41: Labels

If you’ve read a lot of social media bios, you’re probably aware of how many labels we use to describe ourselves:

“Ashley R. Millennial. Mom. Texan. Democrat. Introvert. Nurse. Crafter. Chronically ill.”

Humans like to place everything in neat little boxes, and we often use labels to do so. It helps our brains sort out what is like us and what is different from us. It allows us to form bonds over similarities with others and (hopefully) approach differences with curiosity. Discovering and claiming labels for ourselves can feel like recognition, acceptance, and connection.

But is using labels always good? Do we put too much emphasis on them? Can they sometimes keep us stuck once we’ve claimed one?

Lara and Rowan dig deep into their thoughts on self-labelling and the nuances behind doing so. We’d love to know your thoughts on using them, too

(And don’t worry: we’ll be back with more discussion on Heated Rivalry soon. Thanks for making it one of our most popular episodes to date!)

Transcript

[00:00:00] Rowan: The normalization happens, and the beginning of that is the recognition, the labeling, and the owning of that.

Welcome to unboxing it. I’m Rowan.

[00:00:33] Lara: And I’m Lara.

[00:00:34] Rowan: And today on my one day off this week, we are gonna talk about something that has got us both thinking, and that is. The idea of labels, labeling ourselves, labeling others, and the pros and cons of that. Should we label ourselves? Should we place labels on things like.

Sexuality or on identity or on gender, on, spirituality, on anything. There’s so many different ways that we label ourselves and sometimes we label others. Does it help? Does it hinder?

[00:01:13] Lara: Yeah, there’s a lot to dig into and I think the conversation is, gonna be interesting because I think that.

I’m of two minds and I think a lot of people are of two minds, and the reasons to be pro label have changed historically speaking, I think. and so yeah, let’s talk about it.

[00:01:34] Rowan: I think owning a coffee shop, it’s been open for five weeks now. It has meant that I have met more people in the last five weeks than I have probably met in the last five years.

And I don’t think I’m exaggerating here.

[00:01:48] Lara: I believe it.

[00:01:48] Rowan: We have, a hundred plus people coming through the door every single day, even on the quieter days, so I am meeting various people from various walks of life and I think if you were to ask a lot of people like, tell me about you.

They would answer with some descriptors, which can be labels, right? if you were to ask me. Rowan, who are you? I would say things like, I am a 49-year-old, so I’m like a middle aged trans man. I am a dad. I am a coffee shop owner. I’m an author. I am both, indigenous and also a settler.

I’m of mixed descent. and I could go down this list of things that would make me who I am, and then you have other people who would say. why do you need any of those labels? Like for example, if you’re trans, why do you say you’re trans? It’s funny ‘cause I don’t walk around telling everybody I’m trans.

I don’t go, hi, I am a trans man. Right? Yeah. Like, I’m not,walking up to people, Hi sir. How are you today? Oh, I’m good., I’m a trans man named Rowan. that’s not what I’m doing, but. Being trans is part of who I am, and when it comes up in conversation, if it matters to some extent, I will mention it and the idea around that.

It is a positive one. It raises awareness for trans people. it raises the visibility. it allows people to learn that they can interact and chat with a trans person without it being weird, without, othering us. You know, if you learn mid-conversation that I’m trans, maybe your ideas, perhaps some negative ones would.

Wash away or be challenged at least because now you realize you’re talking to an actual live trans person. And guess what? I’m not this awful monster that the media sometimes makes us out to be. And on a personal level. Discovering I was trans and owning that and doing the things that I needed to do in my life and in my body to feel better about myself, to feel whole, to feel happy.

That came from first identifying my transness. So I’m just using that specific example. but there are many examples like that. I wonder what you think about the label stuff, Lara. Like,if people were to ask you, so tell me about you. how would you tell them about yourself?

[00:04:18] Lara: Yeah, I mean, and I have a lot. I’ve talked, you know, mom, wife, business owner, coach, neurodivergent, so that last one, neurodivergent is one. That I think a lot of people wonder why I would specifically mention, and for many of the reasons you just mentioned, I talk about it because I think when more people talk about it, the more normalized it gets and the less words like neurodivergent, autistic, ADHD, dyslexic, right?

