me. Who I am.