#and I'm not gonna stamd here and tell people labels are useless | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gravedangerahead · 4 months

Text

I don't know, buddy. I think this should make you rethink saying stuff like "I hate microlabels" in the first place? Not to put you on blast or anything, you're just the latest in a long line of people I've seen making arguments like these.

There's basically no genuine problem you can have with microlabels that does not simply apply to labels in general

I think it's important to be in community and solidarity with people independently of whether you have the exact same label, and to realize there are plenty of shared experiences across different queer identities.

Practically none of it is the exclusive realm of one particular identity and we don't need to be atomized. And it is, in fact, in our best political interest to stick together and fight together

Labels are a way of classifying and categorizing the infinitely diverse range of human experience. That can be helpful and that can cause problems. (I think there are criticisms of diagnostics that might apply, and some of our words actually originate in that realm.) It's important to remember that they are not material reality and they do not define your experiences, but are merely a culturally defined tool to help you understand them, that may be more or less useful given the situation

I'm always quick to tell people that labels are meant to be helpful and if trying to find one is stressing them out rather than helping, a label is simply not required. Those people might still feel like it's important to them to find the right words, and I'm not gonna pretend to know better than them

There are plenty of people who are perfectly happy being just queer, and not trying to figure out their identities any further than that. There are people going through intense anxiety while trying to figure out if they're lesbian or bi. Why do we need those intermediary labels then? Do they just atomize us? Are they unnecessary boxes? Or is that only a problem when it comes to those newfangled ones at the end of the acronym?

I think there are more people who feel like they have to figure out where exactly they fall in the big 4 identities than people who are distressed because they feel like they have to figure out a microlabel they fit in, tbqh. And there's plenty of separatist sentiment among them too

Plenty of people find meaning and expression in being butch or femme. Why shouldn't people choose a new word that they feel best defines their own unique gender identity? Why shouldn't somebody on the ace or aro spectrum try to figure out if other people have a similar experience with attraction as they do?

People having more words to describe their identities is not the problem. At all. If somebody has decided to use a microlabel and is happy with it, what exactly is the issue?

If you actually stand with every queer person, if you're in solidarity with every anti-oppression fight of any kind, the problem of political isolation and community dilution goes away.

If you treat all labels as tools that can be played with, experimented with and not gatekept, taken up and abandoned, changed, or simply ignored if you don't want or need one, the problem of emotional distress goes away.

Neither problem is exclusive to microlabels.

#rapha rambles #queer #microlabels #Maybe I'm burned off on ace discourse #but stop trying to find acceptable targets #lgbtqia #lgbt+#queer identities #I didn't know asexuality was a thing as a teenager #learning I'm asexual #learning I'm aroace #was very helpful to me #and I'm not gonna stamd here and tell people labels are useless

71 notes · View notes