My good buddy Marshal McLuhan wrote "Love your label". Like his, more famous quote, "The medium is the message", it responds well to a little reflection.
As someone who has outed themselves more than once, it's a line that now takes on a subtle meaning to me. When I was new to the world of "different living", there was a joy to finding a label that seemed to fit. Finding a word that describes "who-it-is-that-we-are" is an exciting and layered experience.
Probably the first layer that is revealed is that there are other people that have this same quirk. After all, a word - a new word - only comes into existence when two or more people need to share a common idea. Often, a quirk or kink can leave us feeling isolated and alone in our kinkdom. The discovery that there is a word (or in some cases a whole language) dedicated to something we thought was unique, rare or unheard of.. Well, the sense of camaraderie is exhilarating.
It's less exhilarating to me today. In the area of self-identity, language seems to have gone through a massive and rather self-indulgent growth period in the past few years. In the area of collective nouns, new labels are coined and slip into our vocabulary with less and less critical thought behind them.
I'm no Luddite when it comes to language - I relish clever inventions like "hetrosensual" and "metrosexual". And the English art with which a noun can be turned into a verb: [Why is she crying? - She just opened her email.. She got Nickidamed] is a delight. And with new technologies and ideas, the language itself can be twisted with deliciously subverted results: Thus, "Google" is a verb, but not a noun ["I googled it" but not "I did a google" or "it is in the google"].
Most nouns can transition to verbs and vice versa. There are remarkably few verbs that can't transition back to nouns. Yet, "google" is one of them - Personally, I think it's a word that exemplifies our zeitgeist. The fact that the root words "googolplex" describe an (almost) infinite number.. but that there is no plural of "google" is a great mind fuck. Finally and with perfect irony, the word itself "google" began its life as a typo - The "correct" spelling is, or was, "googol". I say "was" because today, a few hundred thousand mathematicians spell it "correctly" as googol - The rest of the planet spells it "google".
I include these thoughts because they're interesting bits of trivia - and they demonstrate that words are not just my passion - they are the benchmark of ideas at work.
Back to labeling people. To pick a subset of sexual identification - the gay male. This group is further sub-divided into "bears", "twinks", "slaves", "Glory Queens", "Drag Queens"... the list goes on and on. Why? I think it's because the comfort we derive from finding a label has a drug-like quality. "I am a Dominant, not a Top" ... "High Protocol, not sensual" ... "Old Guard, but not Old Leather". All of us, including myself, can be seduced into "chasing the dragon" - reclaiming the sense of belonging that comes from the perfectly apt label.
There is little or no cultural resistance to this trend. Thus, the queer spectrum has expanded from LG to LGB, to LGBT to the current LGBTTTIQQ. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Two-Spirited, Transsexual, Transgendered, Intersexed, Queer and Questioning.
The "TTTI" bits are gender variants. Although two-spirited is a combination culture/gender variant. Speaking as someone who is gender-gifted herself I just don't see the need for 4 different letters to express gender variance. Most folk can get behind "gender-gifted". However, the love affair with our own label can become so deeply ingrained.. and perhaps even toxic.. that we abandon more truly inclusive alternatives.
Of course, the paradox is this: The more letters that are added to this cumbersome acronym.. the less inclusive it becomes. While "Transsexual" may indeed be different to "Transgendered", those differences are not immediately apparent. In fact, speaking as one who is on a bunch of committees that relate to trans issues - the differences are not even apparent after close scrutiny. I have been described as both - neither feels particularly resonant. To me they seem a bit like pathologizing something that doesn't need to be pathologized.
In some respects, this seems true about the labeling of sexual orientation as well. If a pre-operative transsexual woman sleeps with a biological female, is this a lesbian act? If one believes that gender is a state of mind.. the answer is yes. If one believes that lesbianism is driven by biological imperatives.. the answer is no.
I have been in group discussions with trans couples. Here is a quote from the female partner of a transsexual man. "I always thought of myself as a lesbian.. When Jane said she had to become Joe.. I had to come to terms with the fact that I was straight"
Not to judge, but I think that this female partner is only halfway along a very difficult personal transition of her own. Whether her partner is called Jane or Joe doesn't change the core personality of the person she fell in love with. Neither does it change the core personality of herself as partner. What it does call into question is the value of the label "lesbian".
As a feminist rallying banner; as a point of common culture; as a shorthand for a form of sisterhood.."lesbian" is a wonderful label. But, as a definition of self.. it falls short. To quote again, "It's pretty shallow to define yourself on the basis of who you fuck". And if the person you fuck has a fluid gender, it's not just shallow.. it's pointless.
Does my argument fail because "true transsexuals" are so rare? Hardly. Because butch women, effeminate men, tomboys and nancygirls are the statistical norm. Macho men have a feminine side.. girly women know how to change a tire.
