If you don't want to be labeled as a human being, how do you get others to stop labeling you???
Everybody reading this post today must read it until the end. Don’t get halfway through this opening paragraph and message me. I’m going to need you to take the time to read it in its entirety. Today I’m ranting about labels, and why do we have them. I respect anybody who enjoys being labeled. Personally I don’t get the need to be labeled, yet I don’t begrudge those who like them, who want them, and who wear them with not only pride but with purpose. But for the love of God who decided that I also need a label? Why do I need to be cisgender? What the hot hell? Like why? Last time I checked I was a woman who was born a woman who identifies as a woman and likes being a woman. Period. End of story.
I don’t need somebody telling me what I am, and I sure as hell don’t need to be given any sort of identifier. What is with the obsession of categorizing and identifying people as this way or that???
My entire family has warned me against writing blogs about gender, saying that I will open a whole can of worms, and subsequently a can of whoop ass with the groups who hand out the labels and love them. But you know what? I don’t really give a rats ass if I do, why is it other groups get to decide for everybody as to whether or not I must have a label. I survived the road cyclists after my last biking post, I’m sure I’ll survive this too. So I will, respectfully, carry on. My point is that I, for the record don’t need one, and I truly don’t want one. For those who need them in order to get the respect they rightly deserve as human beings worthy of respect and dignity, and not for being gay, bi or trans; I understand why there are identifiers and why they hold onto them so tightly. The unfortunate part of our world is that there are so many assholes out there who don’t want to accept the fact that there are people who don’t feel the same way they do about their sexuality. If you’re a man, or a woman who just is a man or a woman, you, we, can’t even begin to understand what it is like to walk around not being treated with common decency, or courtesies simply because you’re “different.” That bothers me to no end. I do not and will not ever understand why some people refuse to just love and accept people for who they are. I don’t get where the pleasure is in persecuting those who don’t identify as you do. What difference does it make to your life if a man loves another man, or if a man was born a man but relates to being a woman? Or vice versa? I don’t care, not because I’m insensitive or that I lack empathy, I simply mean that it really and truly doesn’t keep me up at night, or weird me out, or whatever the hell it does to all the right wing nuts who are up in arms about people being themselves. I wish the people who have hearts filled with judgement would get laid, or pour themselves another drink, whatever it would take for them to just not give a fuck what other people feel inside their hearts, or what it takes for other people to feel content, comfortable and free in their own skins.
Listen life is tough. Life is scary, and for many people life is lonely. True love is hard to find, and sadly even harder to keep. If a person feels comfort in identifying with a group, and if having a label gives them a sense of comfort and belonging I get it, I’m behind it. But what I don’t need is a label of my own, I’m simply a woman, who is a woman, who identifies as female. And honestly being called a woman is the only label I need.
As we wind up PRIDE month the world over, I wish our world was different, I wish people could love freely who they love. Maybe one day we won’t bat an eye at the people who are trans, bi, or homosexual, but until that day comes I simply ask that we pull back on the need to throw a label on every single person, especially when the label of cisgender is beginning to feel more like an insult than what I imagine what it was intended for, which was more than likely a way for others who are not cis to “identify” those of us who are. My being a woman who identifies as such isn’t any attack on you not being that anymore than your not offends me.
I respect you and honour you for being exactly who you are, and I wish you a life of love, joy and happiness for just being you.
Happy Pride my friends!
xo SB
