Personally, I don't see what the issue is. Labels help us to understand how the world works, and they're not always meant to generalize things. I identify as gay because I'm attracted to the same sex. That is the definition of gay as we know it in the 21st century. I'm not just gay though, that's just one category that I fall into. I'm also a lot of other things, and all those things add up to make up who I am as an individual. So, for those of you who absolutely hate labeling yourselves, why do you feel this way? I'm just curious because I never really understood that way of thinking.
As I understand it, many people feel that no one label encapsulates them perfectly, and rather than restrict themselves to a label that is not a perfect fit, they reject any kind of label whatsoever. Words have great power, and some people put more weight into them than others. I won't say what's right and what's wrong, but that's the basics.
Labels can help people learn more about others like them but its not that way for a lot of people. Everyone is different and forcing ourselves into little categories can constrict us rather than helping us grow and learn more who we are. We should accept our uniqueness rather than trying really hard to fit into a category. Labeling too much puts us into boxes when we should put on large spectrums.
I don't like it because you can be labeled wrong, and you can be remembered as that for the rest of your life, even though it isn't right. For instance, in high school I was labeled as the "depressed, suicidal" kid. Now that's how people remember me. 5 years later and when I run into people, they ask me, "Oh, are you happy now?" or "Oh wow, you're still around?" (Yes, someone once said that to me) It's what I'm remembered as, and that just isn't me.
^ that. And because no one label can fit a person perfectly as LILuke and GreenElephant have mentioned. Why bother picking one label that only covers one piece of you when you could just not have any labels.
^ Yeah. Have to second this. I myself am, to a number of people, known as the bubbly lesbian who used to write gay fluff. Labels stick, even as you try to paste more on. I'll eventually be the man who was once the gay fluff writing bubbly lesbian.
Labels can be restricting if the person in question feels the need to mold themselves into fitting into them, and since a lot of us go through many different labels in our quest, can be a good or a bad thing. Some of us would rather be sure, first, before jumping in, while others feel no need, since they don't find it important, or don't feel it accurately describes their traits.
I honestly don't care how people label other people. I believe that is a fact of life. Yes, some labels can be wrong yet other labels are right. I guess it is human nature to have a label on everything.
Point of difference: People can have whatever label they want for me. I, however, don't label myself.
I knew I was attracted to both sexes as an adolescent. As I grew older I became more attracted to men and eventually lost all interest in women. I probably went through many little boxes with labels on them through the years and never gave it a thought. I have always been comfortable with my sexuality, whatever it was at the time and never needed any validation from anyone or anything. I am what I am, as long as it hurts no one, who cares? I also never felt the need to shout it from the roof tops any more than I would about the make of vehicle I choose to drive. It might have created a profitable industry for the head shrinkers and media talking heads but labels and sexual politics are just plain boring and uninteresting.
Labels can be useful for more simply expressing complex ideas, provided there is already an agreed-upon and well-known definition for that label. (If a label you use is so personal or obscure as to be unknown to your interlocutor, and you end up having to explain what your label means anyway, then it seems to defeat the point of a label). However my rational mind rejects labels as anything more than that. Gay, straight, male, female, white, black...I think individual human beings are far too complex to really define by labels. I don't believe there is a biological basis to labels, they are products of the weakness of the human mind. I don't think there is a gene that simply says you are "gay" or "straight", I think your genetics help to determine which individual human beings you find attractive and which you do not. Similarly I don't think anyone fits 100% into the neat little box of being "male" or "female" in gender, but weak human minds need to classify things in an overly simplified way out of fear of complexity. The same goes with race, Barack Obama is labeled "black", even though things are obviously much more complicated than that. So labels have a use, but a limited one, in my view. ---------- Post added 5th Sep 2013 at 02:50 PM ---------- It happens plenty of times in plenty of contexts: people first decide to identify with a label, and then start changing their behaviors ex post facto in order to fit with that label. For example, a girl develops a crush on another girl, she hears that "lesbian" is the label for girls who like girls, so she starts calling herself a lesbian. In order to fit in with that label, she cuts her hair very butch-like and wears lots of flannel, even though she thinks it looks terrible, because she wants to fit the stereotype of her label. She starts hanging out with all lesbian friends and becomes very immersed in the culture. Then a new boy transfers into her school, and she finds herself suddenly staring at him with infatuation. She has an even bigger crush on the boy, and can't stop thinking about him, but when she is asked about it, she says it is impossible for her to like boys, because she is a lesbian. At that point, she is very invested in her label, she has conformed to it, and it has in fact overtaken her own individual identity. She has made herself conform to a label, rather than the other way around.