The less those words become something that people think, oh, I’m so sorry. About when you can show a side that isn’t that, so that’s where I think, one of the reasons people say don’t label things is because they think that if you’re going to label somebody that’s gonna put you in this like problem box, this oh no, this.

Now, you know, are you trying to make people feel sorry for you? Or people are going to feel sorry for you, or people are gonna think you’re less than in some way. Right. I do think that. People think labels can do that. So if you put a label on somebody, teachers are going to not treat you the same, right?

there’s all these different things that can happen from a label and therefore people say, don’t label. That’s just making things harder. The flip side is that a label can help you feel seen so if we’re worried that the label is gonna make somebody feel less than, that’s because society has made anybody with that label feel less than.

And if we can change the narrative, if we can change what that means to people by owning it, talking about it, and seeing ourselves in a different light, then it can be a positive. So I. Really appreciated and I’ll just keep using the ADHD one, having that label. Because then when I learned what it meant to have ADHD and I recognized myself in it, I stopped feeling so much shame about some of the things I thought were just because I was lazy.

I just thought it was because I, was not good at being a person. And when we think, okay, this is part of my brain’s makeup and there are ways to work with that, it. Just changed how I saw myself. And so labels can help you feel seen. They can help you find community. They can help you figure out how to make things better.

If in an ideal world, we got to a place where we weren’t putting people into, buckets of. Less than. and it was just like we accept everybody for who they are, and we’re all gonna help everybody optimize their lives for who they are. Then maybe we don’t need labels, but that’s not the case. And so sometimes labels are just really comforting and I think it’s good to explore options like that.

[00:07:05] Rowan: Yeah, I think there’s this idea that. A lot of people are adopting labels for attention.

You see that a lot with the older crowd, and I put myself in the older crowd, category, but a lot of people my age, a lot of people older than me will say, oh, these young people, they just want every label under the sun.

And you’ll look at somebody’s, bio on some social media site, and it’ll say. like even mine does this, right? It’s like, so and so author, human rights advocate, speaker, dad, coffee shop owner, like, trans, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it’s like, oh, you’re just trying to assign all these labels.

But it’s interesting because first of all, labels. On the plus side are very much like you said, a positive when you’re trying to find yourself, because it helps those pieces fit together. I also think that we only challenge some labels, which is really interesting. I say, I’m a dad now. First of all, people will challenge that I’m a dad because I’m trans, but let’s just say that I wasn’t trans and I say I’m a dad.

Nobody’s gonna challenge that I have kids. If I say I’m a coffee shop owner, I’m a small business owner, nobody’s gonna challenge that because you know,they don’t care. They’re like, oh, yeah. So that’s what you do. This is your family, so this is your family structure.

You’re a father. Got it. Okay. , What do you do for a living? Oh, you do this? Okay, fine. Oh, why do you have to have pansexual in there? Why do you have to have trans in there? Why do you have to label yourself like that? Nobody cares about that, Rowan. Why do you have to do that? So it is interesting that only some labels tend to make people uncomfortable.

[00:08:47] Lara: Yeah. I think whenever it gets to anything around gender, sexuality. Brains, right?

[00:08:56] Rowan: Mm. Brains. Yeah.

[00:08:58] Lara: Then it gets questioned. but when it comes to societally accepted roles, like worker, spouse, right? Then you’re like, yes, you are doing the thing that we want you to do. You are fitting into our norms.

Excellent. Use that label.

[00:09:16] Rowan: Exactly. You little worker, be you. Good job.

[00:09:21] Lara: Yes. Good, good. Have Job. Be married, have children. Excellent. We love it.

[00:09:27] Rowan: Pay taxes.

[00:09:29] Lara: Exactly. But yeah, once we stray from the norm of what we want to be. So this is big quotes. so what society thinks we should be? So if we’re straying from anything other than the thing that we should be trying to funnel ourselves into this like ideal, then you shouldn’t want to loudly proclaim that as a good thing because now you’re like encouraging other people to not be the norm.

Like we need, I mean we, this is the whole society does like us to be a certain way as a whole because it. Favors those at the top.

