Labels… Should You Use Them?
By Mya Tran
Talk to enough small town homophobes and eventually one of them will say this, “You’re all obsessed with labels”. For some of us, this is true. Labeling is one of the many steps young queer people go through. However, there is a lot of controversy and stigma around labeling, not labeling, and everything in between. From mircolabeling to refusing labels, queer people are scrutinized for every word they chose to use to describe themselves. But does it really matter?
Every person’s journey is different. Labels are something many people use to ground themselves, to find meaning and comfort in community. My own journey features a lot of labels. When I realized I was queer in middle school, the first I really attached myself to was “bisexual”. It was easy, I didn’t feel like I had to define it for many people, and I thought the flag was really pretty. As I got older, I learned about different labels with definitions that were technically closer to what I experienced. It was something I really struggled with, and I felt like a fraud whenever I still used bi to describe myself.
As time passed, I found other labels to describe myself under the aromantic and asexual umbrellas. I even donned a mircolabel used by a small community I found on the internet. When I first began to explain this to people, it felt really embarrassing. I felt like a stereotype, just another queer person with fifty words to describe themselves. But it brought me a lot of comfort. I felt as though I really understood myself through these words, and I could help other people understand me. I gradually found comfort again in being bisexual as I grew more confident in my identity and the other labels I’d chosen for myself.
On the other hand, a dear friend of mine uses “queer” for just about everything. She’s the kind of person that gets stressed out when you get overly nitpicky with the details of sexuality, and feels too fluid to be trapped in any of the more mainstream labels. This baffled me when we first talked about it. As someone who’d found so much peace in strict definitions, to meet someone who found that same peace in the broadest umbrella term there is, it was like meeting a mythical creature. But it also brought one important thought to my mind: who cares?
I’m on the internet a lot. I’m sure in some way we all are. I’ve seen a lot of ugly fights about who can use what label, and is it okay to mircolabel and about if it’s okay to even label at all. After meet all the people I’ve met and living the life I’ve lived this is my conclusion: it doesn’t matter. Do what makes you comfortable, and do what makes you happy. If someone else doing something different makes you upset, keep it to yourself unless they are actively hurting someone. Labels exist to help us understand ourselves, and if you don’t like them, you don’t have to use them. If you love them, use them all! No one can tell you how to identify. That is your own journey and your own path to take.
About the Author:
Mya Tran is an incoming junior at Butler University, in Indianapolis, IN. They are currently studying English on the creative writing track and German. Growing up in a small college town with limited queer role models, Tran has spent her life with her nose in the books, looking for someone to relate to.
