By Raha Boshra
For many people who are not gender normative, adopting or creating new identities can become a way of resisting the normative gender identities that they feel restrict their ability to express how they understand their own gender. Rejecting the accepted identities of male or female allows people to find new ways of living their own gender expression, whether it involves the creation of flexible identities or a complete rejection of any gender identity (Seidman, 2014).
Labels within the LGBTQ+ community are often a topic of debate, either inside or outside of the community. Some think that labels and umbrella terms are confusing and too much work, while some support them. In Imitation and Gender Insubordination by Judith Butler, she states that gender is not a performance that a prior subject elects to do, but gender is performative in the sense that it constitutes as an effect the very subject it appears to express. It is a compulsory performance in the sense that acting out of line with heterosexual norms brings with it ostracism, punishment, and violence, not to mention the transgressive pleasures produced by those very prohibitions (Butler, 1993).
Despite the differing opinions on labels getting overwhelming, I find them to be beneficial for the community. As someone who is nonbinary, I was someone who was not a fan of the newer labels. Eventually, I realized that they are not for me; they are for the people who choose them, and all that matters is that they are happy with themselves. Labels exist for people to fit in, feeling like they are somewhere that they belong, and it feels good to find a label that fits. Seidman talks about the term genderqueer, stating that being genderqueer may mean being positioned in the middle or between genders (Seidman, 2014). One person shares their thought on the term, saying, “If someone doesn’t feel male, female, but feels both, feels something else, it would be nice if there was some representation of that. Or, alternatively, if there was no representation of gender and everyone was just a person. That would be nice.” For this person, genderqueer is less an identity than a standpoint defined by the rejection of the idea that people must be classified as either female or male (Seidman, 2014). This is often the relationship I have with my gender identity, and people often have differing views of me and how I present myself because societal views feel too obsessive in a way. Trust me, I have heard the age-old question of “Are you a girl or a boy?” too many times in my life.
Learning that gender (and even sexuality at times) is a social construct is an eye-opener, and I can speak on personal experiences in that case. Societal expectations are bleak and often set on strict rules in a world where nothing is that simple. When there is a concept of what is “normal” and what is not, it leads to a society having a black and white concept of how everything works. Despite biology being complicated on sex and gender, many still want to argue that there are only “two genders” and that there is no difference between gender and sex. So, I kind of see labels similarly. Sexuality and gender expression are very broad and open, and I do not see anything wrong with how people want to identify. Terms and labels are not meant to be political or a tool for something; they are just a way for someone to express themselves. In the end, we are all humans, and if we can support each other, that’s always the better option.
References:
Seidman, S. (2014, October 10). The Social Construction of Sexuality, 3rd Edition. [[VitalSource Bookshelf version]]. Retrieved from vbk://9780393270235
Butler, J. (1993). Imitation and Gender Insubordination. LESBIAN AND GAY STUDIES READER. (ED.) New York: Routledge. Pages 307-320. [PDF].
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