[00:10:06] Rowan: Exactly. Yeah. The minute you say anything like, oh, I’m somebody who lives with a trauma disorder, people like, why are you bringing that up? why would you say that?

First of all,I’m gonna say most people are not walking around going, hi, I have a trauma disorder or something that, hi, I am clinically depressed or something. You know, like people aren’t walking around like just introducing themselves this way. But you say that I’m somebody who lives with anxiety.

I’m somebody who lives with depression or whatever. And it’ll either be like, wow, thanks for oversharing, or. It’ll be , you’re just making it out to be bigger than it is. You don’t have to stick a label on it. Everybody has a hard time sometimes,

[00:10:46] Lara: but that’s the point. Everybody has a hard time sometimes doesn’t need to mean, so have a hard time.

So life is hard. End of story. what if everybody has a hard time sometimes means let’s figure out how to make it less hard. Let’s figure out how to have you feel supported in the things that feel difficult in the way that works for you. And when we don’t talk about it, we don’t know that other people are struggling with the same thing.

We think we are the only ones at home feeling terrible about something. So when we talk About it. When we have people who are willing to talk about it, when people use these labels, we suddenly think, oh, okay, maybe I’m not the only one. And I think the reason that you see so many people using labels right now is because people have started talking about things and then people are recognizing themselves in that.

So, again, we’ll use the two that we’ve already talked about in terms of ADHD or neurodivergence, and transness.

[00:11:51] Rowan: Yep.

[00:11:51] Lara: Being trans, there’s a. Why are there so many people who are now saying, I’m trans, I’m neurodivergent. Because suddenly people have the language, they have the knowledge. They can see themselves in something.

They can understand why something that has felt difficult and hard, their whole lives can actually be explained. And then they feel like that’s me. Life doesn’t feel so hard when I know that.

[00:12:21] Rowan: Yeah, it goes back as well to what you were saying about community having a label and wearing that label, let’s just say online for an example, or just knowing and maybe going to a support group or going to whatever.

What this does is it allows you to find other people who understand. And before we had words like neurodivergent, these were just like the quirky folk, you know? Mm-hmm.weirdos. And I’m using air quotes here ‘cause I don’t feel that way about anybody who’s neurodivergent, but. I know that there were some kids in my classes in elementary who were very likely on the spectrum, or who couldn’t sit still and couldn’t focus, and they were like the problem kids.

And that label of being the weird one or being the problem, the problematic one, to me, those labels are far more harmful. Growing up with them than, having the label of ADHD or having the label of autistic, neurodivergent , in general and. I have met so many people in the last few years, and especially in the last five weeks, let me tell you, queerness and neurodivergence.

there’s a whole Venn diagram there. and that’s actually been shown in studies. that’s not me making that up or just observing it, but I do observe it and there is something to it, but. I have met so many people who just can very comfortably say, oh, that’s my ADHD acting up again.

Or,oh, this is my autistic special interest. Right? And everybody kinda chuckles and everybody knows what that is now. and it’s not a bad thing. So now somebody who has ADHD, they’re not bad. And how their brain works. Isn’t bad, it’s just the way their brain is and maybe they have some supports to help them through the day.

But don’t we all, I wear glasses so I can see better. I have an astigmatism, you know, and also I’m old, so I need reading glasses now. Like we all have things that help. Through the day. and nobody cares about my glasses. And I would’ve been able to, well, that’s not true. Back in the eighties, if I wore glasses in school, it would’ve been a nightmare.

but now people can wear glasses, right? So that’s what happens. The normalization happens, and the beginning of that is the recognition, the labeling, and the owning of that. So all of those are really positive. And there can be some negatives to labeling. One of the things that I have experienced myself is the way that labels can confine you.

for example, and this is,well documented. I’ve written two books. My first one’s called Love Lives Here, A Story of Thriving in a Transgender family. That book is still read around the world. I still get royalties for it six years later. , it still does relatively well as a memoir, nonfiction.

And also in that book, my child comes out as a trans girl. And that was because back in when they came out, I had to think about that for a minute. non-binary was not discussed like . There were people who were non-binary and maybe in like queer circles to an extent, non-binary, or maybe in some respects not always androgyny, like that kind of thing was talked about.

