Content warning: transphobia
“I don’t see why we need labels, we’re all human”.
We’ve all heard it before; the whining voice that seeps out like a sad fart and lingers for too long. I’d like to laugh it off as a hollow statement, but I can’t. I can’t, because I looked closer and saw the terrifying power structures this statement supports and I’m scared and angry.
Most recently, these words were said to me in the context of gender identity, so I’ll focus on that for now.
It’s not surprising that, more often than not, these words are uttered by people who’ve never needed to use labels to talk about their gender. They don’t need labels, so they don’t see why anyone else should need them either. They don’t need labels, because their gender identity is treated as default by society. They don’t need labels, because they can go their whole lives without their gender identity ever becoming a major issue. These words are said in the context of privilege.
I don’t have the privilege of never having my gender questioned. I live on the front line of cissexism. It’s a minefield, and sometimes labels are the only protection I have.
I need labels because I am trying to navigate a world that tells me I’m not real; a world that considers my existence a threat, a nuisance, an anomaly, or a joke at best.
I need labels when strangers point and laugh at me in the street.
I need labels when I hear people whisper “is it a boy or a girl?”
Or when they don’t bother to whisper.
Or when I’m scared of going clothes shopping because of the looks of disapproval I get in either department.
When people use transphobic slurs, to my face.
When people tell me my pronouns are too difficult, and that they’re going to carry on using the wrong ones, intentionally.
When people tell me what name they want to call me, based on what they think is appropriate, rather than what my name is.
When these were people I had considered “friends”.
I need labels, because they allow me to claim back my humanity. Labels help me survive the daily onslaught of transphobia, because they give me dignity. When the world tells me I’m not real, I have a label that tells me I am. When others question the validity of my identity, humiliate me or reduce me to something I’m not, I often believe them. But my labels are still there, like a rock for me to hold onto.
I need labels, because without words to describe myself, I would disappear.
Labels allow my identity to flourish. They allow me to grow into the person I was always meant to be. They empower me with a certainty and confidence that I can use to make a future for myself. They say: I know who I am, and I have a life ahead of me.
How dare you try and take that away from me.
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| Erica, 19. Likes: Cats, art, cycling, toilet humour. Dislikes: Cheese, underwear, trimming my toenails. |
