Maybe I’m getting old (24) and jaded but here I go: Asexuals, sapios, Demis, non-binary, pans, trans and all the other labels we cook up are a way for us youngins to distinguish ourselves from stuffy older generations. When I was a teen I was punk. Different and cool not like all those other conformists. We wanted to be anything but normal.

Scene subculture was all about embracing our negative emotions: angry, sad and otherwise. We defied gender roles, social roles, any roles we could get our hands on we destroyed. Girls wore baggy pants, chains and spikes and buzzcuts. The boys wore nail polish, eyeliner, skinny jeans and tossed their long side bangs in defiance. But emo was NOT punk and don’t you dare get them confused. The goths hated the scene kids even though their parents’ couldn’t tell the slightest difference.

Looking back, we were creating new and exciting labels for the same old things. This is exactly what gender discourse has become. We all want to be cool and different and unique and anything but “cis” and hetero. The only thing that matters lately is enforcing your own identity while ignoring material realities and the true axes of oppression. Our teenage angst and insecurity is now pathologized and diagnosed and medicated with hormones and surgery. External emotional validation has become more important than self-love and liberation and I just cannot accept that.