Musings on Labels

[sparkindarkness]

One of the perennial battles I’ve been seeing raging back and forth are a lot of battles about labels, their need and which ones to use. And they can get heated and passionate at time. There are also a movement at times to dismiss all labels as irrelevant, unneeded, damaging or otherwise unnecessary. To treat labels as relics or harmful or unnecessarily divisive. They have some good points

And while I respect people for their lack of labels (for reasons I’ll go into below) I certainly do not join them in dismissing them entirely, far from it. I like my labels and strongly identify with them.

Labels are, I think vitally important things, especially for marginalised people. Labels can be an important part of self-definition and self-identity. They can be a powerful way of declaring yourself, who and what you are, claiming yourself and naming yourself. That is important, that is powerful.

We live in a word where people will label us, negatively, insultingly with slurs and to dehumanise us, other us and reduce us.  To claim our own labels in response, to say “we’re not that – we’re this. THIS is us” is an act of empowerment.

And we live in a world where we are often rendered invisible, that denies our existence, forgets about us and generally shoves us under the rug and in the closet at every opportunity, then shouting our identity, clearly stating our identity and having a labelled identity is a great way to counter the erasure. I think this is especially important for GBLT people where our existence is not only denied, but the very possibility of our existence is often fought – with us being labelled as sick or deluded, with homosexuality being considered something we do rather than what we are and the huge denial of a trans person’s gender identity.

I like being able to say, “I am gay, this is me. This is who I am, this is what I am. Not what you say I am, what I say I am.” I like my label, it’s important to me and a matter of power to me.

But here’s another point – it’s my label. I label myself.

I think one of the main problems with labelling is that we have a desire to label others – and not with the labels they choose. Different labels mean different things to different people. And that can be frustrating, especially when they reject our labels in terms we find insulting and embrace labels we find problematic.

I get edgy when men who exclusively love other men don’t identify as gay, especially if they say “because gay means X, Y and Z” even though X, Y and Z have nothing to do with me. But that doesn’t matter, because it’s he who is being labelled, not me, and he has a right to choose his own label and to reject mine.

I don’t like the label “same-sex attracted” because I feel that it reduces being gay to sex alone. I find it diminishing. But, again, while I will reject that label for me, I have no right to force my disapproval of that label on someone else.

I have problems with the word “queer.” I’ve had it used as a slur in so many severe situations that I am repelled by it being used to label me. And I reject that label when people use it to label me, it has too much pain attached to it, so I refuse it as an identifier. But, at the same time I use it to label people who claim it for themselves – it is their identity, their choice.

Do I think that’s an absolute? No, few things are. Sometimes people can choose labels that are inherently offensive to other groups, they can choose labels that are appropriative, demeaning or diminishing of others. Sometimes a label has so much baggage and pain attached that others will refuse to use it (I will not call another gay man “fag” no matter how much they themselves use the word and try to reclaim it).  But this is because of very real harm for the word. I have seen similar arguments for words that have been considered silly, non-sensical or ridiculous. But not harmful – and then we have to ask ourselves if we’re forcing our definitions on someone else without cause?

I don’t think discarding labels is the way to go as I have seen argued around – not even close. But I think the endless battles over labels would be resolved a lot better and a lot more easily if people respected each other’s labels and reasons more. You cannot dictate another’s identity or the power that a label has for them.