I mentioned that I'd be making this post in my 'My Coming Out Story/ies' one, so here it is (and it's very short and hopefully straight to the point)! I want to first say that this is all just my opinions, and that this isn't necessarily 'right'. If I say anything wrong, please correct me! I'm happy to discuss things like this, as that is how I learn and become a better person.


For a lot of people labels don't mean much. They're just 'them', they don't need a label to explain who they are or how they feel, and that's completely OK. On the other hand, for a lot of other people, labels are something important, and a stepping stone into figuring out who there are and what they like. Lately there has been a lot of hate online for people who choose to have labels that aren't well known/outside L G B T straight or cis. 'Special Snowflake' is a term that comes up often when describing people who identify outside the usual, well known labels, as (mostly) cishet people believe that these labels are made up to make someone seem 'special' or 'different' or 'cool' (also remember when the term 'transtrender' was going around because cis people believed that having more trans/nonbinary representation and people questioning their gender meant that being trans/NB was a cool/trendy thing to fake and not something that people actually were...).

There are so many different labels within the LBGT+ community. To list a few, there are...

Pansexual: person is sexually attracted to all gender

Asexual: person does not feel sexual attraction (doesn't necessarily meant they don't have sex, because there are many who do (and many who don't), it just means they don't feel a sexual attraction to a person)

Demi/grey asexual: person feels sexual attraction to someone only after there is an emotional attraction/connection/person sometimes feels sexual attraction

Aromantic: similar to asexual, but instead the person doesn't feel romantic attraction to people

Demi/grey aromantic: person Sometimes feels romantic attraction

Non-binary: general term for someone who doesn't feel they fit in the 'gender binary', so they don't identify fully as male or female

Agender: person doesn't feel they have a gender or identify with a gender

Genderfluid: persons gender changes depending on how they feel. Sometimes they could feel more like a 'boy', sometimes more like a 'girl' or another gender, and their definition on 'boy' or 'girl' is fully up to them.

Demiboy/girl: person partially identifies as a boy/girl

There are so so many more but I can't name every single one off the top of my head.


Labels are a very personal thing. To put it shortly, they can help people feel less alone when it comes to how they are feeling. Especially with teenagers, feeling alone or like an outcast can be a really tough thing. Most kids and teenagers are pressured into conforming with society's standards, as standing out is often seen as something to avoid at all cost. For LBGT+ kids, feeling alone is something extremely common, especially if you feel you don't really identify with L B G or T. It can feel like there is something wrong with you, or that what you're feeling isn't 'real' (as I briefly discussed in my coming out post). When you find out that other people feel, or identify similarly to you, though, it can help so much. Not only can you connect with other people and their experiences, but you know that how you're feeling is real, because others are feeling it too.

Expressing how you're feeling and who you are can also be easier when you have words to do so, which is where labels also help. When you find that label that just fits perfectly with who you are, it can feel amazing to be able to say to people, and yourself 'this is exactly who I am right now'. Labels, of course, change as people do, but expressing how you're feeling and who you are at an exact moment can help yourself and others understand you better. There is nothing wrong with that, and expressing your identity should never be something that others put down, or that you should feel ashamed of.

This is why labels can be so important to some people. They aren't a way of 'separating' someone, or making someone seem 'special' because they choose to have a label that isn't a 'normal' one, they are a way to figure out who you are, to connect with people like you and to realise that who you are is ok and normal. Even if someone has super long labels, they are completely valid and you shouldn't make fun of them. I'm so sick of seeing cishet boys make fun of people who choose to express their labels, saying that they 'sexually identify as a hamburger and their gender identity is a chair' (or some other stupid shit like that that is obviously made up just to mock people with more 'complex' labels). Just because you haven't heard much about, or been exposed to nonbinary people/people with less common identities, doesn't mean they are made up or fake.