But if you were just a person, especially a young person looking for information at the time to describe how you were feeling in your body. gender transness was very binary. you were either, I’m using air quotes again, born a boy, you know, assigned male at birth, but felt like a girl knew you were a girl inside or the other way around.

and that was it. So my kid comes out and, was assigned male at birth and. Knew that they were not a boy, and that became much more apparent as puberty started to settle in. As puberty started to ramp up, they’re like, no, no, no, no, no. This is wrong. I know I’m not in this direction. So they, Looked it up, they, snuck onto the internet, did a bunch of research, and realized actually, I must be a trans girl ‘cause I know I’m not a boy. So they came out to us as a girl and then. really wanted us to tell that story. That’s a whole other thing I can get into about privacy and would we do it again and everything else.

But we did, and it had positive ripples around the world. So, I mean, no regrets on any of our parts, truly. But then they were known as a, a girl and later on realized, oh. There’s something else. there’s the idea of gender that is not fixed, that is not a binary gender. so I still know I’m not a guy.

I know that, but I don’t think I’m really a girl either. So everything stayed the same. Truly everything about them, they know some pronouns switched. They went to they them, but it took them a while to come out. Because at that point they’re like, I already. I already identified as a trans girl, and everybody knows me that way now.

Like what do I do? and I think that what’s really nice, what I’m seeing in younger people today is that they have more options. So I know a lot of young trans people who have said, Hey, I think this is my gender. And later on they’re like, yeah, you know what? Actually I think I’m kind of more over here.

And that’s totally cool. And there’s so much that can be done, to move through. And myself, I identified as non-binary first,I say I kind of like walked through the non-binary field to get over to man land and so I kind of did the opposite of my child, but by that point.

We knew that non-binary was a thing that you could explore that, and that led me to where I am today. but I do think that labels can be very restrictive. sometimes they can make you feel like, well, I’ve established myself as this. I’ve said I’m this, but I don’t know if I’m, that now I don’t know what to do because I think I’m starting to feel like this.

And it can be anything. It doesn’t have to be gender. It can also be sexuality, it can be religion, it can be all kinds of different things where we. we evolve as human beings and I don’t want anyone to take what I’m saying by the way, and go, see, that’s why you don’t let trans kids be trans because let me tell you, I really need to put a giant asterisk on that.

I think it’s really important that I say this as somebody who has worked with families of trans people and is trans myself and has a trans kid that is way more harmful. Then letting your kid come out to you and figure out who they are. Nothing about transness, especially in young people, is rushed this idea that they just suddenly go on blockers and suddenly get hormones and suddenly get surgeries in libraries or schools or whatever they’re on about these days.

None of that is true. It is a slow, careful, Informed process. It takes a long time, and I do not know. I’ve worked with many, many, many, many families over the years. I do not know a single family where the kid was like, I’m trans, and went all the way to, I’m now on hormones. I’m now, getting to the age where I’m older when I’m 18, 19 and I’m looking at surgery, I went, Nope, nevermind.

I was wrong about the entire thing. That does happen. It is extremely rare, like I wanna put that in big, bold letters. It is extremely uncommon. Those examples are the same examples that are used over and over and over. What I will say is that sometimes a kid comes out and goes, I think I’d like these pronouns.

No, wait. I’ve thought about it and I think I’d like these pronouns. I’m gonna try this name on. No wait. , I think I’m gonna try this name on. Okay. I think I’m gonna go on blockers. K blockers feel good, a couple years later. Okay. I think I’m ready for hormones. Okay.

And you know what, now I think I’ve had enough changes in that direction. Sometimes that happens and I think I want to go off hormones now. I really like where I am, or I think I wanna lower dose, so I really wanna make that clear. That’s not what we’re talking about today, but because these things are so.

unknown. They’re a big mystery to a lot of people that needed to be said. So we can go back to labels now, but that had to go in there.

[00:21:08] Lara: Yeah. I think a couple of things. One is, a label, because you decide that’s your label, you don’t need to tattoo it on your body, right? Like it can be something that you’re trying on because self-discovery is not.

