Sexuality Labels - “So, Are You Bi or a Lesbian?”
It’s a question I’ve grown used to hearing since around mid-2020 when after years of identifying as bisexual, I declared to many of my friends something along the lines of: ‘Fuck men. Fuck my multiple heterosexual past relationships (in which I thought I’d met the love of my life in some arguably mediocre men with drug problems). I think I’m probably gay.’
And it was true. In all the ways that we are encouraged to think about our sexuality, I still feel like a lesbian today. I’m only romantically attracted to women, and I’m almost certainly sure that my sexual attraction to men is nothing more than a mixture of internalised misogyny and compulsory heterosexuality, things that women have drilled into their psyche from the very moment they’re born. Or perhaps from the very moment they’re made to dress up for a fake heterosexual wedding between the two most popular kids at nursery. Are we still doing this to three-year-olds nowadays?
Anyway, these realisations – which admittedly took a global pandemic and an unfathomably ridiculous amount of spare hours to sit and ponder my existence in my childhood bedroom – resulted in me comfortably declaring that I would no longer be identifying as bisexual to anyone who would listen. I was taking on the lesbian label. It was a label that I’d always known, deep down, I connected with more, but a label that I’d simply shied away from for most of my adolescence and recent adult years for fear of… well, the normal homophobic shit.
However, along came September, a reunion with an old friend and the resurfacing of some unsettlingly familiar butterflies – god damn those bloody butterflies – and perhaps every lesbian’s worse nightmare occurred: I was mildly interested in pursuing a man.
It was at this point that I grew a little frustrated. I’d known I’d liked women since the minute I knew what liking people meant. I’d never had to question that aspect of my sexuality, and in more recent years (let’s just say there weren’t a lot of opportunities for a closeted girl to explore oneself in hometown of 10,000 people who all know one another’s phone numbers), I’d started to really enjoy that part of my sexuality. On the other hand, my relationships with men had brought me about as much joy as the much-anticipated Game of Thrones finale brought most fans of the show back in 2019. Read none. So why now, after months of emotional turmoil and finally feeling like I had a label that felt right, was I being punished with the one thing that made that label worthless?
After several crisis face-times with friends, a failed attempt at flirting with the man, and much stress eating of Maltesers, I came to yet another realisation: maybe there just isn’t a label for how I feel. ‘Bisexual’ had never been right. And sure, some days I do feel ‘pansexual’ – I think most folks are finally aware this doesn’t refer to an attraction to kitchenware, but it remains one of the lesser-used labels, anyhow – but most days even that label doesn’t sit right with me. If I had to choose anything, I’d say I’m part-time lesbian, part-time downright confused, but that latter label is yet to be added to the LGBTQ+ acronym and I don’t see it happening any time soon.
It’s for this reason, that I became considerably interested in the history of LGBTQ+ labels, and whether they still hold a place in our society today. Recently, pop culture seems to have taken a step away from the world in which everyone must identify with a specific label. For example, well-loved sitcoms such as Schitt’s Creek and Broad City feature unapologetically sexually-fluid characters, and many celebrities, such as Kristen Stewart and Lizzo, have openly refused to define their sexuality. If we only pay attention to our immediate history, therefore, then sexual fluidity can feel like a fashionable ‘trend’. However, this line of thinking is unfortunately a result of unshakeable conservatism. In reality, sexual fluidity (and gender fluidity, too) is nothing new.
For starters, the history behind the labels in the LGBTQ+ acronym is both complex and nuanced, however, it is unarguably western at its core. When I was in my first year of university, a running joke began to spread across the department after somebody asked, ‘Did lesbians exist in the 80s?’ in a drama seminar. Of course, we all found it hilarious. However, it turns out the question isn’t quite as invalid as me and my peers may have originally thought. Obviously, queer folk have existed since people have walked the earth, yet the language surrounding gay identities as we know them today is indeed a recent phenomenon.
Terms such as ‘homosexual’ and ‘gay’ were seen in medical documents and underground communities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. However, they did not come into popular usage until the mid-twentieth century, the term ‘gay’ and its popularity is linked to the Stonewall generation and the gay liberation movement of the 60s and 70s. The term ‘lesbian’, similarly, was mainly a result of the exclusion that queer women faced from both gay and feminist movements alike in the latter half of the twentieth century. This doesn’t mean to say that fights against discrimination weren’t happening before these times, just that the labels we utilise today were only ‘agreed’ upon within the last sixty-ish years.
Similarly, the gender binary is reasonably westernised and contemporary ideal. Many pre-colonial communities (Aboriginal, Indian, and Native American communities, just to name a few) have concepts of gender that differ hugely from male/female only, acknowledging and accepting the existence of trans and gender non-conforming individuals in the language they used to describe gender. Whilst discrimination does still exist within these communities, it’s impossible to know how much of that discrimination is simply a result of colonialism destroying history, ancient teachings, and beliefs. Like ‘gay’ and ‘lesbian’, therefore, the term ‘transgender’ only came into popular usage in the late twentieth century, most prominently as a response to the discrimination that trans folk were facing.
Of course, I’m not trying to say that the use of these labels is entirely negative. In a world that works based upon language and communication, finding labels to describe the myriad of identities beyond cisgender and heterosexuality was undoubtedly an instrumental feature of the gay liberation movement and subsequent fights against discrimination. Furthermore, the full LGBTQ+ acronym, which would probably look something more like LGBTQQIDAAPPO2SBNBGNCGGAPPO+ becomes more and more inclusive by the day, and for most of us, there’s probably a term or two in there that we are yet to learn about. However, even if the acronym was eighty letters long, it stands to right that many people may still struggle to find a letter within it to describe their sexuality or gender identity, and that’s okay. Those choosing to remain unlabelled are not actually making the radical, fashionable choice that the conservatives in the media would like you to believe that they’re making.
I accept that we are incredibly far away from an ideal world in which we can exist without labels. For as long as prejudice against those who aren’t cishet exists, there will continue to be a need for a language system that assists in the fight against such prejudice. This article, therefore, is not a plea for us to move away from labels entirely. I’m aware that that’s both idealistic and unfeasible. Rather, this is more of a personal plea for everyone (both those who are a part of the LGBTQ+ community and those who aren’t) to have a careful think about the way in which they use these labels and acknowledge that the forced utilisation of these labels can lean towards the policing of queer folk and our bodies, which is never going to be a good thing.
To put it simply, stop asking me if I’m bi or a lesbian. I’m both, I’m neither and I’ve given up trying to figure it out.
Published Anonymously