In Spiked, Gareth Roberts discusses the announcement of Reverend Bingo Allison of themself’s “non-binary” status as the first openly genderqueer individual ordained as a priest in the established church:
Rev. Bingo Allison selfie supplied to the Liverpool Echo.
Many have pinned the beginning of the “Great Awokening” – the transition of the venomous cocktail of extremely niche Tumblr culture and naff identity politics into the mainstream – to 2013. As we move into this 10th anniversary year of raving teenage internet nonsense being taken seriously in the real world by grown adults, perhaps we need a spiritual guide to lead us in our celebrations?
Step forward the Rev Bingo Allison, vicar of a church in a Liverpool suburb, and apparently both “nonbinary” and “genderqueer”. (We do not learn from Bingo’s New Year’s Day interview in the Liverpool Echo if Bingo is actually his – sorry, Them’s – real name-o.)
As ever, working out what the terms nonbinary and genderqueer actually mean is like knitting butter. In the case of the Rev Bingo, it seems from what he says and from the pictorial evidence in the Echo that this has something to do with wearing very, very badly applied cosmetics and regaling anybody silly enough to listen with cut-and-paste boilerplate, like “the history of biblical interpretation is littered with the opinions of rich, white, straight, cisgender, able-bodied, neurotypical men” – basically, ChatGPT with eyeshadow applied à la Black+Decker.
I’ve recently been wondering why so many men with a lady soul are so bad at the application of make-up – both the Rev Bingo and cyclist Emily Bridges seem to have particular difficulty with eyeliner. Applying cosmetics well is not that difficult. In my brief teenage flirtation with the crossover point between New Romantic and Goth, I mastered the art while travelling into London on the very bumpy stretch of the Metropolitan Line between Moor Park and Harrow-on-the-Hill. (It was fatal to even attempt androgyny while still in Hertfordshire, particularly if the end result just made you look like a very camp Herman Munster.) I’m beginning to realise that the wonky slap is an essential part of the non-illusion, of the passive-aggressive, male status display that is at work. It is saying: “I’m not even going to try and you still have to kneel to me.”
“Jesus loves sparkly eyeshadow”, Bingo told his Insta followers recently. I have news for the Rev. Us lads can wear sparkly eyeshadow too with no effect on our bodies or souls. It does not change your sex. It just makes you a man wearing sparkly eyeshadow, like the Sweet doing “Block Buster” on Top of the Pops – although in Bingo’s case there is, owing to a very binary dose of male-pattern baldness, a more marked resemblance to Brian Eno in his Roxy Music days, with a hint of Max Wall in there, too.
