lgbt – W. R. Bywater

I’ve noticed a whole lot of discourse lately about the labels we use to describe, especially ones in terms of sexuality. A lot of people who don’t really understand how labels work use language such as, ‘that makes me gay,’ or whatever, and I think language like this fundamentally misunderstands how these labels work.

Why do we use labels? Well, I think there are two main reasons for this. We pick a label so that we can more easily understands ourselves, and so that others can more easily understand us. So, I label myself as ‘gay man’ because when I was coming to understand my sexuality there was a pre-existing category of ‘gay man’ that I could identify with, and when I was confused it gave me a tangible community with which I could find solidarity. It still serves that function, and it is comforting to find yourself among a community who use the same label as you. Similarly, coming out as a gay man helped other people understand me better. It is deemed on some level vital to have other people understand you; were I not labelled as I am then there would be something inauthentic about how I live in the world because everyone would assume that I were something that I’m not. It’s kinda problematic that we need labels to demarcate ourselves, but I would rather use a label so as to differentiate myself that have everyone include me in a group which I don’t belong with.

I could go on talking forever about how unnecessary these labels are. To state that there is a community of gay men is to suggest that there is a coherent group of people who all exist in the same way, which doesn’t really seem to be how the world works. Labels can only ever be reductive; the label creates the group it describes, rather than describing a group which exists without the label. But the fact is that labels are one of the primary ways that we as an LGBT+ community understand ourselves and understand one another. And so I think to that end we would be unable to live without labels. It’s just necessary to acknowledge that they are not totalising, they allow for heterogeneity and we should appreciate them as fluid and flexible.

Now, the main issue I have is how people interpret these labels. So, when a gay man says, ‘if I find a girl attractive, does that mean I’m not gay anymore?’, I find it an oversimplification of how labels work. This suggests that there is somewhere a set of rules that determines whether we fit a certain label or not, and so when deciding whether a particular label is accurate we can defer to some pre-existing rules for an answer to that question. It posits an essential category of ‘gay’ that can be understood better if we keep looking hard enough. I don’t agree with that understanding of labels. Labels exist and signify as and when we use them, and to meet the ends that we desire. So, no, I don’t think fancying a girl means that you’re not gay in any inherent sense. Because being gay is something that the individual gets to decide on; there is no objective criteria to go by.

So, when re-negotiating labels as we understand our bodies and desires better I think that we only really need to consider our own needs. So: if choosing a different label instead of ‘gay’ would allow you to better understand yourself then it might mean that you are not ‘gay’ any more. But the label of ‘gay’ can be compatible with feminine romantic/sexual attraction if the person in question finds that label the most useful. If you are actively seeking a relationship with a woman then the label ‘gay’ probably won’t suit your needs and so another one might be necessary. Otherwise ‘gay’ probably works just fine.

The point is: labels are there so that we understand ourselves and so that we can manipulate how we are perceived in the world. They are inherently flawed, because the language that we have does not accurately describe things so complex as sexual attraction, gender identity, and so on. But probably the only way we have of properly understanding ourselves and others is through the medium of language, and so we have to learn to navigate these labels effectively. But it’s always down to the individual. When wondering whether a label is right, ask yourself this: does this label do what I want it to do? That’s all I think we can go off of, really.

WRB

I have a weird relationship with gender identity.

On the one hand, I’m very sure of my gender identity. For a long time I was confused, as I think a lot of feminine gay men are; something didn’t feel right, the label ‘man’ felt stifling but the label ‘woman’ was a daunting one, something I didn’t really understand but that always seemed within a haunting proximity. But I managed to work my way through that period of confusion. I educated myself about trans identities and realised that I do not identify completely with that narrative, and I also learnt that ‘man’ need not be as stifling as I had previously thought, it can accommodate me if I choose to accommodate it. I’ve come to accept that these labels are not absolute and can be used as and when I like; ‘man’ might be a word I’ve always grappled with, but in social contexts it tends to serve me well and I am comfortable when that label is ascribed to me. It’s less of a fact of who I am than an opinion, and I don’t experience unease when it’s placed on me. This is all a long-winded way of saying: I identify, in some loose sense of the word, as a man, and I am comfortable with that.

On the other hand, I feel like I know very little about my gender identity. I use ‘man’ because man loosely fits and it’s there, already fully-formed. It’s something of a lazy option: I wear the garment that I found in the cupboard rather than stitching my own. But when I think about myself, I rarely think of myself as a man. I don’t know what I think of myself as, but the cognitive model that ‘man’ triggers does not correspond to how I perceive myself. In other words: I’m still figuring shit out. It’s like I occupy these two ideological planes: I exist in a binary world, and I have found a secure footing there, but I also exist in a world in which gender is more elusive, and it’s in this space that I experience confusion. Ideologically I’ve deconstructed ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but in this new frontier I find myself disoriented without stable points of reference.

