The problem with labels is definitions. We need labels, because we identify differences in groups and we need a way of discussing those differences, but the issues arise when we can’t agree on differences, or there’s implications or offenses rolled into the label.
The thing is, we all label ourselves in some ways when we see differences from the norm. So, in general, I don’t really see the need to give an overarching label to the majority norm, primarily because it creates an opportunity for that label to get whatever connotations any other label get, and in a lot of cases it can lead to confusion. For instance, as mentioned upthread, the first time I saw “cisgendered” I had no clue what it meant, more confusingly, based on the construction, I assumed it was some other intermediate type of gender that I hadn’t heard about.
So in that way, I do have labels that I assign to myself that are in common usage, but they’re in ways that are a clear minority or at least not a large majority. But in ways that I’m along with the overwhelming majority, it seems odd. I can identify with being those things because it helps set me a part and it makes me part of a community that isn’t just like everyone else. But I’m also a straight white male, so I don’t feel any particular identity in being white or with being straight. In most situations, if it’s not something I’d even ever think about myself, because it’s stuff that makes me more like the majority, it doesn’t help identify me to anyone.
And by a similar token, there are some established labels that, while they technically fit me, I avoid because of the connations that I understand are associated with them and I don’t feel fit me. In those cases, I will make my own label for them and I’ll make sure to try to define those for people as I use them. And that’s how I’ll use them for other people as well. I’ll try to use the label I think is appropriate, and if it bothers you, give me a better one, and I’ll try to use it.
But there’s also taking labels too far. To use a more neutral example, if I want to discuss some of my favorite bands with someone I’ve never met and they ask what kind of music they play, it’s almost certainly meaningful to say to them that they’re “rock” or “metal” or whatever. Maybe if they’re a bit more familiar, I might say “progresive rock” or “death metal” or the like. But if I say that they’re “Finnish Post-Black Symphonic Melo-Death” that means nothing to anyone who isn’t already intimately familiar with the scene, and possibly not much to even most people who are. It’s so overly specific as to be useless in conveying any useful information in most circumstances. So it’s really important to be aware of how labels are used and who the audience is. Part of the problem, I think, with label usage is not understanding how the audience receives it. Like it or not, to most people, things like sexuality and gender are considerably more simple concepts to them precisely because they’re in an overwhelming majority and creating overly specific labels just confuses matters. To a lot of people, the list of labels outlined by Una, while completely reasonable and understandable by people with a certain level of familiarity with that community, it’s something that needs to be pared down when discussed to a larger audience that probably has little or no familiarity with that community.
Beyond all that, it seems like most of this arises from the idea that calling the majority normal is offensive to people that aren’t part of that group. Honestly, I really don’t understand this. All it should imply is that you’re in a minority group which, by assigning a label to that group and using it, you’re implicitly acknowledging. Sure, there’s a human nature of those who are like us are good and those who aren’t are bad, but I don’t think the idea of ignoring the idea that there is, in fact, an overwhelming majority does anything but worsen the problem by drawing further divides. Speaking for myself, there’s plenty of ways that I’m far from normal, but they’re part of what gives me my identity, and even if some or even a lot of other people think it’s a bad thing, why should I care? The only time I can think is if it’s actual policy being made, but that’s not something that making more labels will fix, it’s something that showing those policymakers that your minority group isn’t a threat will do a lot better.
