Let’s Talk About Labels
There are lots of words for different genders nowadays: cisgender, transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, bigender, polygender, agender, etc. What’s the point of having all of these words: what do they do?
What are Labels Good For?
Understanding the World
Humans aren’t great at working with the amount of stuff that’s in the world. At any given point in time, all of your senses are receptive and receiving information from the world. In order to make sense of what’s happening, we have to use shortcuts in our thinking.
Take for example a chair, I’m sure you haven’t seen all of the different kinds of chairs in the world, but you can recognize one if you saw one, even if you never saw this particular chair. Imagine that you could only recognize things that were exactly the same as something you’ve seen before. Every time you saw a new chair, you wouldn’t know what to do with it. But since we have a category in our brains for “chair”, we know that we can sit in it and we can safely go to new places and sit in chairs we’ve never seen before.
Understanding Others
The same thing applies for humans. You haven’t met everyone in the world before, but you have categories in your mind about how to treat certain people based on the information available to you. Though it isn’t ideal, you most likely assume people’s genders and treat them a certain way if you don’t have a conversation with them about it. There isn’t really the space to ask strangers about their pronouns or identity so you have to work with what you got rather than getting paralyzed about the minutiae. And this is necessary for us to accomplish basic things like calling a server over or talking to a receptionist.
More broadly, the reason why we can even recognize other people is because we have a category for “people”. We assume that people around us will respond when we say “hello” and speak the same language as we do. We assume that people around us probably won’t hurt us and will tell us the time honestly when asked.
But of course, there are some people that we can trust more than others. Suppose, for example, we didn’t have a way to label doctors. People with the expertise needed to treat illnesses would still exist but we wouldn’t have a name for them. How would you be able to differentiate someone with a medical degree and someone who is simply claiming to have the skills? That’s why having the word and title “Dr.” is important.
Identifying with a Community
Not only do labels help give certain people the necessary credibility, they are also great for identifying yourself as part of a community. If we have a word for it, we can talk to others about it and share experiences being a part of the same group. We can seek out other people who openly identify the same way and find safe spaces to express ourselves.
If we have a category, we can belong.
Why Labels Aren’t Perfect
The World is Complex
Though finding other people who identify the same way is great, it’s a mistake to assume that everyone who identifies the same is the same. Not everyone has had the same experiences; people who have had the same experiences may not view them the same way.
Two people who nonbinary may have completely different appearances and views on gender.
Some people place great emphasis on certain parts of their identity, for others, it fades into the background.
Realizing that you might want to identify as a different gender is confusing and exciting at first, but when it starts to settle, it can become simply a mundane fact of life.
People can change their minds in the future, or even circle back to what they thought in the past.
Labels are an attempt at explaining how the world is, but the world is very complex and defies explanation.
Gatekeeping
If you recall, the complexity of the world is what led us to make labels in the first place, we use them as shortcuts to process and understand the world. What happens if someone doesn’t fit our expectation? Do we change the definition of the label? But won’t changing or expanding the label make it less meaningful?
Gatekeeping comes from the need to preserve boundaries. Rather than changing the label, people are categorized according to whether they meet the qualifications or not. It reinforces legitimacy of one group by taking away legitimacy from another.
However, it can be damaging for the individuals who are affected. People may need the support that comes from being part of a community or just simply the understanding that there are others like them, even if they are not exactly the same.
In order to belong somewhere, do we need to exclude people who don’t?
The Need to Conform
Once you start to identify yourself in a certain way, you might feel pressured to meet the expectations of that label. I’m a women, so I must act “like a woman”. I’m a man, so I must act “like a man”. It’s especially difficult for FTM or MTF trans people who feel like they have to adhere to gender roles in order to “prove” their gender. This, coupled with the existence of gatekeepers, stifles self expression and exploration.
Sometimes the reverse happens where you intentionally try to defy expectations, not realizing that you’re creating another expectation. Ever hear the sentence “I’m not like other girls”? Aside from the internalized misogyny, it pressures the person to reject aspects of themselves that are “feminine” even when it could be beneficial for them.
What can we do?
Labels have their strong and weak points, and they aren’t going away anytime soon, so how can we learn to navigate the world while also recognizing the negative side to putting everything in boxes?
Here is a starting place for thinking about ways to move forwards:
1. Recognize that Shared and Specific Experiences are Both Important
Yes it’s good to recognize the fact that we are all human; we’re part of the same human race, the same family, yet there are also parts of our identity, the way we look, speak, act, and interact with the world that make our experiences very different from each other.
It doesn’t mean one person’s experience is more true than another’s. The experience of the majority coexists with the experience of the minority: both are true.
At the same time, knowing that we are all human, that we all feel the need to belong, to connect, to matter, is important to keep in mind.
We are all both different and the same.
2. Recognize that Things Change Over Time
Think back a couple of years ago to when you were a young child. How have you changed? Do you think you see yourself the same way you did in the past? Our identities are always in flux, especially when you’re going through adolescence. Changing your mind doesn’t make the way you identified in the past invalid.
Just because emotions come and go doesn’t make them invalid; it’s the same for your identity.
Thinking about time from another perspective, do you think the way you acted or thought was acceptable given what you have learned in the intervening time? Changing your mind about how you see yourself and the world isn’t something to be ashamed of. Getting something “wrong” and then correcting course means that you’ve improved over time.
But recognize that this applies to other people too, they have the capacity to change, just as you do. Condemnation without hope for improvement benefits no one.
3. Recognize the pressure to conform and make a conscious decision about what to do
Notice if you’re doing something just because you think it’s what you are “supposed to do” or if you’ve just always done it before. Do you talk about liking a certain thing, like being attracted to a certain gender, without feeling much attachment to it?
For example, if you have never considered the idea that you might not be straight because being straight is the “default”, perhaps think about it at this very moment. Be gentle and curious about what feelings come up. Maybe you are comfortable with your sexuality and that’s great! But maybe, it just feels bland.
It’s alright to be lukewarm about things, but maybe it’s because you’ve never considered that there might be alternatives to the status quo. Spend some time thinking about what really makes you happy, regardless of what other people think.
4. Learn new words; make them up if you need to
Language isn’t static; new words are being made up all the time. Of course it’s up to public usage to see whether they are put into the dictionary or survive over time, but these new words are just as legitimate as the ones we use everyday. All words were made up after all.
If you make the effort to learn new terms, you’ll be able to express emotions and concepts that you were never able to before. You can gain a new understanding of the world and what other people are thinking.
There’s also the option to make up new words if you need to. There’s a high chance you make up turns of phrases, inside-jokes, and slang with your close friends that allow you to express something that couldn’t have been before. Why not give it a try with something else?
5. Listen to Understand
Your experience of the world is just that, your experience. There are around 7.8 billion other people on the planet that have one too. You are the most legitimate source about your own identity, just as each of the 7.8 billion people are for their own identity.
When someone identifies in a way that you don’t understand, or uses the same term for something different, try not to nitpick about the specifics. If this is how they feel about themselves, then respect that, just as you wish others to understand how you think.
6. Be okay with the undefined
Life is complicated. Things contradict; things don’t make sense. It’s okay to not know, it’s okay to admit that you don’t understand and don’t have an explanation for things.
Though our brains desperately want to make sense of the world so that we aren’t paralyzed by confusion, it’s okay to just spend some time and sit with it.
We can try our best to understand. And even when we don’t, we can always choose to be kind and respectful.