This reads as a contradiction – how can I be a man and not a man? But I don’t think that question is quite as counterintuitive as it seems, when I set it out as I do. Because I’m referring to two different arenas, the social and the personal. Socially I’m a man, but personally I’m not. This might seem to some an arbitrary distinction to make; perhaps I make myself vulnerable to ‘snowflake’ attacks. But all I ‘m doing is describing gender as I understand it, and as I think it is most coherently understood. Decades of gender theory has deconstructed the binary model of gender to such an extent that it’s hard to get any stable footing in this realm, and so contradictions are bound to happen for those who are exploring this new terrain. A lot of people (although perhaps not quite as many as it might seem) don’t need to distinguish between the social and the personal because the two neatly map onto each other; or, their personal gender identity is widely accepted socially. Mine isn’t. And so I’ve got a bit more work to do when it comes to understanding my gender.

For a while I’ve toyed with the labels that come with this territory: non-binary, genderqueer, gender fluid. None of those seem to fit. But I can’t work out if it’s because I don’t identify with them, or because such identities have such a stigma attached to them (in much the same way that I was scared to identify as ‘gay’ because that was the worst thing a man could be, I thought). If the terms were neutral, how would I approach them? I guess that’s inconsequential, because words (especially words related to the LGBT+ community) are not neutral. Part of adopting a label means adopting, or at least coming to terms with, its connotations. I’m not yet confident enough in my gender identity to do so. The word ‘queer’ fits, but it feels a bit like a cop-out; it doesn’t really affirm anything. It’s a useful word to free one of ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but it doesn’t really help in identifying as anything else – at least not for me, anyway. Perhaps it merely signals non-identification, and I should just accept that as where I’ll always be.

How do I proceed? I don’t know. All I can really do is experiment. I think I’ve reached this place where I’m happy to do whatever feels right. I’ve started messing about with drag and makeup and it feels good, so I’m trying not to overthink what it all means, where it situates me re: gender identity. It’s just a thing I like doing; I’ll work out the significance later on, if that’s what I choose to do. I’m not a teenager anymore, I don’t feel a pressure to be anything and I don’t have any of that adolescent self-consciousness – at least not to the same extent. I might not proclaim myself as a feminine man vocally, but I think my actions speak louder than words in this regard. I’m stitching my own garment now, and perhaps I’ll reach a day when I can take off ‘man’ and replace it with something else. Maybe I won’t; maybe it will stay in the closet. But there’ll be piece of mind when I get there. And even if I can’t pull it all together into a single garment, that’s fine. The process of trying to work out gender is perhaps the only place where gender exists.

Identity is a fucking minefield. Every day there seems to be newspaper stories about identities that seek to move beyond cisgender binarism, and I think they seriously misunderstand how identity functions. Gender can’t be fitted into a headline, into a short phrase. And if that’s how gender operates for some people, good for them. But failing to meet that standard isn’t failing. I see things like ‘my gender changes on a daily basis’; and this is true, I feel it, but when it’s condensed into a six-word phrase some of its essence is lost, and it’s easy to ridicule. And that’s why it’s so hard to push non-binary identities into the social realm. They are so personal, I think, and I’d be hard-pressed trying to convert that into something that anyone else might understand. I appreciate the efforts of those who try and do this, but until I am more sure of myself I’m not sure I can partake in it.

But I think what I can do is open up this space of confusion. Because that’s what I think gender is: it doesn’t make sense, but it doesn’t have to. I’ve kind of been forced to probe my gender identity because something’s not quite right, but I imagine that if a lot of people similarly probed their gender identity it would not hold up as stable. Those who push at the boundaries of gender, I think, are those who come closer to understanding it. Not to make myself superior to anyone else; all I’m saying is that these kinds of monolithic concepts need to be interrogated. The act of interrogation is, I think, where gender is its most potent. I feel gender most when I push it. When I wear heels I don’t really feel like a woman, but I feel gender to a greater intensity than at other times. And sometimes I don’t; sometimes I put on the heels and it doesn’t connect, I don’t feel much at all. I think it’s perhaps more useful, for me at least, to note when I feel gender the strongest, rather than trying to calibrate these feelings on a scale from ‘man’ to ‘woman’. All of this is a bit vague, and maybe I’ll take it all back later, but for now it makes a bit of sense. Perhaps I’ll leave it at that.

Also: it’s refreshing to write about gender identity in this way. I’ve not told many people that I like wearing heels and makeup.

WRB

Tag: lgbt

On Labels

On gender identity