Labels are a double-edged sword. They can be both useful in identifying something and somehow make understanding what you've identified infinitely more complicated.

This is particularly true in the labeling of gender and sexual identity.

The days of male and female or straight and gay have given way to a seemingly infinite variety of choices for gender or sexual identity that allow people to choose what seems to be most applicable to them as individuals.

Which labels do you use and why? less

In keeping with the mores of fandom, my LiveJournal profile reads, "heteroflexible cisgendered female."

The people who simply check "female" are labeled heteronormative, homophobic, and gender-privileged, which I think is a tad unfair when the form offers only male, female, and choose not to answer. But there was an uproar, and all the cool kids switched their checkbox to choose not to answer, and then typed a more acceptable answer in the body of their profile, making it impossible for LJ to use gender to target ads, and thus setting in motion the next big battle between the company that owns LiveJournal, and LJ users. less

It seems kind of ridiculous that they could gather that someone was homophobic, gender-privileged and heteronormative by the fact that they chose to label themselves with a single word. People who assume those sort of things are labeled asses to me because that's what you turn into when you try to make such broad, sweeping generalizations about a person based on such minimal information.

For myself, straight female. Other people get to be whatever they choose to be labeled. If they don't have a preference I choose whatever feels like the most appropriate. less