Something that happens all of a sudden, you don’t suddenly figure out in one moment everything you didn’t know about yourself before. Like it is a process you’re going to need to see if something feels right for more than a minute, you’re going to need to. Explore things, and like you said, there are people who just want to transition partway.

They just want to make their voice a little bit deeper, but not a lot deeper. They just wanna feel more comfortable in their own skin. And you can change your mind, you can learn more. You can. Just keep evolving and be who you are when you are. And I think, again, like this whole, like you’re not tattooing a label on yourself is to me, a really important thing to say because maybe something is gonna change.

Maybe, let’s say the label is chronically ill, but then you get better. things can change. That doesn’t mean that the thing you said before was untrue, and it doesn’t mean that we can’t learn more. Certainly every year I learn more about myself. And the more I learn about myself, the more other things shift a little bit, right?

The more I accept who I am, the more I find like the next layer starts to come out in a different way, and I feel like a different person. So some of the labels, some of the ways that I put myself out into the world have changed significantly. Right? And I mean, I think some of that can be true of anybody.

By the time, you know, you get to be 50, 60, 70, there are different lifetimes within that lifetime. And I know that who I was at 17 and who I was at 25 and even who I was at 30, like I am unrecognizable from that person.

[00:23:27] Rowan: Me too.

[00:23:30] Lara: Yeah. Yes. But I think it’s important to acknowledge that like maybe not everybody changes as significantly, but a lot of people do. Right? Over the course of their life, they change, and for me, the more that I have spent time learning who I am. And trying to figure out who I want to be and then nurturing that part of me, the more different I have become.

And I suppose some people could just spend their whole lives being essentially the same, but like, gosh, I have been so many versions of me and I am happy for that.

[00:24:09] Rowan: I think people who, stay. As one version of themselves, , their entire life are fighting against change.

[00:24:18] Lara: Maybe

[00:24:19] Rowan: I think that we all change to some extent.

I’m not just talking about physical change. ‘cause obviously that’s true, but I think our life experiences shape us. So sometimes though, people tell us a story very early on about who we’re supposed to be. Then we clinging to that story and push back against anything that might have us. Question that story.

it’s not that some things can’t stay true your entire life. There are certainly some things about me, even me who, if you know me and Lara, you do know me,I have gone through so many things and I have changed in so many ways, but there are some things about me that are static, and that’s okay.

I’m all right with that. But the majority of who I am. Just like the cells in my body. They say something like, every seven years you’re an entirely new body because your cells change. They die and new ones grow. I think that’s the same for every part of us, that there are things about us that just. have to change over time, but I know maybe I’m just speaking from my own experience and if somebody is no, truly, I am very comfortable with who I am and I have thought about this and I have never changed from the time I was 20 years old.

All right, good on you. But I really do think that. from my own experience, I told myself very early on, this is who I’m supposed to be. ‘cause society’s told me this. I’m supposed to be a girl who grows into a woman who marries a boy, and we’re supposed to buy a little house and we’re supposed to have children, and that’s supposed to be the basis of my life.

I did all those things, by the way, except the man I married turned out not to be a man, but I did buy a little house and I did have a bunch of children, and I turned out not to be a woman, but I did all those things and , I don’t regret them. I love my kids and I’m glad I did that stuff, but. I fought for so long to convince myself that is the life that would make me happy.

And anything outside of that life in the city I was living in near the people that I had known my whole life in the home I, owned in, that safety. that was what was supposed to make me happy more than anything because I had it. I had the thing that people dream of having. That was only part of what I needed in my life and the other things I had to grow outta my comfort zone and go do other things.

So, I don’t know. I do think we grow and change all throughout our lives, and maybe not as drastically as I did. Certainly most people do not grow and change, quite as much as I have in terms of, being virtually unrecognizable, in a lot of ways. but I think labels and stories that involve labels, the things the media tells us, the things our parents tell us, the things the church tells us, the things that society tells us and school tells us and work tells us.

I think that can really keep us stuck.

[00:27:33] Lara: Yeah. And I think some of us are more prone to change. Right. So for me, I. Was looking for change in a lot of parts of my life. I get bored. I don’t wanna do the same job forever. I don’t wanna stay in the same place forever. So I am looking for things to change in my life so that I can keep feeling good, so I can keep feeling excited about life, so I can keep wanting to do it.

