Dear Gloria,
What do you think about all the new categories and labels people are giving themselves these days? I can’t keep up with it! It’s gotten ridiculous. I can’t even remember them all. Who could? I don’t really care what they call themselves, but I don’t see why that means I have to memorize all the different terms and use them. Isn’t it just as much of a violation of my rights to force me to call them by words that sound like psychobabble bs to me?
Why am I considered a hater for that? I don’t hate them. I just don’t think they have the right to expect me to go along with their delusions, especially since it goes against some of my beliefs. Don’t I have equal freedom to have my beliefs respected?
Normal Guy
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Dear Norm,
I’ll start with basic etiquette. If someone asks you to address them a certain way, and unless that term of address directly makes you feel small (i.e., sets up a nonconsensual power dynamic), just use it. It’s called “politeness” and it’s a basic skill a lot of people never learn. No one is asking you to memorize them all, either, merely to respect their wishes.
I remember when people squawked and balked and argued over the Black community’s efforts to find language that better represented their human identity, and mocked the term “African-American” as if it cost them money when a culture asked to be addressed with dignity and respect. That was an ugly lesson in racism and the current waves of fight-back against trans and non-binary people is an ugly lesson in how deep transphobia goes too.
If you are getting your nose out of joint over using a term the other person considers respectful, you are the one with the problem. You like your prejudices. You think you are entitled to them. Maybe that’s why people think you’re a hater. You’re acting like one. We should all make the effort of treating people with respect and compassion, as fellow members of the HUMAN family. Some people want you to understand where they are coming from so you will be sensitive to issues in their lives. Some just do so because they’re proud of who they are and feel good affirming it out loud. And, yes, this knowledge should make a material difference to how you relate to them. It is not asking you to make special exceptions or forcing you to abandon your beliefs. It is asking you to acknowledge the person you see as he/she/them see themselves.
Aside from politeness, there is another, stronger reason why so many people today are reaching outside of normative boxes for better ways to describe themselves. Most of the old labels are absurdly narrow, ideological, patriarchal and wrong. So there’s that.
Setting aside the vile assumptions about what being gay meant to Victorians, let’s look at the word homosexual. At its simplest, it means a man who has (or has had) a same-sex encounter. Beyond the simplest definition, however, lies a wealth of human behavior, from casual to intense, from gay to bi, from committed to experimental homosexuality. It encompasses a range of gender expressions, sex roles, sex acts, and natural sex variations like BDSM and fetishes. Scientifically speaking, homosexual is an ambiguous and broad category within which are endless permutations of the gay experience. On today’s gay dating apps and sites, you’ll see all kinds of labels and acronyms to help men sort out which kinds of nuances turn them on. It wouldn’t surprise or offend me if one day, their private language spilled into popular consciousness, the way BDSM identities are currently seeping into contemporary consciousness.
You might have noticed that lesbians have played a lot with labels as well, to help them convey not just where they stand on the sex/gender spectrum (for example, identifying as butch) but also how they stand on it (for example, stone butch). And, indeed, why shouldn’t people devise better terms for their identities than what men in stiff frock-coats — men who also thought that women didn’t have sex drives, homosexuals were psychotics, and masturbation made you impotent — decided 140 years ago?
Today’s scientists are hesitant to label anyone because we are learning FROM the people who are redefining themselves, not telling them how to define themselves.
Language isn’t enshrined in a sacred vault from which we may borrow only permissible words. New words and terms are invented every day. Language evolves with social changes. If anything, this is an exciting time for the English language because its change has accelerated in tandem with science, medicine, engineering, and technology. 140 years after people started to professionally study sex, sex science today supports the idea that every sex and gender identity is far more nuanced than ever imagined. So it makes sense that more nuanced labels are called for. They help us to more honestly represent human sexual behavior, as opposed to the old, absolutely wrongful assumptions that everything was Biblical and strictly binary.
I think it’s great to see people working on hopeful and positive new ways to express their sex and gender. You should try and take it that way too: someone just educated you on the diversity of life. It’s a positive thing, not a negative one. It’s an invitation to learn, not a slap in the face of your old beliefs. Take it as a teaching moment and love your fellow human.
