My senior year in high school, one of my roommates at my boarding school told me she didnāt like labels when I asked her if she was straight. As a joke, I told herĀ sheād be labeled as the girl who didnāt like labels. I didnāt realize that three years laterĀ Iād find myself in the exact same position. Iām probably not going to convince you to ditch your labels by the end of this, but Iām hoping to challenge your perspective on labels and the way you see the world.
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The labels Iām talking about are in relationĀ to gender and sexuality, but labels are much broader than that. We use labels to navigate our world and understand it better. Labels are how we categorize people and our expectations of them. These labels carryĀ deeper meanings and implications than their dictionary definitions and these meanings are created by our culture and society. A perfect example of this was a response I saw to the recent Gillette ad. Here is the response, but Iāll tell you what they did. They asked āWhat is a man?ā then answered with āIs a man brave? A hero? A protector? Vulnerable? Disposable? Broken? Trying?ā A man can be those things but a man is not innately those things. Technically, a man is simply a male human but our culture has created more meaning.
Labels are what we use to navigate the outside world but they are also what we use to navigate ourselves. We understand ourselves as brothers, sisters, coworkers, mothers, fathers, students, teachers, and so on and so forth. We use these labels and roles to shape our identity. Iām not against these types of labels, they are much moreĀ innate and necessary than labels of gender or sexuality. I am also not against labels of gender and sexuality because as Iāve stated, they help us understand ourselves. Iāve used many different labels to explore who I am as a person. Iāve labeled myself as a straight woman (shoutout to middle school), lesbian and Iāve been queer. Iāve also been a woman, non-binary woman and a trans man. Each of these labels gave me a certain perspective and experience. Most specifically they gave me a limited view and experience. Iāve only dated and pursued womenĀ but if I place a label on that Iām cutting myself off from half of the population. Iāve always experienced attraction to men,Ā but because of my experience with themĀ I havenāt dated them (and probably wonāt). Thatās not sexuality, its an active choice so I donāt want to label and limit myself.
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My gender was even harder for me to tackle, understand and potentially label. I was assigned female at birth and from a young age, I knew that I was not a woman. Because of the way society has presented us with gender as a binary, I assumed if I wasnāt a woman then I must be a man. I experimented as a man as it is presented on the traditional gender binary and never really felt quite right. Similar to my sexuality, I felt that whatever label I placed on myself restricted me. Scholars have pretty much come to the conclusion that gender is a social construct and a performance. OnceĀ I understood that, I decided to stop trying to understand my experience with gender. I understand that he/him/his pronouns make me feel more comfortable and thatās all that really matters.
While getting rid of labels helped me understand myself better, it definitely hasnāt helped others understand me. Iāve been coming out because Iām about to start taking testosterone and itās quite hard to explain to people. Our society is structured in a way that is best understood through labels and people donāt know where I belong without them. I just hope that people can try to understand me as me, instead of trying to put me into a box that hasĀ a label. I challenge you to think about yourself,Ā the labels youāve put on yourself, the labels others place on you and ask what they mean. While labeling doesnāt work for me, it may work for you; however,Ā I think itās important to challenge what we think of ourselves and how we exist.
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