Labels and lessons learned

Hi Readers,

Today I wanted to talk to you about labels. If you think about it, they are everywhere, from the foods we eat, to the clothes on our backs, to street signs on maps. I think most of you would agree that these kinds of labels are important, or at the very least useful. They’re a convenient shorthand to tell us what we’re getting into, what is in something, and can often help us make informed choices about the world we live in. But what about when labels extend to things other than physical objects or locations, what about the labels we put on humans, particularly on ourselves. I’ve learned through many trials and tribulations that these kinds of labels aren’t as easy and straightforward as the above-mentioned examples.

If you wouldn’t mind stepping into my time machine, I’d like to tell you a story that started off my journey with labels.  Hopefully, by the end of it, I’ll be able to share with you what I’ve learned about labels, when it comes to humans. Zoom! So here we are, circa 2009. It’s achingly close to high school graduation, and I’m sat in a pizza parlor across from my best friend, Macha_Lotta_Chaos. Over the year she had really drawn me out of my shell, introducing me to the concept that friends can, and do, hang out outside of school. She has let me talk about everything and anything I wanted to. Most importantly, she has introduced me to the concept of gay rights.

That’s not to say I didn’t know that they existed before her, I did, but it was kind of like, how you know, that in theory, mortgages exist, and one day you will have to pay them. With her, gay rights weren’t just an abstract thing to be talked about, they were a movement, a culture to be part of, something that individuals fueled. Not to mention, her smile was the most achingly beautiful I’d  seen in my than 17 years of life. On that day, I knew that whatever happened, I loved her.

Not the kind of love I had heard about in the high school hallways, that seemed more like a conquest. No, this kind of love was adoration and admiration. It was being better for having been around her. it was the kind of love that made me weak in the knees, or would have if I had been able to stand up, because I just didn’t know what to do with it. And now, on this day, in this pizza parlor, chicken fingers untouched, I was going to tell her. I was going to tell her about all that she had done for me, and all I was feeling.

I don’t remember my exact wording. I do remember feeling like you do after you’ve  been in a dark room for a very long time, and are suddenly surrounded by light, half blind and stumbling around. I think I had started out the conversation by saying that I knew she was into gay rights, and that I knew this didn’t make her gay, but I was wondering if she had ever thought about falling in love with  and marrying a girl. Gay marriage was a big issue at the time, and we had talked about that a lot. I think I had been reluctant to speak up and at one point during the conversation.

I said, “Surely I don’t have to say this, because you know what I’m going to tell you.” She just smiled reassuringly the way a parent does when they’re going to pull out a splinter from an open wound, they know it’s going to hurt you, but they promise they will be gentle. “Yeah I’m pretty sure.” She said, and then went on,"but you know you can tell me."

And so, I did I said something like, "I really like you, maybe even love you". I was in 12th grade remember, with relatively little romantic experience. I love you had been said to me before, within the context of romantic relationships, but this was the first time I can really remember saying it to someone else first, who I wanted to say it back. Oddly enough, she did say it back, so gently and carefully. This may just be the romanticism of memory but I think, Macha leaned forward and said, “I love you so much, but I can’t be with you. Now you all understand my splinter analogy pretty well.

I want to be clear, Macha was not cruel at all, once my feelings were made clear to her, and her point of view disseminated, she did her best to help me clean up. The cleanup is where we get into labels. She said to me, “So how long have you been identifying as a lesbian."

I know that she was trying her damnedest to assure me that lesbians were okay, that I could be one, maybe even find others who were like me, have other conversations, like the one we were having now, but with a different outcome.

At the time, her question baffled me. Again, I don’t remember what exactly I said in reply, but I think it was something like, “ I don’t know; all I know is that I love you." We ended that day at the pizza parlor agreeing that we would still be best friends. she offered to give me space, if I needed it, to which I declined, saying that I was just glad that it was over, and that we would still be in each other’s lives.

But in actuality it wasn’t over. Her and I were still friends. However, She wasn’t to know that her question about identity would haunt me through college, graduate school, and multiple relationships. What was I? Every time I thought I had found a label that fit, something would come up to contradict that label. I’d have multiple crushes on girls, only to find myself falling for a boy several months later.

