Ask a Queer Coach: How do we explain the complexities of queer identities?
You ask, I answer. A monthly Q&A column with a Queer Life Coach.
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Welcome to Ask a Queer Coach, the Qstack monthly feature where Transformational Coach and Associate Editor Keith Aron gives his best coachy take on questions from Qstack community about sticky, scratchy or sludgy life situations. Have a question you wish you could ask a queer coach—about identity, relationships, work, creativity, community or becoming more yourself? We invite you to submit your questions for consideration. Big crossroads or small stuck places welcome. Submissions can be anonymous. DM Keith directly.
Greetings, Qstack! This month’s quandary was submitted by Tali Sarnetzky (she/her), author of The Passionate Writer, a brilliant Substack focusing on wellbeing as part of the writing journey. Thank you, Tali, for submitting the following question for our collective reflection and dissection:
In a world that embraces labels and clear-cut definitions, how can I explain all that I am in plain language to others, if I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle clear to myself yet? When I say I’m pan and genderfluid, some people ask what it means. I have no issue explaining being pan, but gender fluidity is harder to explain, especially the fact that sometimes I feel genderless. I wonder if I should keep this to myself until I have the right words... But do we ever find the right words?
These are such great questions, right on time for Pride month. The queer universe is diverse, vibrant and dynamic. As individuals, we’re not static, and as a community, we are not a monolith. Our beloved rainbow is, alas, but a starting point and a symbol. Its limited color palette comes nowhere near representing the multiverse of queer identities. How can we possibly come up with words to convey the subtleties and brilliance of our light? I have thoughts to offer, of course. And as always, please take what you like and leave the rest.
The Elephants in the Room: Complexity and Nuance
Before digging into Tali’s question, I think it might be helpful to name some of the nuanced reality we rarely hear mentioned when people rail against the emergence of yet another queer identity label (or pride flag)1. Here’s just a small smattering of that complexity:
Every conceivable experience and expression of gender and sexuality has probably existed for as long as there have been humans. Just because something hasn’t been named doesn’t mean it hasn’t existed.
Our intrinsic sense of gender and/or sexuality might organically shift. This is true not just for openly queer folx. This is true for humans (and plenty of other species, too).
As Tali aptly noted, we live in “a world that embraces labels and clear-cut definitions.” In fact, we live in a world where we’re often given no option but to identify using limited categories centering the gender binary and cis-hetero normativity.
Delineating Circumstances and Beliefs, Tools and Needs
Rarely can we change systemic or societal circumstances such as the realities of homophobia or transphobia; however, we can more often shift how we think about and relate to such intractable circumstances. If I were with Tali in person, I’d try to evoke awareness about the thoughts and beliefs buried in her questions. Why does it feel important to explain her identities to others? What is she hoping will come of explaining herself?
Any authentic response from Tali would be the perfect answer. Really. Because any and all of her reason(s) would point to the underlying need(s) she’s trying to meet for herself.
For example, Tali might believe that a well-crafted explanation would help clarify her self-concept and/or increase her sense of authentic self-expression. Authenticity and self-expression are universal human needs in and of themselves. Alternately, she might point to reasons like cultural belonging; finding/building community; or making societal or cultural change2. Some of the possible needs I hear there include structure, stability, acknowledgement, connection, equality, respect, and empowerment.
It’s important to remember that language and labels aren’t inherently good nor bad. They’re simply tools, or strategies, we might employ in trying to meet our needs. Well-wrought language could be an effective tool or strategy to meet some of Tali’s potential needs. But the language isn’t the need itself.
Distinguishing our needs from the tools and strategies we hope will meet them opens up creative problem-solving space. It empowers us to brainstorm alternate tools and strategies, should we find our first choices out of reach. There are almost always more ways than one (and sometimes many) to meet a need.
Here’s another important caveat to consider about language and labels. Like most tools or strategies, they can be misused and/or weaponized. Language and labels are all too often used — sometimes unconsciously and sometimes deliberately — to pigeon-hole, stereotype, or pathologize. Left unchecked, our apprehension about this kind of misuse has the power to keep us perpetually closeted.
Clarifying our Own Definitions
Let’s zero in on another part of Tali’s question that relates to staying hidden:
I wonder if I should keep this to myself until I have the right words…
Again, if I were coaching Tali in person, I’d want to ask some questions to get at her underlying beliefs: What does “right” mean to her here? And how might she recognize the “right” words? Would confirmation of this “rightness” come from someone or something outside of her, or would it be some sort of internal indication, like physical sensation or emotion? Without clarity about these specifics, it’s difficult (maybe even impossible) to unpack her following question:
But do we ever find the right words?
Oh, how I feel this question. I really do. Most all of us have been conditioned to make calculated choices based on predictions of rightness/wrongness or goodness/badness, without questioning what makes something “right” or “wrong,” “good” or “bad.” We may also hesitate to question who gets to make those value judgments or what criteria they’re using to get there.
