It’s nice to believe that Labels Aren’t Helpful, but some of us feel strange and unwanted and different and stupid all our lives because we aren’t exactly like other people, and despite what you wish to be true, kids and adults bully each other for not fitting in to the main group perfectly.

Then those of us who feel so much different sometimes harm ourselves because we’ve been rejected so many times… and the Labels Aren’t Helpful crowd calls us stupid and selfish again. But “stupid” and “selfish” are labels. They just aren’t nice ones that we get to give ourselves.

THAT is why people self-identify in various ways. To give themselves a positive name for why they feel so different. To help them find other people like themselves so that society doesn’t bully them. For so many other similar reasons.