As human beings, we label everything. We have this annoying need to categorize ourselves and others – it helps us make sense of the world and our place in it.
We use labels to indicate our place in our families, such as mother or son. We use them to share our professions or professions. Labels help us identify our cultural background and ethnicity.
But for those who fall outside of heteronormative, cisgender demographics, labels about sexuality and gender can be difficult – they can be as useful as they are harmful.
Global News spoke with several people in Canada who identify as belonging to the 2SLGBTQQIA + community to discuss how labels help them feel empowered and sense of belonging. We also revealed how these same labels can make people feel locked in an identity that feels restrictive and problematic.
When labels are useful
For Matt Packman, 40, the opportunity to choose a label when he first appeared in front of family and friends two decades ago was helpful.
“Initially, it was easier to be gay,” he says, acknowledging that the way he identifies has changed over time and he now tends to identify as pansexual.
Matt Packman poses on the shores of Charlottetown, PEI, where she currently lives with her husband. With kind assistance / Matt Pacman
However, he notes, when it first came out, the vocabulary was much more limited; people in the queer community identified as gay, lesbian, or bisexual, as discourse at the time was largely limited to these areas.
“Now, within the queer community, we have so many more labels to choose from, and those labels are becoming more familiar to those outside the community, so there is progress.”
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Paige Mpelecicas, 23, says that for many young people, having a list of labels to choose from is helpful when first researching how they fit into the queer community.
“Labels can be really formative when you’re younger and trying to find something that’s right,” she said, adding that she never had a moment to “go out”, but rather managed to explore her identity within a safe circle of other friends who also identify as strange.
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Mpeletzikas likens the acronym 2SLGBTQQIA + to a life raft for those who first explore their identity in the queer community.
“When you’re lost in this sea of heteronormativity, finding this life raft, something to hold on to that will help pull you through, I think it’s so powerful to have these things in place,” she explained, adding. that many young people who struggle to set their gender identity and sexual preferences first come across the many labels in online communities.
Increasing definitions added to the acronym for sexuality and gender can help many people narrow down what might otherwise be confusing feelings about who they are, Mpeletzikas says, both in recognizing how they would like to be labeled and and, perhaps more importantly, she says they do not identify.
When labels are harmful
On the other hand, this growing list of labels can often make people in the queer community feel like they’re stuck in a certain identity or feel like they have to stick to a certain set of “rules” to fit in. peers. .
For Kaylee, who identifies as trance and non-binary and has been taking hormone therapy with testosterone for the past year, the label “trance” is extremely important to them, as it is a word that offers immediate camaraderie and understanding with other trance people.
Kaylee is resting at work, lifting her legs and enjoying the view of Calgary. Courtesy of K Kealey
However, the same label can come with its fair share of identity politics.
“People expect trance people to be a certain way, to look or behave a certain way, but there are all sorts of ways to be a trance. “Just as there are all sorts of ways to be lesbian, gay or outright,” they said.
Packman agrees, adding that there are often police actions against queer communities, as people inside and outside the community expect people who identify under a certain label to act or look a certain way.
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“I see a lot of gay men attaching that value to their homosexuality by bragging that they’ve never had sex with a woman,” he said.
“Sometimes you feel like you’re gay, you have to reject femininity and women in general,” he said, adding that there were times when he felt like an outsider in the gay community because he embraced his femininity.
Mpeletzikas notes that labels can be restrictive, especially given a person’s sexuality and preferences, which can change many times over the course of their lives.
She remembers a friend from a small town who had to fight hard to be accepted as a lesbian by her friends and family. When she eventually moved to Toronto, she found herself attracted to a man and worried about regaining her bisexual identity.
“She was afraid she would go home and those who criticized her (when she first came out) would have the ammunition to do it again. She was worried that people would not believe her or invalidate her identity because she still understood who she was.
Labels are subject to change
The three people Global talked to about this story all agreed that while etiquette may vary in varying degrees, labels are not static and people’s sexuality and gender identity can and do change.
In fact, each of them is identified differently than a few years ago.
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Both Keeley and Pacman said the pandemic downtime gave them more time to consider who they were and used the luxury of deep introspection to explore how they identified.
“For the first time in a long time, I’ve been able to sit with myself and really discover some things about myself that I haven’t had much time to think about,” Keeley said, adding that both self-reflection and ongoing conversations with her partner it helped them realize that they were trance.
Keeley says he has close kinship and understanding with other people who identify as trance. Courtesy of K Kealey
For Packman, it was conversations with his husband that led to the realization that perhaps pansexual etiquette was more appropriate – although he noted that marriage may not offer many opportunities to explore this side of his sexuality.
“I want to say that sexuality and the study of sexuality can be so circumstantial. Sometimes you won’t know what you like until you try it, but you may never be given that opportunity. Sometimes it’s all about how the stars are arranged. ”
Looking outside from the inside
Because labels can be important or unimportant to people in the community, the expanding queer acronym plays an important role for people outside the queer community, Mpelecicas said.
“I think the acronym and the words behind it are the basis for initial acceptance and tolerance outside the community,” she said. “You have to teach people how to use the language and the meanings behind it before they can use it.”
In her experience, she says the acronym is especially useful for older generations who have not grown up with the levels of strange tolerance and acceptance that are observed today.
She also notes that the acronym gives legitimacy to the queer community as it becomes more visible in books, online and in pop culture.
“It’s hard to deny our existence or deny that labels are real when they are discussed on television or appear in academic articles.
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Keeley agrees, saying the acronym is a great visual reminder that the queer community is diverse and that there are many ways to define gender and sexuality.
“It’s definitely a walking tool before you run. For straight or cisgender people, having a lexicon in the form of an acronym gives them this really convenient way to learn more about each of the letters and get acquainted with these concepts, “they said.
As the founder of the Canmore Pride in Southern Alberta, Keeley says he will use the acronym as one of the ways to help educate and introduce concepts of strange identity and community.
“Being able to go through all these individual letters and really break them and be able to explore each one is invaluable.”
Packman agrees, likening the acronym to a kind of Coles Notes, a mini-course on anything that “lies outside the status quo.”
Packman says there may be pressure in the queer community to adhere to a set of norms or qualities associated with different labels. With kind assistance / Matt Pacman
Interestingly, the same useful acronym can be a “huge wall” for others, he said, adding that it doesn’t help when comedians like Dave Chapel use terms like “people of the alphabet” to dismiss, ridicule and belittle those in the community. 2SLGBTQQIA +.
“For those who are closed or do not accept the strange community, this series of letters becomes something of a shock line. They …
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