On Labels

[lb_lee]

Rogan: I guess, if I had to summarize my feelings about labels, any kind of identity label, it’d be this: labels are created for people; people are not created to fit them.

A label describes, but it shouldn’t define. If it strangles you, ditch it. Even if you can’t avoid other people slapping it on you, you don’t have to make THEIR mistake part of YOUR identity. (Sadly, uprooting nasty brainweeds like that is rarely as simple as just saying no. You may end up having to know your enemy, do way more research, and think way more about it than you’d like, just to pull up all them runners. It’s worth it, though, to be free!)

Whatever label you choose, hold it loosely. Don’t death-grip it, or you’re priming yourself for a total identity collapse if/when you change... and change is the only constant. Let yourself grow. Let yourself be playful about what you call yourself and why; we call ourself a “multivarious cyborg” and it’s a typo! We named ourself Loony-brain thinking this was just an embarrassing stage we were going through, and now we own it! We went from soulbonder to natural multiple to DID to “yes and” multi. Maybe one day, we’ll even be singlet again, or something else entirely!

Knowing your label is not the same as knowing yourSELF. There’s no linguistic shortcut for that work. Nobody can do it for you, and that’s good news: it puts the power in YOUR hands.

Use it well, and don’t hang on so hard.

Comments

[wolfy_writing]

labels are created for people; people are not created to fit them

Yes! Identity labels are tools, not rules. They ae useful ways to concisely express a good-enough understanding of how to categorize the way you are right now. They're not good things to bind yourself to or try to force yourself to fit.

[lb_lee]

“Tools not rules” is a great way to summarize that, thank you! Very snappy.

[tamblrtrain]

yesssssssssssssssss we've been spewing our bullshit about labels being as interchangeable as sales prices at the grocery store for forever now. prescriptivism only makes for nightmares later down the road when times change and it goes for everything: the language we use, the gestures we make, the figures we draw, et cetera et cetera. (this is one of the reasons why the academie francaise sucks so hard and why people constantly make grammatical errors. the inevitable march of time makes its way on all of us...) we are squishy moldable humans and the things we think about are also squishy and moldable in our minds and definitions are going to get mangled. the world is your ever shifting oyster, do whatever you want with yourself and your identity, always get freaky with it if that's your calling, throw your shit away if it isn't serving you, and all that good stuff. nobody needs to care about what label skeletons you have in the closet if you don't!!!! we heart descriptivism always and forever

[lb_lee]

Oh wow I haven’t thought about the academie francaise in ages! Not sorry either!

[witchpoetdreamer]

Always a great thing to remember! It's only when I manage to ditch my own labels that I really felt true to myself as well. I use shorthand labels to help other people understand when they need it, but otherwise, it's easier to just let them assume whatever. Actions speak louder than words anyway.

[lb_lee]

Actions always speak louder!

[pantha]

Oh, god yes. 100%.

There's a reason I didn't go for all the microidentity labels so prevalent among those who share my umbrella-labels - they start to define me in ways only I need to know and are not precise enough to do that anyway. (Hence, I suspect, the proliferation of said microidentity labels due to others also finding them insufficient but trying to fix that by making ever-more labels for ever-more specific scenarios. Sure, maybe that works for some people, but the point of a label is to give people sufficient understanding of you and allow you to find community and I've never found only using the umbrella ones prevents that.)

[lb_lee]

Rogan: I think the turning point for me from polite bemusement to “I REALLY hope you aren’t clinging to these terms too tightly” was when I found a sexual orientation microlabel for folks who are attracted solely to YouTube characters created by other people. All I could think was the flame wars and total meltdowns that could ensue when someone discovered they were attracted to a YouTube character invented by THEMSELVES!

[pantha]

Oh, wow...

[nevanna]

Well said!

[dismallyoriented]

One of the dangers that arises specifically with identities that exist within hegemony (race, binary gender, etc) or are legible to and constructed within dominant culture is that oppressive forces will be trying to write those identities for you. My manhood is something that is very important to me and something I've had to defend from a world that wants to force me into my assigned role. But patriarchy tries to make manhood and masculinity dependent on becoming a foot soldier for misogyny and defining oneself in opposition to women. I love my gender, but I do not want that love to become the leash that patriarchy uses to drag me back in line a different way

[lb_lee]

Rogan: YUUUUUP. As someone who’s spent the last few years figuring out race shit (still ongoing, probably forever), it’s fraught! But rewriting those bullshit rules, however laboriously, is worth it to get the oppressor out of your head, inch by inch.

[gullwingdoors]

We've been pretty firmly in the "labels should describe, not prescribe" camp for a decent chunk of our life at this point, and sometimes we wonder just how much slapfighting between people who should be standing together on the same ground has been caused by folks growing petty and close-minded through that label-prescriptive mindset. It just... stings to see people who do deathgrip so tightly to their interpretations of labels and try to squeeze themselves into smaller and smaller boxes, when it feels like it should be such an easy leap to make that no label can bear the totality of you.

[lb_lee]

Thankfully, I think it’s a stage most people grow out of! Hell, maybe it’s even a necessary stage, to learn the world is bigger than the maps we make of it!

[kossai]

sometimes get really into kick where just want to find labels - which invariably end up to be niche microlabels - for aspects of identity that realistically already understand . in some part hope that would be easier to communicate , but would need to explain any microlabels anyway because by nature , use would be few and far between . so really all this add is complication as those labels might shift around , or X Y and Z might be seen as " contradictory " and then need to add further explanation , blah blah blah ...

yeah . end up with private obsidian vault that use to hold onto these kind of labels , just to satisfy those feelings , but never actually use those labels to explain ... anything .

[lb_lee]

I love the idea of a secret microlabel vault. THE WORDS ARE SECRET!

[kossai]

haha , yeah ! mostly do not trust online archives to stick around forever , so if want to keep something would prefer keep local , so just by nature usually private . could definitely pull out and use some of these , but never actually feel need to , or find that muddy waters when try .

what notice in niche microlabels ( frankly hypermicro or something ) particularly is also wild amounts of overlap - various microlabels pop up for ( as example here ) connections to songs , connections to song lyrics , connections to music videos , and then further those could splinter off into gender microlabels , sexuality microlabels , so on and so forth .

think nothing wrong to feel connections like that , no matter how niche and hyperspecific . but then with these labels , will either start to get into weeds of either figure out exactly which specific word fit , which may become wild goose chase that will never satisfy , or just choose every single one and potentially miss out on bigger picture of why serve as connection in first place .

so yeah , sometimes just look at vault to prompt thought and internal discussion about feelings and connections , but without pin down into any box :P