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Each week, the members of the Matthew Shepard Foundation Youth Advisory Council will answer your questions about issues that impact LGBTQ youth. Do you have a question that you would like the Youth Advisory Council to answer?
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Hot Topics - October 12, 2007
There are so many labels placed on us these days - from gay, bi, queer, trans, homo, dyke, etc. Do you identify with any of these labels, and if so, why?
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By Mark Cornelsen
I believe I do identify with the label gay. I more so identify with it because it’s the label I’ve chosen to give myself, amongst all of the labels other people have given me. I more than label though, I am a student, a friend, a son, an employee, a philosopher, a athlete, a role model, a teacher, a boyfriend, a nephew, a writer, a public transit user, and so many more things. My point is, yes, I do identify with that label, because I feel I label myself and I am labeled so many different things, positive and negative on a daily basis.
For example, at lunch the other day I was so stressed and my mind was so lost in thinking about a math test that I had in the next hour that as I was getting up to leave a sit down café, I left my wallet sitting there on the table. I did not, nor did my friend who I eat lunch with, noticed this as we began to make our way to the door. All of a sudden I hear the waitress saying, “Sir, sir… you forgot your wallet” and I of course turned around, thanked her, took my wallet began walking to the door again. As I walked out a gentleman looked at me with disgust and said, “You rich kids… Your always forgettin’ your wallets, got so much money, you don’t even notice it!” I was appalled that someone would even feel the need to say such a thing, yet alone to me, and to make things worse, HOW WRONG COULD HE BE! I mean, I’m a college student, barely making it and the café I was eating at, to be honest, wasn’t the nicest place either.
My point is people are going to judge you, people will label you. It is your choice to decide which of those labels you will accept, which of those labels you will let yourself become and which of those labels you see in yourself. I believe I accept the label of gay, because in definition it is exactly what I am. It is my choice to accept it, and it is my mission to prove the negative connotations with the label gay to be false. |
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By Matt Oerleti
For so long I struggled with many labels to categorize and understand my identity I started out, as most children unfortunately are socialized, as a presumed straight boy by my peers, family and friends. Though within, I knew that I was different from my heterosexual counterparts. Being unaware of the possibilities or existence of a queer identity at a young age, my initial focus centered around gender exploration as a means to understand my same-sex attractions. As a child it seemed to me, as someone attracted to men, that my only option was to be a girl. I interacted primarily with girls, played with dolls, dressed as a princess during daycare and staged elaborate weddings between my GI Joe’s (which my parents forced me to play with).
Though to the casual observer all indications might be that struggles to understand my gender were my primary concern, my confusion with gender in actuality belied my own misunderstanding of gender and sexuality, two related though sometimes separate struggles toward self-identity. It wasn’t until high school that I came to more fully understand that liking boys and being a boy were by no means mutually exclusive entities: I was a gay boy.
Though labeling one’s complex inner struggle in some way may be trivializing the experience, I strongly believe that having a label can make one a part of the broader queer community. Even though that community may be extremely diverse and composed of many people entirely different from oneself with multiple self-identifiers or ‘labels’, it is from such a place that so many of us derive the support, encouragement, advice that carries us through life.
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By Ryan Olsen
It’s been an interesting road coming out to the world. Before I was out, the world viewed me in one way. The assumption that I was straight came with it, all of these attitudes and beliefs about the kind of person I was. While some definitely might have thought I was gay, everyone treated me in a heterosexual fashion. And it’s not to say that a lot of the things I did while in the closet aren’t consistent with who I am, because to be honest, a lot of the things I did while I was in the closet I loved. I loved being involved in my school student council and leadership committees. I loved leading our volunteer and community service organization, Key Club. I loved playing on the soccer team and going to the state championship. I loved being in the symphony orchestra. All of these things were and are who I am, but the way I was perceived at that time because of the “word” or “identity” of “straight” made my peers view my participation in those activities as something a “boy” should do and that was normal. I would hang out with all the guys on the weekend, talk about random things, and just be one of the “boys”. Girls would still get crushes on me and keep a distance in that passive way that “young ladies” get around people of the opposite sex.
Coming out, hasn’t necessarily reversed all of those things I used to do, but rather the world’s perception of me and the things I do. On the one hand, it’s hard to automatically be assumed completely feminine, because with that assumption comes the ousting from some of those things I used to love. In college, I was never asked by the guys to go shoot some hoops or kick a ball around, things I always enjoyed. It was assumed on their part that I just wasn’t interested or wouldn’t be good at such activities. My friendships with straight men has felt somewhat estranged, especially since college tends to be a time when one uncovers their sexuality and at that point sexuality is somewhat ambiguous for most people. I used to automatically be accepted into a group of guys, but now either the conversation changes completely when I come into a group and/or I am left out all together. In that sense, taking on an identity that has so many stigma’s, myths and stereotypes surrounding it has in part taken away from my humanity and the person that I am.
However, on the flip side, coming out has also been one of the best experiences of my life, because it has allowed me to be honest and true to the greater world. I can express myself on a much deeper level and am completely authentic in my soul and heart. The positive thing about accepting yourself for who you are and being able to say I’m gay, is the fact that the word and the connotations behind that word suddenly aren’t a threat any more. So what if I look “gay” expressing characteristics of my feminine side? So what if I decide to shave my legs one day, or even to express my emotions and feelings…something that “straight” men have a hard time doing because of the fear of being labeled “gay”. I am a greater whole by accepting who I really am, and while some opportunities have been taken away from me, I have gained even more. And just because the world has insecurities surrounding gender and sexuality doesn’t mean I stop being the person I am and doing the things I love to do.
So in a nutshell, labels suck and they can have both good and not so good consequences. However, the stereotypes and myths we surround those labels with are more of a detriment rather than the label itself. As one of my favorite professors once told me, “Celebrate, don’t exaggerate”. In that it is important to acknowledge a person for all of who they are; but to extend one single characteristic of that whole person into a plethora of ideas and assumptions our culture has created around that one character trait is wrong and damaging. I am a white, upper-middleclass gay male American who likes to think that they are a colorblind gender queer and label free global citizen, but in reality must use labels to navigate my way through this beautiful life I’ve been given and to communicate with all of the people that may come into it along the way.
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