This is a high-stress, high-drama game, with very high stakes. This game disregards the aforementioned nuance and complexity and always ends with a “winner” and a “loser.” But as Queer folx, when we play this game with our identities, we lose every time, because the rules favor cis-heteronormativity. Society tells us in a million different ways that queer identities are wrong, bad, or at the very least, not central. And it’s unlikely that society will become queer-centric anytime soon (indeed, we are experiencing greater marginalization than we have in decades).
All of that being what it is, my hunch is that our perception of “rightness” is directly proportional to the sturdiness of our subjective belief in who we are and who we say ourselves to be at any given moment. In other words, true “rightness” is an inside job. But inside jobs need not be done in isolation. In fact, they’re done with greater ease and efficacy when we resource ourselves with community and sometimes professional supports.
Integrity, Agency and Boundaries
On that note, let’s circle back to one last piece of Tali’s question:
how can I explain all that I am in plain language to others, if I don’t have all the pieces of the puzzle clear to myself yet?
Let me cut to the chase: I don’t think we can. We can only honestly convey our current level of understanding about a thing, including our identities. Anything beyond that requires that we guess or perhaps embrace ill-fitting language or force ourselves to settle for a false or contrived identity. While none of those options are the end of the world (and can, in fact, be an organic part of a process of becoming), chances are that any of them might leave us feeling disempowered, disingenuous, demoralized or all of the above.
Perhaps the real question might be this:
When pressed for explanations about her identity, what options might lead Tali to feel the greatest degrees of alignment with her sense of integrity, her sense of agency, her truth?
Tali’s words suggest to me that one thing she’s feeling clear about is not yet feeling clear about all the pieces of her identity. The way I see it, at least a couple of viable possibilities emerge from that clarity. One might be to state that she’s in a process of discovery about it. Another might be simply to forgo trying to explain herself at all, and instead setting a kind but clear boundary around answering something personal.
Before we wrap things up, I want to offer a bit more about boundaries. We have the right to set internal and external boundaries that help us feel emotionally safe. This might mean telling the anxious parts of ourselves who feel we need to conform that it’s safe to stay silent. Or, as I said above, this might require us to stand our ground with inquisitive outsiders about keeping such information private for personal reasons. The key idea here is that unless we’re legally compelled otherwise, we get to choose what we tell, and to whom we tell it. And that keeps us rooted in our integrity and agency.
Summing it All Up
Okay. Let’s regroup and break this down into a few takeaways:
We can’t often change societal or systemic circumstances, but we can shift the way we think about and relate to them.
Distinguishing between our needs and strategies opens space for us to think more creatively and flexibly about how to meet our needs.
Understanding our own definitions and familiarizing ourself with the ways in which we recognize what’s true for us is essential for making informed, aligned choices.
Making informed, aligned choices and setting healthy emotional boundaries keeps us fastened to a sense of power and agency.
What do you think, Qstack? Have you navigated something similar to Tali’s situation? What wisdom emerged from your experience? Comment below. And if this resonated for you, give me a thumbs up!
Keith Aron (he/they) writes Big Blue Sky Dragonfly, a Substack about finding the sweet spot between belonging and authenticity. He’s a trans and queer transformational coach, writer, erstwhile Jack of all trades, proudly witchy weirdo, and honorary tree. Find him at keitharon.com.
I like to reference the Fandom LGBTQIA+ “Identities” tab periodically to stay in touch with emergent language related to queer identities.
For a more comprehensive look at the reasons gender and sexual identity labels could be important, I recommend this article from Psychology Today.
Of course I recognize this. At one point, one of my life goals was to help create a society in which no person aged 17 would discover the reality of loving someone of my own gender with no way to describe it, no way to identify it, no book or person to turn to. This was in the olden days of books behind a desk and having to ask for them, having to read the Latin of Kraft-Ebbing to figure out what I was. I learned to read Latin fluently. I didn't want anyone else to have to do this. I'm lesbian. I was told I would go to Hell, burn for eternity for loving another woman. Now it's pansexual that's the problem. Please. There is no problem here. Let's rejoice that love exists. We love. That's enough. Let people describe what they want to. Love.
Keith, this is so so fabulous. I love how you redirect focus to the need underneath the desire for “right” language. I haven’t thought about it that way before, and it makes perfect sense to me. It’s an option for making identity uncertainty/ambiguity/discomfort a more concrete “problem to solve,” as identity language (and language in general) can be so tricky. Thank you so much for this. And thank you, Tali, for the question.
The “wisdom” on this topic that I have to share is the framework of dialectics that Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; the therapy I specialize in) focuses on, largely inspired by Zen teachings and principles. Dialectics, primarily, is the idea that two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. But it also offers other principle: that change is constant, that change is relational, that everything is interconnected. Meditating and integrating these truths into our lives can be so helpful for metabolizing and tolerating the kinds of uncertainty and discomfort that complex queer identity exploration can create. I talk about this way more in my book, and now I’m wondering if I need to do a full post on it… But I at least wanted to offer it as a lens here, in addition to your answer. Which, again, thank you. I will definitely be integrating your wisdom into my difficulties with this experience moving forward!