Labels/categorisation

[Cogs Of My Cranium]

You know how the term homosexual is quite new as a label...I think it's victorian...I've been thinking recently about labels and categories and how sometimes having these things assigned causes many more problems to head the way of the labelled/categorised person. I think it's important to point out that these are social labels for society, not natural labels. Surely the only natural label for all people is that we are all human, right? I guess sometimes I like to think that the lives of the labelled people were better/simpler before the labels. I've got nothing to base this on...perhaps it's similar to nostalgia. It's just sad that the labels can erase people in the eyes of others. See before finding out about aspergers and the label I was just a different feeling person...now I feel so hung up on the labels. I make instant mental connections about this word aspergers and what this means throughout they day. Do people ever wish they never knew...or maybe they knew but werent given a label/category? I just think that aspergers is a label society gives us and we never gave it ourselves. It makes me feel like some plastic toy on the shelf. I've always been marginalised but since I have this word I feel more trapped there than ever.

 

[King_Oni]

The thing with labels is that they pose certain expectations. And while a label like "homosexual" gives the expecation of someone being romantically and/or sexually interested in the same sex exclusively, the label "Asperger's" rather than just it being a diagnosis from a medical point of view, raises expectations; but plenty on here are not textbook cases, lest we are going into an extensive list of things that might be attributed to being on the spectrum. I doubt many people are willing to read and memorize such a list so they have certain expectations. And that kinda skews the use of certain labels without people realizing it in the first place.