A Three-Generation Queer Household on the Questioning of Labels
“Labels were never mentioned in my household,” Kristina recalls. “My mom would just say ‘You love who you want to love, no matter who they are.’”
Labels are important to the queer community, right? Well, it is more complicated than that, at least according to the three-generational household that is made up of Nicky (Gen X), Vanessa (Millenial), and their daughter Kristina (Gen Z).
Despite being a part of the same community, they have similar yet different views on their labels. On one hand, they think labels help the LGBTQ+ community stay as one. At the same time, they think labels are a result of heteronormativity, the normalization, and power that cis-straight people have in society.
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Kristina is an 18-year-old Gen Z who identifies as bisexual and lives on an island in South Carolina. She hopes for a label-less future.
“The first time I heard the word lesbian was in 2nd grade when my class found out I had two moms. I never understood the big deal.”
Kristina ‘came out’ at twelve years old when bisexuality wasn’t understood.
“When I first came out there wasn’t a community yet for me to look for; my labeled sexuality didn’t help me find one either until later in high school,” she says. “We live in a society that pushes us into a box and we must stick to that box. I am bisexual… yes, but is it necessary to enforce that label just so others can feel more comfortable?”
Despite being from a different generation, Vanessa, Kristina’s mom, has similarly complex feelings about labels and how they gather the community. She grew up in a Catholic Hispanic household in the 80s that wasn’t very accepting of the queer community. This made her journey of coming out as a Lesbian very tough and confusing.
“To be honest I didn't feel there was anyone I could ask about it without sounding weird, so I just kept those feelings and thoughts to myself,” she tells me.
At the time, "lesbian" didn’t seem like the right label for her because of how they were perceived in school.
“They dressed in what I would call gothic clothing and wore dark makeup. I honestly thought that's what lesbians were. Girls against the norm, for lack of a better term," Vanessa says. "I always thought if those are lesbians, then I'm not a lesbian.”
Today, she sees the restrictions that labels have on people.
She says, “By categorizing yourself they can easily label you and file you away without getting to know you. It takes work to get to know people, and many do not want to put in the work.”
These identities may help people have a better understanding of themselves but leave room for generalizations that keep people in boxes. The labels seem to hurt the LGBTQ+ community rather than help them when put in this perspective.
Differing from Vanessa and Kristina's viewpoint is the wife and stepmom, Nicky. She has her own opinion on labels in the community. She grew up in West Virginia in the ’60s, so being labeled as "lesbian" or "gay" was a big deal because it made you stand out in a bad way. These labels became a way to find a safe space back when there barely was one.
“It would be great not to have [labels] at all—just be who you are and love who you love. But at the same time, it wasn't accepted, it was condemned; we fought hard as a community to be accepted," Nicky says. "I think the terminology means a lot to people, so it still needs to be there just so we know how far we've come.”
Even though labels are pushed to be used to define our sexuality and gender, they still help you find the community that was built. Still, Nicky finds her dissimilar opinion finding similarity to the other two generations.
“I think our generation fought not to have labels, and just be accepted by all. This generation [Gen Z] tends somewhat to label everything. We didn't want to be known as, ‘Nicky the Lesbian,’ we just wanted to be known as Nicky,” she mentions.
Despite all generations not wanting labels, inevitably, they will always be used so Queer people can identify the community in this heteronormative world.
It’s not just this family that feels this way about labels, according to Ryan J. Watson, assistant professor of human development and family studies, and Rebecca M. Puhl of UConn, who co-wrote The LGBTQ National Teen Study.
"Instead, there are thousands–and if you extrapolate from this study, hundreds of thousands–of teenagers who identify with new identity labels that people don’t even know what they mean; they have never heard of them before,” they said.
The study shows the contradicting views from the same generation. While the social construct of labels is understood within queer community and theory, there are more and more labels being discovered by Gen Z; making a huge impact on the LGBTQ+ community. The concern with the development of labels according to queer theorists is it leads to further societal oppression for the queer community.
Kristina commented on this problem since she has seen how labels have affected those in her friend group.
"My friends and peers who have transitioned have been getting sh*t from not only the straight-cis people but also from our community. I don't think labels have helped with their coming out as transgender… it has caused a reason to separate 'real' women from trans-women,” Kristina says. “It's wrong, especially with how much transgender people have been at the forefront for Queer rights."
Kristina sighs out of frustration before continuing: "Women should be women despite being transgender or cisgender. I just wish there weren't 'labels' and 'coming outs.’"
It can be conflicting when wanting to be labeled to find your community, but it also, unfortunately, puts the LGBTQ+ community in a position to stay as a group to be oppressed.
All in all, labels are what show us who is a part of our community. Some people might think there shouldn’t be labels (in a perfect world) and some might want more labels to be discovered. Despite the different views and journeys, we all understand that what we identify as helps each other find a safe space in a world that is working towards acceptance.