Demisexual catholic cis-male who is sexually aroused by carbon-made airplanes? Objectophile Dymo-Label printing fetishist? – Labels matter when there is context. A prime example of context is dating: You don’t want to date a male, if you are a heterosexual male. But without context, for example at school or the workplace there is the question why does everyone care and when do we as a society get over the point of the relevancy of labels? When do we account for sexuality and identity as always evolving malleable concepts without clear boundaries? Why does a coming-out matter and why do we talk about gay friends as gay friends and heterosexual friends just as friends?
And apart from sexuality there are even more identity defining labels – From gender roles, personality typing systems, job roles and bladiblah. Sometimes with a useful purpose, other times just to narrow down and to box everything into convenient boxes that eases our thinking and simplifies our perception of the world, while making us blind for nuanced spots we do not see, due to this way of processing.
Pride-Events for example are highly important – Not because queerness is absolutely normal in my opinion, but because even in 2023 we as a society are so backwards, that people not conforming to societal norms have to present their pride for something normal in face of oppression. Also the word queer should be obsolete. Why call something normal queer and give the general perception of “normal” validation, while de-validating the own identity which then results in an artificial need for pride? And the creation of this problem is not only coming from people that are fitting the typical hetero-normative worldview who often times have this simple and limited way of thinking. It comes even from people within those pride communities: Instead of being inclusive to everyone and smashing that way of thinking, that causes their problems there for example are feminists existing who are attacking transgender females pointing to them with the accusation that those are males, that just want to benefit from female-benefits, gay men propagating beauty standards that are hurting themselves and the list of irrational behavior, that hurts everyone in and outside those communities can be endless, just as it is in our human nature.
There is not a limited amount of labels for identity or clear boundaries, there are just humans in all endless facets and marvelous colors imaginable. Every sexual-orientation, religion, ethnicity is worth the full dignity and things like hate, phobia, intolerance should be relics of the past. We should progress beyond labels to a future where everyone can be whatever anyone wants, without second guessing, what others will think because diversity is normal and cherished. Happy pride everyday to everyone at any time!
