Letting Go of the Label

Finding a label that accurately expresses the feeling of one’s sexuality is difficult work that can last a lifetime. Many people in the LGBT+ community have experienced the confusing and ongoing struggle of finding the “perfect label”. The idea of finding a singular identity label to fall under is already difficult due to the limits of social categorization today, but an attempt to correctly categorize something as personalized as sexuality is even harder. I believe that the struggle of labeling oneself as gay or straight (or anything else) is related more to the ultimately confining norms that we attempt to define sexual desire with and relate to our identities.

Current sexual labels that are commonly used today are often limited by the general language of their definitions, and this means that societal expectations also limit people as they find a label for others to recognize. The challenges of labeling sexuality come from the limiting nature in which we categorize others in society. Through the importance that our culture has placed on knowing how to categorize people, the normalization of this constant labeling has been extended into expectations around societal roles of queer people specifically. This flawed societal practice of using one’s sexuality to judge other things about the person’s characteristics and behavior has had a detrimental effect on those who struggle to fully identify with certain labels due to the social expectation surrounding that identification.

The social perception of a sexual identity also assumes that the person holds certain characteristics related to that label, often based on cultural and personal stereotypes. Those who do not fit the generalized stereotypes that society has decided for each label are forced to remain associated with whatever group people assume them to be in. While we use labels to place people within certain roles in society, we also unfortunately use our assumption-based nature to connect the characteristics of a person’s sexual identity through all other ways that they interact with the world.

This association of sexuality as an interpersonal identifier of a greater community or a certain way of being can have both beneficial and harmful effects on people. Many people can feel that once their sexuality is made known, it becomes a primary part of their identity to those around them, and this identification can also build community. However, the pressure to be recognized within a certain role under a specific sexual label is mainly external. It is the flawed nature of our societal judgments that makes us expect others to fit within certain categories, instead of fully accepting that some people may not fit into these categories at all.

There is great importance that sexual identity holds to many people, as the use of a label can be interpreted differently by everyone, much in the same way that sexuality can be felt in completely different ways to each individual. Some find that their sexual identity empowers them, and the use of a label is how they can build greater acceptance and connections with others they relate to. I do understand that identity categories have multiple uses and interpretations among people, but I find the societal expectations that are held around many queer sexual labels to be ultimately harmful to our understanding of expansive sexual expression.

If we are to move towards a more just interpretation of sexuality, it would involve revoking the initial concept of identifying sexual behavior as “normal” or not. Instead, the presence of our sexual identities could be understood through a lens not built to make comparisons, but instead to understand that individual sexual expression is too fluid to be pressured to fit into a singular label.

Works Cited
Hall, Donald Eugene. Queer Theories. Palgrave MacMillan, New York, NY, 2005, pp. 2–65.