Everyone is gender fluid to some degree. The notion of "absolute" manhood or womanhood is a useful fiction within society. It governs how many toilets to assign at a theme park and how much deodorant a drug store should carry. As the number of people involved in a society reduce, this fiction becomes less useful. And when you devolve to the society of a relationship.. or the society of self. The fiction becomes useless.
This is the trap of labels. They are seductive because they provide others with a social shorthand to know, broadly, where to place us in society. They are dangerous because a label can close us off to new experiences and to new areas of commonality with other people. We begin the process innocently enough. The label [XYZ] begins as "mine". I define "myself" as [XYZ].
But, unless we are extremely vigilant, the label itself can take control. Is this a paranoid point of view? My personal and vicarious experiences tell me no. Labels come with a set of expectations, and as long as our sense of self is consistent with those expectations, all is well. But, each of the LGBTTTIQQ labels comes with a set of expectations that are external in nature.
To personalize this for the sake of an example: I'm a transsexual woman because I was born with a sufficient number of biological markers to be diagnosed as male. But transsexual outlines a path to womanhood.. it doesn't define me as a woman. Two Spirited describes a spiritual state.. a third gender that encompasses male and female. This is a very cool concept. And one that (to one degree or another) describes everyone on the planet. Maybe I'm slightly more two-spirited than most - But a collective noun that needs to be qualified [very two-spirited] isn't much of a collective noun.
Lesbian? Frankly, I used to think that this was "my" label. After all, I'm a woman that likes women. However, "pure" lesbians feel that I'm not eligible for this label. Biology is an issue, but also my taste does not exclude men. Lesbianism (according to the hardliners at least) has boundaries which don't apply to me.
I could, I suppose, "rail against the machine"... demand that I be treated as respectfully as any other woman. And some transwomen do just that.. more power to them. However, as much as I'd like to be considered a "non-hyphenated woman", It's not my calling to (as one trans wit put it) "to workshop the world".
This isn't because I don't have the grit to do it. I've fought battles that count and continue to do so. But the label "Lesbian" with all its incumbent limitations provides many women with comfort. Who am I to "hijack" their sense of belonging?
Besides which, I can see the language changing in concert with our understanding of the value of self-identification. Language has a lifecycle. Words come into existence as they are needed and are then abandoned with Darwinian brutality.
"Lesbian", "Gay", "Bisexual", "Two-Spirited", "Transsexual", "Transgendered", "Intersexed", "Queer", "Questioning" and, indeed the term "Gender" itself. All share a common thread beyond their relationship to sexual conduct.
They are all of them _new_ words. How new? "Transgendered" and "Intersexed" are about the same age as the word "Google". The word "fax" is older than current usage of "gay", two-spirit, etc. In fact "gender" which is the very basis for all our current labels of orientation is a new word. "Computer", "Robot", "TV" and "pantyhose" are words that pre-date gender (circa 1955).
What does this mean? Words and labels have a lifecycle. Stenography, Carbon Paper, 8-tracks, Betamax, laserdiscs, telex have all died as words to describe technology. Yuppie (Young Upwardly Mobile Professionals), Dink (Double Income No kids) and other acronymic cultural labels (generations X, Y & Z) of the 80's have died as words.
And the lifecycle of LGBTTTIQQ is passing the arc of a growth fueled by usefulness. Talk to someone queer under the age of 25 and they find some of these labels quaint, non-descriptive and archaic. I'm inclined to agree with them.
Does anyone else remember the anthem "Sing if you're glad to be gay" by Tom Robinson? What a daring statement of its time. But, here's a chilling thought for those of us old enough to remember it. A) It was 25 years ago B) Tom Robinson is married with 2 kids.
Labels are transitionary. Obviously the Trans-hyphenated ones describe a journey and not a destination. Trans.. sketches a rough description of my history but not my present reality. Less obviously, "Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual" are equally transitional terms. They had great meaning once. But less so today. Eventually, like the human little toe, they will atrophy from lack of usefulness.
I find it difficult to love a label that has such a predictably limited life span. I also find it difficult to love a label that (despite intentions to be inclusionary) leads to the exclusion of people and experiences.
Some labels ... like some ideas.. have an expiry date. And since LGBTTTIQQ doesn't "trip lightly off the tongue" I'm experimenting with a new acronym - QLY (pronounced quilly) - as a label.
I don't know if I love my label. Since it's a relatively new term, QLY doesn't come with a lot of baggage. There are no special clothes to brand me as QLY - So, I have no need to buy more Birkenstocks. I don't have to change my speech patterns to include more lisping. I don't have to love show tunes, home improvement projects or engage in sexually transgressive political statements.
QLY seems to describe me well enough. By definition, QLY is inclusionary. And yet, only a special breed of folk can claim QLY status. It is reserved for those of us who feel that labels must be loved - But that our fellow creatures must be loved more.
Offered Respectfully,
Lady Nichola
QLY
(Queer Like You)