So that means that I’m probably a bit more prone than some others to look. For change, to look for what’s new, to try to figure out what’s next. Some people will not have that desire. Some people will have the desire to not change so much that they won’t look into different things. But ultimately, I think what our point here is, that knowing yourself and loving yourself and figuring out who you are is a good thing.

And if a label helps you do that. That’s a good thing and I think that we need to not look outwardly at people and be like, you have that label. That’s what you are forever and I will be upset if you change again. Right. it’s about just knowing that the more people learn, the more people want to understand themselves, the more they may use a label for now or forever and like.

You don’t need to hold them to that in some kind of like rigid way, but believe people when they tell you who they are,

[00:28:59] Rowan: and also don’t push labels on people. As a general rule, there are some labels that I think, make sense, you know, certainly. But I like it when people tell me who they are, right? If they want to tell me.

This is who I am. This is how I identify. And I don’t just mean gender, I just mean in any way. Then that’s it. And if they don’t wanna put labels on themselves, that’s fine. there are a lot of people, for example, in my community who are just using queer, which is an all encompassing term, that it’s an umbrella term for, any kind of variance in sexuality, like sexual orientation or gender.

It’s lovely. and if people wanna just keep it at that fine. and that gives them the ability to move around and grow and change and try new things and see what works for them and maybe how they. Identify or who they’re attracted to now is different than a few years ago, and because they just use the term queer, they don’t have to explain that to anybody. in indigenous cultures, the term two-spirit is used sometimes, and that is the same kind of thing where you get this, blended term for sexual orientation for gender identity.

And it’s actually a very lovely term and that again allows for somebody to say, I’m two-spirited. and that can mean all these different things and maybe they don’t need to go any further than that. So if somebody wants to be as specific or as unspecific, is it unspecific or nonspecific?

[00:30:41] Lara: I don’t know.

[00:30:43] Rowan: I don’t know either. This is what happens when you work 12 hour days, but like, if somebody wants to be as specific or as non-specific as they’d like, that’s up to them. And I don’t need to pressure them to narrow down exactly how they wanna label themselves. There are people who. are autistic who,have ADHD who never bring it up and who don’t really consider it a big part of their lives.

I know trans people who have been, on hormones or whatever they’ve needed to do for so long, and , it just never comes up. It’s just not a big thing for them. It’s just this little part of who they are, right? so everybody’s different. And I think we just need to let people do that.

But the point of this is to say, take the pressure off of yourself and take the pressure off of others and just let people be.

[00:31:40] Lara: Absolutely. So labels use them or don’t use them, but stop. Getting people all worked up about them.

[00:31:48] Rowan: Yeah. It doesn’t have to be a religion either way. Truly like you can just take a breath If you want to use them, use them.

If somebody else doesn’t want to use them, then they don’t have to. If somebody wants to use 20 labels to describe themselves. No big deal. That’s okay. And they might change those 20 labels in five months. And that’s all right too. Like honestly, I just think that we have bigger problems in the world than making a really big deal out of how somebody chooses to describe their own life.

It’s not necessary.

[00:32:19] Lara: Yeah. And even if somebody has labels, you don’t need to know what they are. They don’t need to disclose them to you like. We are not required to tell everybody everything about ourselves. So don’t worry about it.

[00:32:32] Rowan: Just don’t worry about it. I wish people could see your face when you said that and like your hand movement, you’re like, don’t worry about it.

Like, chill dude. Feel like that turtle in Finding Nemo. Like it was really amazing.

[00:32:44] Lara: Very, California.

[00:32:49] Rowan: Well, I think that about covers labels. I’m gonna stick a label on this and call it done. Well, that was a really bad joke. Oh my God, Rowan,I need to go back to bed and have a nap, but I have to go buy pants. So let us know what you think about labels. Did we get something wrong? In your opinion, do you think there’s more to discuss here?

drop us a note. Visit our substack. Leave us a review. And, we’ll see you next time. Thanks for joining us.

[00:33:16] Lara: Thanks for being here.