I guess my approach to labels is two-fold…one is internal, the other external.

Internal: How I name myself helps me in my evolving process of self-discovery. It is a path to learning more about myself, and therefore, about my relationship to the world. Labels can be nouns or adjectives or verbs or adverbs. Words themselves can be mutable (just like we are as people and as a culture) both in their definitions and in their usage. This is part of what I love about them as a poet, they can both be rigid and fluid (depending on your world view, length of time, and willingness to break rules of usage). They are a metaphor for living, and for this reason, I love them and celebrate them. I also allow lots of flux when using them for, with, and about myself. I seek to be loving and compassionate and fun in how I define myself. I am quite enjoying playing with defining myself as “butch”, not because I am butch but because I engage in “butch” actions (mowing an acre of lawn dressed in capris & matching crocs) and there is something fun (I love to tease M) and empowering and fucking with the term when doing so.

External: I am defined by the world in many ways, and I am often treated in ways by others based on their reactions to their own definitions. The world sometimes defines me in cruel ways, in ways meant to demean and harm me or limit my opportunities. The world sometimes uses words to do this to others it believes are not me – I am most often assumed to be straight. So it is with pride that I call myself a lesbian, because it is important to me that others reframe me in this light, and perhaps rethink their stereotypes about what that word means. I am also a feminist, and femme, and kinky. I am unwilling to give up the feminist label both because I believe in much of the critique and because I want feminists to rethink what the word feminist means. I do agree that the more people use the term in an expanded form, the more the word expands and changes, and so perhaps, thought follows. I believe that to pretend that words have no meaning or no impact on your life ignores the concept of oppression and the powerful role words play in it.

Words, labels, can be powerful tools, both of oppression and of empowerment. They can box us or lead us to new discoveries. We can use them to find ourselves and to change the world. And we will use them both with skill and with carelessness, with love and with spite, on ourselves and on others. It’s the wonder of it all.

as an aside: is it contradictory that i take off all the labels on shampoo or lotion or cosmetic bottles because i don't like the way they clutter up my tiny apartment?

and people here are using 'labels' to mean 'descriptive words'. some of them are most often used as adjectives, some as nouns…

the words in a language reflect the truths in that culture (and vice versa). words are important-they give us the ability create ideas, and to pass them on.

a teacher once told my class that everything was 'alive'. after trying to convince him otherwise using the specific criteria sanctioned by the scientific community and losing, i tried a different approach: 'why have a word that means everything? we already have 'everything'. ' lesson? not everyone has the same meaning for a word, but there has to be some generally accepted idea for the term to be useful (though it can change over time and place).

if you told me you didn't use labels (for yourself or others) then i'd say you were dumb as a doorpost. seriously. describe yourself. describe your environment. if you think 'butch' or 'femme' or even 'kinky queer butch top' is too limiting then do some research, spend some time, and get creative. labels are not limiting, people are. (i swear to god i don't belong to the nra)

No offense to others.. That's just how it is where I live. Hopefully it's different for you.

We all use labels, whether we like it or not; that's how our brains determine relativity. How's the weather? Hot. Cool. Sunny. Overcast. This helps us categorize. Can the label change? Sure. Does it mean the weather will be that same way all day long? No. But in that moment, it provides perspective.

I tell people that I use labels as an adjective, not a noun. The same way I would use tall, Irish or blue-eyed. Those don't define me, but they help you get a sense of who I am.

I totally identify with this (though for me it's more "What do I have to do to be butch?") I also am much happier with labels as adjectives: that butch or queer or whatever can be one description among many, and that I can rearrange them or change how I feel about them at will. When the label works as a noun ("a lesbian," "a butch") I feel like I need more commitment to it internally.

Something similar happens externally, with the policing of labels. There are labels I'm reluctant to take on, even though I have that same sense of recognition that Em the Femme and Sinclair and Daisy have talked about, because I don't want to have the conversation where someone's like, really? you identify with [x]? you're totally not a REAL [x]! And it's true – I'm not. Those are usually labels (like butch, actually) that have this fairly broad spectrum of expression; so because I'm not very intensely butch/whatever, I don't fit people's idea of someone who claims that particular label.

However, I have grown to despise and resist any mention of labels with straight people. I find that my straight friends and acquaintances often have very narrow and inflexible ideas in their minds regarding labels. So for example, one friend freaked out when I mentioned I was seeing a transguy – "But I thought you were a LESBIAN!?"; or "If you're a femme, why are you wearing jeans?". Very narrow, pretty ignorant, exceedingly tedious. So, whereas I used to try and educate my straight friends about LGBTIQ stuff, including labels, I now pretty muh leave them to figure it out on their own.

Incidentally, the only term I really dislike is 'queer', simply because to me it is so general as to be meaningless. I know it's really popular in the community at present, but it really tells me nothing at all about the person, because the term covers such wide territory. It's kind of the ultimate anti-label.