TW/advertencia de activacion de trauma: hate crimes and discrimination
There seems to be a sharp divide between people who hate labels, want no one to use labels, say things like "we're all just human" and "I don't see race" that sound like perfectly pleasant sentiments, and people who spend years figuring out what labels best define them, who love labels, who identify very closely with their labels, and encourage everyone to explore what labels feel right to them. You largely don't hear from people who don't care one way or the other, thought I'm sure those people exist; mostly you hear a lot of words from people who feel very strongly one way or the other about if labels are "good" or "bad."
What's up with that?
Generally if you ask one of us pro-label people (yep, they are important to me), we almost always will say something like, "Before I found this label, I thought I was broken" or "I didn't know there were other people like me." For most of us, we were outsiders in our communities even if we couldn't understand why, and everything in our society told us we were weird, broken, odd, unusual, or unnatural.
One of my labels is "sex-repulsed asexual," which means that I am not only not sexually attracted to anyone of any gender, but the thought of actually having sex is repulsive to me. This isn't some religious conviction on my part (that's almost always what non-aces think it is), it's innate. To me, all of those holes in your pants are exit holes and as gross as your toilet. I just don't understand sex. I believe people when they say they like it, but I also believe people when they say they like pineapple on pizza even though I find it to be awful.
So what, some might say. Just don't have sex (yeah I don't).
But imagine living in our hypersexualized world and thinking sex is nasty and gross. Imagine growing up and all your friends start getting crushes and dating and you get teased by your peers for being childish, innocent, naive, or a late bloomer, told "you'll understand someday" or called a prude. Imagine how many straight men tell you that you just haven't had good dick and their dick is magical and they'll "cure" you with it ("corrective rape" is a thing, friends). Imagine seeing sex EVERYWHERE, not just in romance movies and TV shows but in ads for completely unrelated random everyday objects, in the music on the radio, and in the jokes being told around the water cooler that you feel pressured to laugh along to when you really don't even understand what was just said. Imagine your relatives asking you if there is someone special in your life and why haven't you gotten married yet and when are you going to give your parents grandchildren. Imagine your doctor finding out (because they don't believe you when you tell them that you are not sexually active) and starting in like they're your mom: "What if you get married? No one will marry you if you don't have sex!" Thanks for that, doc, I'm here about my back, not for marriage advice. And then when people believe you about it, they question why you are that way ("Oh you must have been sexually abused") or assume there's some other underlying reason (for the record, no, I have no way of knowing if I would be ace if I wasn't trans. It may very well be that my brain just doesn't have the user manual for the parts I've got. But that's irrelevant, isn't it? I am the way I am, regardless).
You're gonna feel broken. Sometimes, the medical establishment will tell you that you are broken, and prescribe you pills to increase your libido (being ace isn't about your libido, btw; you can be ace and still have libido)!
LGBTQ+ terms in Irish
I learned the word "asexual" when I was in my late 20s and I literally cried about it. For the first time I thought I wasn't a broken human being and realized that other people were in fact like me. That maybe there were other humans who prioritized relationships that didn't involve sex. That maybe I could be loved even if I didn't want to fuck. That was unthinkable to my life experience before. One of the main draws when I was seriously considering entering the religious life was the vow of celibacy - because finally no one would be pressuring me to have sex. To most people that vow is a difficulty; to me it was a bonus because it meant people would leave me alone!
When I say things like that, sometimes I get allo people (allosexual = people who DO experience sexual attraction) who think that I'm bragging in some way, like, "Oh boo hoo, look at you getting flirted at and attention, you just think you're hot and are pretending not to care" but NO, friends, I promise you, my trans ass sees my body in a mirror and wants to retch, I do NOT think I'm hot and I do NOT want straight male attention of that sort. For people who can't imagine aceness, assuming that you're not bi or pan, imagine the gender(s) you are NOT attracted to unabashedly flirting with you, following you home, catcalling you, grabbing your ass, etc. Does that feel complimentary? If you're a straight man, would you feel flattered if a gay guy on the bus told you all the sexual things he'd like to do to your body? Because a straight man has done that to me, and not a single other passenger on the bus blinked, even when he got up in a rage and started threatening me, screaming while hovering over me when I didn't respond.* It's not a compliment. It's awful.
So to find out that I wasn't fundamentally broken was a lifechanging moment of self acceptance and peace.
That is why labels matter to me.
For some people it's probably kind of a rebellious thing to do. "Don't box me in," "don't pigeonhole me," and that kind of thought. And that's fine. But sometimes it becomes really clear that the person you are dealing with who thinks "cis" is a slur ("cis" is literally just the Latin prefix for "on this side of" and "trans" means "on the opposite side of" so "cisgender" just means that you are the gender you were assigned at birth, or the opposite of "transgender") or who bristles at being called "white" because they "don't see race," is really just used to whatever their majority category is being seen as "the default." Insisting that the majority group doesn't get a label is implying that they are "normal" and everyone else is "weird" or "different" or "unnatural." Being "normal" puts you in a position of privilege, and everyone outside of that privileged position gets a label that identifies their weirdness, or what is perceived to be wrong with them. I know the internet hates the word privilege and I probably lost a few people there, but here's the thing: othering people makes them outcasts, it makes them unaccepted, it makes them targets. It gets kids bullied and sometimes, it gets people killed. If you're "normal," you are not targeted for being so. No group of gay college kids ever beat a straight kid and tied them to a fencepost to die due to his straightness. If you're just another type of person, identifiable, not "the default," then you're not "special," and you're not "better than those other weirdos."
