I have so many names. We all do.
Quotes to repost to blog:
From an article an its comments on the importance and power of labels:
"Also, in addition to being a really fecking stupid idea, trying to discourage the use of labels is an utterly futile one. Referring to definable concepts using words is human nature. Centuries of biological and cultural evolution has created a species that NAMES things. It is among our most fundamental psychological drives. We are the species of science and of literature; of identification and expression. We are Pan narrans, the Storytelling Chimpanzee. Verbal communication is OURS, as a field, like hardiness belongs to the cockroaches and swimming belongs to the fish. Our species is too intimately tied to the concept to back out now. When one encounters a concept that has no name, it is hard-to-impossible for a human being to avoid naming it, if only in the privacy of their own head. Labels are not only part of how we communicate, they are part of how we think. I see a chair, my brain says “chair”. I see that someone is upset, my brain says “upset”. It is difficult to efficiently think about something that does not have a name, and even more difficult to do so without resorting to making one up. Have you ever actually sat down and tried to find and list lexical gaps in your own language? It is nigh-impossible to do so without noticing two things: firstly, that there is very little that we don’t yet have a word for, and secondly, that our instinctive reaction upon identifying such a lacuna is to think “This thing totally SHOULD have a name.” So it has been since not long after we first developed what would later be labelled “sapience”. To oppose the use of verbal labels is to declare oneself to be a glitch in human development; an evolutionary throwback to those wordless days when Homo sapiens wasn’t yet capable of living up to its own name.
Basically, if you actually used words, made out of letters, to type a statement of opposition towards the concept of labels, then your argument is invalid and you have already lost."
"I care because of all the time I spent lost in the wilderness, thinking something was missing. I care because of all the time I spent looking at other people and seeing that I was fundamentally different than them, thinking something must be broken inside me. I care because of all the time I spent not knowing where I fit in the world, thinking that I must not fit anywhere.
I care because I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through.
I have a place now. I have a name for me.
I’m not broken anymore.
I can’t make you understand what it’s like to go through that, but I can tell you that it brings tears to my eyes when I think about how many questioning people in the asexual tag I’ve helped to realize that yes, actually, they are asexual, and no, that’s not a bad thing, and yes, that’s a real orientation and yes, it’s okay to describe yourself that way. People are confused and hurting, and they need to hear that their experiences are legitimate. If a simple label can help, then so be it."
"If you have a problem with people affixing words to themselves as a means of reassurance and consolation, then you can shove it. Your opinion is irrelevant. Every other set of people who uses some label - don’t need to justify their choices to you. They owe you no explanation. And yet the internet is littered with explanations if you know how to find them, because people like you are so numerous that they’re compelled to write everything from snippets to essays to articulate what you failed to figure out on your own."
"Why is it even necessary for them to explain to you, hm? Why do you need to hear it in the first place? Why do you want to stop us from making ourselves feel a little better after being ground under the heel of normativity? Here’s an idea: instead of asking why they think it’s “necessary” to label themselves, ask yourself why you object to it. And for Pete’s sake, don’t give me that “limiting yourself” crap."
"Ah, man, so many people have so many issues with labels and it doesn’t make sense that they do. Most of the time, I feel that people have angst with labels because they don’t want to admit that the shoe fits, like people who dislike the word “bisexual” but prefer to be “heteroflexible” which is just another label to describe being bisexual but with some sort of difference (which is really no difference)."
"I ‘preach’ to people that without labels, we would be unable to identify the world around us - and it’s necessary and vital to our existence that we do this - we can’t function without labels and, as such, all we need to do is know what they are, how they’re applied, stuff like that, and just get on with our lives. But, we also know that words have power and that some words can be used as weapons and to attack each other at the most personal of levels… and all because of the ages-old mentality of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and that habit we have of wanting to destroy that which is not like us."
"Labels don’t upset me because they can only have that kind of power if I allow it - I choose not to allow it and I can’t really understand why other people choose to give them this kind of negative power."
