Labels

Labels that we give ourselves are important. Not as a restriction, but as a starting point, as a description of who someone is right now. A warning - I'm going to use the term 'weird' all through this writing, and I mean it in a positive way - different from the norm, interested in or involved in things that aren't completely middle-of-the-road mainstream. I'm weird... I'm very weird, in a lot of ways.

My profile here says, "I am kinky and poly and queer and multiple. I'm also a mom, a daughter, a wife, and a friend. I'm a writer, a geek, a Trekkie, a gamer." My Discord profile says that I'm a "kinky multiple poly queer author educator actor." My FetLife profile says, "we are openly kinky, poly, multiple, geeky, gender-fluid, primal, androsexual, recipro-romantic... just generally queer," and a more detailed writing lists that we are a multiple personality, genderqueer, geeky, polyamorous, androsexual, and openly kinky, multiple, poly and queer.

These are all labels that give you a starting point for understanding me, connecting with me, and knowing how to approach me or hold a conversation with me. You can make a good guess at things we have in common, or spot something you want to know more about. You might ask me about stage shows I've been in - or written - or tell me your favorite Star Trek episode. These aren't conversation openers you'd use with most people, but they would be appropriate for connecting with me specifically.

I'm not talking about the kinds of labels other people give someone, like 'strange', 'poor', 'different', 'undesirable', 'freak', 'scary', 'bad'. Those are a dangerous kind of label, and need to be viewed with some suspicion. How can you tell the difference? One clue is whether the label is negative or positive in tone. If someone else calls me a weirdo, do they mean that as a bad thing? Because if I call myself a weirdo, I'm using it in a positive way - I'm proud of my weirdness! And that points out the other clue. Who's doing the labeling? When someone else slaps a label on a person, or a group of people, it can be used as a tool to describe that group or person as 'other', not like the speaker, and thus less worthy of consideration, protection, or liking.

But when a person gives themselves a label, that's something to defend. I declare that I am weird and genderfluid and geeky. No one else has any basis for telling me I am not these things; I am the only arbiter of my labels. Anyone saying a label a person has applied to themselves isn't valid is usually gatekeeping. I mean, there's reasonable limits on that statement - I can't label myself a minor child, or a person of color, or a piece of furniture, or a goat, or a doctor - these are definable demonstrable things that I don't qualify for. But no one else gets to say whether or not I'm 'queer enough' or 'thespian enough' or 'geeky enough' to use those labels for myself. I decide.

And just like I'm the only person that can put that label on, I'm the one who decides if that label comes off, if it no longer applies to me properly, or if the label gets hidden. 

These are stick-on labels, like the stick-on nametags you struggle to get to stay on your clothes. And they can be removed when you don't need them anymore. When I was young, I called myself a girl, and a child, and a nerd. As I grew up, I dropped girl and child for woman, and added geek and actor and mother. Then I dropped woman for genderqueer, and added author and educator. Labels aren't meant to stay the same forever. They describe who a person is right now, though some are more permanent than others. I'll always be a mother, regardless of my gender or the age of my children.

And just like a nametag, you don't have to wear the label where everyone can see it for it to be true. Even if I can't see your name, it's still your name. Your labels are like that, too. You decide how visible they are to other people. Someone who is gay may wear rainbow everything all the time... or may not even own anything in rainbow. Someone who is polyamorous may have three partners... or not be in any relationship at all. Someone who is kinky may wear a collar and a leather jacket everywhere they go... or may blend in as completely vanilla and never show their label except when they are in a kink space. You can yell your labels out to the world, but you can also keep them to yourself.

I am lucky enough to be able to be really visibly out about all my things. I have a lot of privilege - people I live with that I can safely be myself with, a job where nobody cares as long as I'm good at what I do, a large supportive social circle. So I'm out everywhere about being genderfluid and multiple and kinky and poly, and everything else. Not everybody has such a great situation, and it's sometimes important to keep your labels to yourself until you are in a safe place. 

Because not everyone can be out, and I am safely able to, I feel like I have a responsibility to make myself visible. Because people have a tendency to fear, mistrust, or even hate people they have othered - 'weirdos'. Different turns into scary. So how do we combat that? By making 'weird' and 'different' more visible. My coworkers are all very normative and vanilla; I'm the 'token queer' on my team. And because they work with me, they get to know me. And so when they hear about some 'queer person', they connect that to me, someone they trust and like. So it's hard for them to 'other' the new queer person in question. That's enough to give the new person they meet a chance, even if they look and act different in some way. Oh, I've answered so many questions from my coworkers about gender and sexuality and all kinds of other-ness. And so they are all a little bit more accepting of other queer folks they meet.

But what's really exciting is when one weirdo (read: non-normative person) meets another, and they have a similar kind of weirdness. Because discovering these labels that apply to yourself is eye-opening. And finding out that other people are weird in the same way you are weird is beyond exciting. Too many people go through life thinking something is wrong with them because they think differently from other people around them. They aren't interested in sports, or attracted to people they are told they ought to be, or they get too excited about a topic people around them are bored by. 

But then we find out there are other people who are excited about that topic, or turned on in the same way, or find the same activities fascinating. Maybe they find out there are whole conventions of people that read comic books, or collect stamps, or write fan-fiction. Finding other people who have the same 'weird' is exciting. It's reassuring that you can be 'weird' without being 'wrong'. And it gives you a community - people who feel the same way, and have resources for you to learn from.

Who knows? Maybe they'll even be able to provide you a nametag label.