There's another reason why it seems some people in majority groups hate labels: because they don't want to be associated with a more-obviously-prejudiced past. Think of it this way, especially for my American friends: Christians are the majority group in the States but no one is offended at being called a Christian; on the contrary, they're often shouting it from the rooftops. That's a majority label you do accept. Not too long ago, in the 20th century, white people didn't bristle at the word "white." In fact it was used everywhere, by white people, when they had segregation signs saying "whites only" or KKK members yelled "white power." But nowadays it's not ok for you to say that. Nowadays, unless you're really racist, you look back at those times with shame. You don't want to be associated with that. You don't want that label because it feels bad. It feels like if you say you are white, you are being like those racist KKK segregationists. You don't want to be thought of as racist, so you do your best to just ignore race altogether. But people of color in this country don't have that ability; black people get pulled over for driving while black or don't get that job interview or that rental because their name sounded "too ethnic" on the application. Asian people get asked, "Where are you from?" and when they say, "Chicago," the follow up is often, "No, where are you really from?" ...the implication being that they aren't "real" Americans. Some Latinx people are being detained by ICE (link to the story about A MARINE who was detained) even though they are citizens. They might like to "not see race" but it is thrust in their face every day. My pale, blond ass can fritter about without ICE trying to deport me to Scotland, and I can walk throught the really wealthy neighborhood within walking distance without getting the cops called on me for being suspicious even though I'm poor as hell, but Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed while out jogging. For white people in the United States to deny the label "white," it's like, trying to deny that you have any privilege. There's that word again, but the fact is I have it in this case. It doesn't mean your life has been great or that you don't have any problems, it doesn't mean you don't struggle or face discrimination in some other area, it just means that you aren't discriminated against for your whiteness the same way that cisgendered people aren't shot in the head and dragged by a car and then misgendered by the police after their body is found because there's an epidemic of hate crimes against them.
I'm being a ray of sunshine again, have a meme
If you're in the latter category, I get it. You don't want to be thought of as some white supremacist, and it feels like "not seeing race" is the enlightened thing to do. Maybe in a utopia where it wasn't actually a problem for people anymore, you could do that and everyone would do that and it would be great. But in our world today, racism is still a very real thing, and so it's kind of like sticking your head in the sand, you know? In this vein, I recommend doing some reading on the subject. Reading is a great way to learn about these topics because if you need to stop and breathe and process for a while you can do that, and if you read something (like this blog post) that maybe pokes you in a really uncomfortable way, you can turn it over in your head instead of, say, getting into an argument in the comments section when you're feeling defensive. I had to stop and breathe so many times reading through A People's History of the United States because it was just horror after horror after horror. Books are a nice way to learn. Articles are a nice way to learn. Comments sections, not often so much.
Finally, I'm going to throw out there this wonderful Twitter thread:
about a Southern Baptist, 103-year-old grandmother who had a transgender cousin in 1913, whose parents "took her away and brought back a son." All the labels we're using nowadays doesn't mean that we're new. We've always been here. The difference is that now we have the words to describe who we are, and sometimes (but not always) the safety to do so. It is more of the unveiling that I've often mentioned. The truth has always been there, we're just seeing it now instead of pretending like it doesn't exist.https://twitter.com/MaryRobinette/status/835019239069204481?s=20
- MaryRobinette
So if you hate labels, I invite you to ponder, really ponder why that is. Are you just a rebellious spirit who doesn't like being defined? Are you uncomfortable being associated with a privileged group, or privilege itself? Do you think that you are "normal," and if so, why do you value normalcy? Are you willing to continue to value your own perceived "normality" to the detriment of others?
And if you're the rebellious spirit - all these labels are an invitation for people to explore and find themselves instead of conforming to "the norm" that society prescribes. Isn't that just the ultimate rebellion? If you explore all the labels and try a few on only to come out the other side deciding that yup, you are definitely cisgender and heterosexual, that's great! The fact that you were open minded enough to really dive deep and know yourself instead of being afraid to look under the hood speaks volumes about your maturity. That's all it is. The safety for everyone to be their truest self.
*If you're curious how I got out of that situation, I looked at him, smiled innocently, and said, "Désolé, je ne comprends pas l'anglais." He stopped and said, "Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh, you don't speak English!" and sat back down. As if the problem was that I didn't understand his disgusting inappropriate words and would have been so charmed and DTF if I had. Gross.
