Labels - Unifiers or Dividers?

The Myth –
I don’t know why people have to keep coming up with new labels for themselves. I can’t keep up. Besides, all these new words do is make us more divided than we already are. Can’t we all just come together and respect each other as human beings?
 
The Short Truth –
We all have labels. Parent, sibling, son, daughter, spouse, employee. These words help define us. And very often, they help us find the people who are like us. They can be powerful reminders that we are not alone in this world.
 
The Longer Truth –
If you are anything besides a straight, cis-gendered, neurotypical person, chances are there was a time when you thought you were the only person who had the same feelings you did.
 
Maybe you grew up in a religious household like I did where you constantly heard that homosexuality is a sin. Maybe you never felt like your body matched your mental image of yourself. Maybe you didn’t know there was a word for not feeling sexual attraction. Or you had a difficult time explaining why some days you just couldn’t find the will to get out of bed. Or why on other days you just had to organize every drawer and closet so that they looked “perfect.”
 
Whatever it was that made you different probably made you feel isolated as well.
 
And then, perhaps, there was a day when you happened on someone else who understood. It could have been an online chat room. It could have been a television show or pop song. Maybe it was family member, classmate, or neighbor.
 
Whoever it was, they made you feel less alone. They helped you understand what you were feeling and that there was a word for it. And hopefully, they helped you realize that you weren’t “wrong.”
 
The Dawning
I thought I was just sad.
 
I thought my desire to be tied up was dirty and wrong and very bad.
 
I thought I couldn’t also be attracted to women because I had only ever been attracted to men.
 
Depressive. Kinky. Masochist. Bisexual. Queer. These are all labels I wear proudly now because someone else dared to speak of them. Someone else dared to name the feelings. More recently, I discovered the term demisexual and adopted that as well. It’s only being sexually attracted to someone you have a close, emotional bond with, by the way. It explained a lot for me.
 
But the first time I heard these words? Or met someone else who used them? Revelations. Whole worlds opened up.
 
And they haven’t separated me from people. They’ve connected me to people who are the same.
 
Only The Beginning
There are people who will say that labels are too restrictive. That they confine us to simplistic boxes so that we dislike anyone not in that same box. Or that they limit us in what we think we can do.
 
I don’t think this is necessarily the case.
 
For me, labels are a jumping off point, a reason to ask, “what does that mean for you?” Just because people share a label doesn’t mean the impact it has on their lives is exactly the same. Calling yourself a writer doesn’t mean you’re necessarily a novelist. You can be a playwright, you can write fiction or non-fiction, etc. And every one of those categories can be broken down further and further.
 
Kink and sexuality labels are the same. I’ve met more than one lesbian who was married to a man (while calling themselves a lesbian). I haven’t known any of them well enough to ask their reasons, but it doesn’t matter. Their reasons are their own.
 
Labels aren’t one size fits all. Nor are you limited to how many you can use. The only limit is yourself.
 
Finding A Home
I’m not saying that people never form cliques based on labels. Or that subsets of a community never turn on each other. There is colorism in Black communities. And feminists who refuse to believe that trans women are real women.
 
But we have labels for those ideologies too. And it’s not the naming of them that divides us. It’s the people who believe in them.
 
Personally, I find it far more important that people who feel different or othered are able to find somewhere to belong. For me, that was the kink community and later, geeky communities. I fit in those places. They accept me and vice versa.
 
And within those communities are subsets where I may or may not feel comfortable. That’s okay too. I don’t need to be part of TNG kink groups (generally for people who are around 19-35 years old). I aged out years ago. I’m never going to try to crash the anime fan groups amongst the geeks either. Not my thing.
 
Marginalized people choosing to gather together based on what they have in common is a good thing. It means they’ve found a place to exist where they aren’t marginalized.
 
Conclusion
Labels may always be a point of contention for some. If you’ve never felt like an outsider, it may be difficult to understand the need to belong anywhere. Or you’ve worried about labels in the past and no longer do for whatever reason. Personally, I’m closer to the latter. I’ve found my people, my chosen family, and the specific labels seem less important than they used to.
 
But not everyone has that privilege. And someday, those labels are going to be someone else’s a-ha moment.