From an article an its comments on the importance and power of labels:
"Also, in addition to being a really fecking stupid idea, trying to discourage the use of labels is an utterly futile one. Referring to definable concepts using words is human nature. Centuries of biological and cultural evolution has created a species that NAMES things. It is among our most fundamental psychological drives. We are the species of science and of literature; of identification and expression. We are Pan narrans, the Storytelling Chimpanzee. Verbal communication is OURS, as a field, like hardiness belongs to the cockroaches and swimming belongs to the fish. Our species is too intimately tied to the concept to back out now. When one encounters a concept that has no name, it is hard-to-impossible for a human being to avoid naming it, if only in the privacy of their own head. Labels are not only part of how we communicate, they are part of how we think. I see a chair, my brain says “chair”. I see that someone is upset, my brain says “upset”. It is difficult to efficiently think about something that does not have a name, and even more difficult to do so without resorting to making one up. Have you ever actually sat down and tried to find and list lexical gaps in your own language? It is nigh-impossible to do so without noticing two things: firstly, that there is very little that we don’t yet have a word for, and secondly, that our instinctive reaction upon identifying such a lacuna is to think “This thing totally SHOULD have a name.” So it has been since not long after we first developed what would later be labelled “sapience”. To oppose the use of verbal labels is to declare oneself to be a glitch in human development; an evolutionary throwback to those wordless days when Homo sapiens wasn’t yet capable of living up to its own name.
Basically, if you actually used words, made out of letters, to type a statement of opposition towards the concept of labels, then your argument is invalid and you have already lost."
"I care because of all the time I spent lost in the wilderness, thinking something was missing. I care because of all the time I spent looking at other people and seeing that I was fundamentally different than them, thinking something must be broken inside me. I care because of all the time I spent not knowing where I fit in the world, thinking that I must not fit anywhere.
I care because I don’t want anyone else to go through what I went through.
I have a place now. I have a name for me.
I’m not broken anymore.
I can’t make you understand what it’s like to go through that, but I can tell you that it brings tears to my eyes when I think about how many questioning people in the asexual tag I’ve helped to realize that yes, actually, they are asexual, and no, that’s not a bad thing, and yes, that’s a real orientation and yes, it’s okay to describe yourself that way. People are confused and hurting, and they need to hear that their experiences are legitimate. If a simple label can help, then so be it."
"If you have a problem with people affixing words to themselves as a means of reassurance and consolation, then you can shove it. Your opinion is irrelevant. Every other set of people who uses some label - don’t need to justify their choices to you. They owe you no explanation. And yet the internet is littered with explanations if you know how to find them, because people like you are so numerous that they’re compelled to write everything from snippets to essays to articulate what you failed to figure out on your own."
"Why is it even necessary for them to explain to you, hm? Why do you need to hear it in the first place? Why do you want to stop us from making ourselves feel a little better after being ground under the heel of normativity? Here’s an idea: instead of asking why they think it’s “necessary” to label themselves, ask yourself why you object to it. And for Pete’s sake, don’t give me that “limiting yourself” crap."
"Ah, man, so many people have so many issues with labels and it doesn’t make sense that they do. Most of the time, I feel that people have angst with labels because they don’t want to admit that the shoe fits, like people who dislike the word “bisexual” but prefer to be “heteroflexible” which is just another label to describe being bisexual but with some sort of difference (which is really no difference)."
"I ‘preach’ to people that without labels, we would be unable to identify the world around us - and it’s necessary and vital to our existence that we do this - we can’t function without labels and, as such, all we need to do is know what they are, how they’re applied, stuff like that, and just get on with our lives. But, we also know that words have power and that some words can be used as weapons and to attack each other at the most personal of levels… and all because of the ages-old mentality of “if you’re not with us, you’re against us” and that habit we have of wanting to destroy that which is not like us."
"Labels don’t upset me because they can only have that kind of power if I allow it - I choose not to allow it and I can’t really understand why other people choose to give them this kind of negative power."