The Label Maker

The old cartoon show Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist used to air early in the mornings on Comedy Central in the late 90s.  I loved that show.  I particularly loved Laura, the sarcastic, acerbic receptionist, and secretly dreamed of being her when I grew up.  In one episode Laura acquires a label maker and proceeds to label everything in the office.  Literally, EVERYTHING.  I thought this was so cool.  So I got a label maker, complete with several different colors for organizational purposes.  I was probably about eleven years old.  To test it out I punched in my name.  It was awesome.  I decided it was necessary to test out all the colors with my name.  Then my full name.  Then my nickname.  It didn’t take me long to figure out that I didn’t really have anything I needed to label…so then I punched in my initials. 

After exhausting every possible variation of my name in every single color, the appeal of the label maker quickly vanished.  All I had from my labeling frenzy was my name in a rainbow assortment of colors and formats and a completely useless label maker. 

My coming out story is as anticlimactic as this label-making story.  I do not have a coming out story.  I do not have a coming out story, because I never came out.  I never came out, because I never had to.  Not because my family just assumed me to be queer, but because I was never assumed to be straight either.  I was just assumed to be.  And I just am.  If someone were to ask me my orientation, I would be at a loss for words.  Straight, gay, trans, bi, questioning …these are all so limited.  I just wasn’t raised in a world where labels are put on everything, where one word can define you as a whole.  I know who I am, and so do the people that matter most in my life.  No label can express me. 

 

- Glynnis

 

- home -

©OUTfront 2006 | design by jemufo