The Thing About Labels

I have this habit of stopping in the middle of reading when I come across a really good phrase, or line. I put down the book, and let the words pull me under them, let them process in the dungeons of my mind, let my own thoughts collide, mull them over.

So there was this line that Rafe from Openly Straight said while explaining to his mother why he wanted to not explicitly tell someone about his sexual orientation. He asked, "Why does it need to be labeled one way or other?"

He was talking about himself, of course. All through the book he has asked the question, picked it apart extensively. If it was actually lying if you let people do their thing and assume that you are straight, which people do if you don't openly declare you're gay - it's called Heterosexism, I learnt here. If there was any need for any label whatsoever.

But you always have a label, don't you? I mean, maybe you are not labelled as gay, but then you would be as something else. We, humans, just adore categorizing people into a specific grid, filter them into definite types, to make it easier for ourselves to know how to feel about that someone, to know how to react to their presence, to know how to deal with them.

We don't, of course. Because no one person is just one word, are they? We cannot be defined by just one word. Everyone is a collective sum of so many things. You can love books and sports and cooking and knitting, all at the same time.

I digress from the topic. But I said all this to just elaborate on Rafe's question: Why do we need to be labelled at all, and that too, by one word?

Rafe's exploration about himself made so much sense, honestly. At least I could see where he was coming from. If your entire identity consists of one word only, it does make it a little hard for you to breathe at times.

I remember back in high school, I was called a particularly nasty name because I was really fat. And over time, my actual name disappeared, and that bully-word took its place. It was as if when the guys would see me, they wouldn't see a girl, but a "fat girl". That was my identity there. My fatness defined me, or it felt like it did, and it almost consumed me. I hated to be labelled as the fat girl. I felt trapped in my own skin, I wanted to shed it off, peel it down, burn it away. I felt weighed down by a weight that wasn't physical.

So I could relate to Rafe, if only a little. Rafe explained that people back in Boulder always saw him as a gay kid, and not just a kid. His sexual orientation came before almost anything about him. And I guess that can be a little claustrophobic. Because the problem with being identified as a single something is that people are always stereotyping you, even inadvertently. They have a certain idea about what they think you are, and they just conform to that.

I once asked one of my friends if she feels she is straight or bisexual or pansexual. I mean, we have talked about this stuff before, but she never explicitly told me anything as to what she identified herself as anymore. We are pretty close, which is why I thought if I ask this, she might feel comfortable telling me. We were on the subject anyway.

And she said, "I don't know. I'd rather not be called anything at all."

So of course, I felt immediately bad, because why should she have to tell me anything? I know how she feels, and that should be enough. Why do we feel the urge to label everything and everyone down to the T? And then, when they don't conform to that label, we feel this like a huge stab of betrayal, this big wave of disappointment, even though it was us who put that bucket of expectations on their head in the first place.

That's not to say there are no need for labels. Or in this case, coming out. As Rafe was reminded every other time, coming out was a way more problematic thing even twenty years ago. You could get lynched for it, or become socially outcast. And in India, even today, you still can. Very few people I know have actually come out to their parents, or the society. Coming out or being labelled according to their sexual orientation is not an all-consuming life-snare for them. It is liberating. To finally be out in the open about yourself. To finally let people see you for who you really are. To finally be able to not repress it anymore. To finally let it go.

But then again, there are different people. Times are a-changing too and the issues are also depleting and repleting in variation and intensity. These labels...if they make someone feel choked, anything other than free, they shouldn't really have it, should they? It's all just a way to make us feel better, feel more in control of the world than we actually are. I think that's the point Rafe was trying to make.

But for Rafe, it was a wrong thing to do. As he said, being gay isn't a choice. Like a sweater you can just take off. Some labels are just part of you. They are part of your identity. And you can't just wish them away. You have to carry them with you.