People would keep referring to me as a girl, but I would know that something was missing inside of me, or that something didn’t quite fit with that. What’s more, I didn’t describe it as wrong just not quite right. And there were many nights where I played back the interaction between us in my head, especially the part where I had said that I loved her. Not girls specifically, just her.

Years later, I would struggle to know that I was trans, because my story of transness did not match the other stories of individuals who used that label for themselves. Today, I still have trouble explaining my labels to other people.

As of the time of this posting, they are: trans masculine, trans man, non-binary, and queer.

Luckily, I am still friends with Macha today, who has grown into an absolute badass powerhouse of her own queerness. We share a platonic bond, that I think I can safely say, is one of the best kinds of love I’ve ever experienced. I thank her every day for helping me embark on my own journey of queer self-discovery, even if she didn’t know that she was doing it at the time.

Now all of you may be thinking, if you’ve read this far, but wait, I thought this post was going to be about what you learned. This was a very nice flashback, but what was the point? Well, Dear Reader, this is what I’ve learned about labels, and what I wish that 12th grade me had known at the time. Labels are not fixed. They can grow and change, especially on an individual level, over time, and with additional experience. When somebody asks you, especially when it’s a loved one, how you identify, most of the time, they are trying their best to support you. But you are well within your right not to have an answer to that question, or only part of the answer available to you in the moment.

I’ve also learned, that at least for me, labels can be achingly appealing. Think back to what I said earlier about objects, they enable you to know what you’re getting into. However, with humans, they are less like tags and more like eels, slippery and changeable.

So, what can you do to spare yourself years of agony over labels, like yours truly? How can you know what label will be right for you and when? The first step is to give yourself patience, and to embrace the radical concept that you don’t have to have all the answers right now. Something may feel good for you, for a while, like a comfy sweater, but then in a few years, or days, or months, your favorite sweater may feel too tight. You may look back on it with fondness, but decide that you’ve gotten all of the daily use you can out of it, and choose to cut it up for squares in the wonderful quilt that is your life. Always remember that you are the maker. Labels for humans are not designed to let other humans know what they’re getting into.

From my experience, they are designed for you to see the beauty within yourself. I wish someone had told me, perhaps an older mentor, that it was okay for my quilt of labels to look different than even those ones that were sown out of similar fabric. That way I could’ve started concentrating on the beauty of my own quilt, instead of holding it out for comparison to others.

So, how do you know if a label is right for you? The answer is, at least from my Perspective, trial and error. If we use the quilt and sweater metaphors, don’t be afraid to start sewing with material that looks good to you, and feels good underneath your hands. Some people know immediately just from glancing at material, others may need to feel it underneath their fingertips first, and even complete a few stitches before ripping them out and starting over.

In practical terms, you can use resources like the pronoun dressing room to try on pronouns that might feel right for you. You can search online and access other people’s stories and see what parts of them resonate with you and why.

If you have friends that you think would be supportive, you can try starting a conversation with something like, “I know this isn’t a phase, but I know I’m still trying to figure things out as well, would you be willing to refer to me as this so that I can see how it feels?” Remember that ultimately you are the one who has to live with the label, so you are the one who gets to decide what works for you.

And what if you can’t find a label that works? This is the best-kept secret that I wish I had known back at that pizza parlor. A surprisingly large portion of the world bypasses labels altogether. They choose to show people who they are as they figure it out for themselves, showing people who they are as those people gain trust and build relationships with them.

Ultimately, labels can be helpful, but from my perspective, someone should think about them from the vantage point of,

“What’s going to be helpful for me, rather than where do I fit, or what answer am I going to give people when they ask?” Lastly, know that whatever labels you decide on for yourself, or if you decide to bypass them, both decisions are ultimately yours to make, and have no timeline. Going back to the quilt metaphor again, making your quilt faster does not guarantee that it will be more beautiful, and making your quilt slower, does not guarantee that it will be more enjoyable. Instead, focus on making a quilt that you can live with and be proud of because it’s yours.

Hope I’ve given you something to think on,

Sorloquator