A departure from my recent focus on feeling and agency in higher education, this piece considers the implications of labeling, particularly in relation to sexual and neurological diversity.

David Gray-Hammond wrote that “autism doesn’t actually exist … autistic people exist”. It’s the kind of statement that reaps equal parts furious head nods and furious fury. I like it because it’s wrong, but it’s useful. Autism and autistic are labels. And all labels are incorrect, but that doesn’t mean they’re not worth using.

What do I mean? Let’s take queer terminology as an example.

The term bisexual has been in use in English since the late 1800s as a pathological term for a sexual deviation, referring to a person sexually attracted to both women and men. By the 1970s it was in use as a self-identity marker, though it was still viewed as a pathology (that is, an essentialist diagnosis for which someone either meets the criteria or doesn’t).

Of course, there was (and is) significant discrimination against bisexual-identifying people. “People who say they’re bisexual are actually just gay.” “People who say they’re bisexual are just performing queerness for attention.” “People who say they’re bisexual will always cheat on their partners.” Despite such discrimination, some people still identify as bisexual, but some of those who would otherwise have used it have instead chosen the label pansexual which implies attraction to people regardless of their gender.

In practice, if I only believed there were two genders, claiming pansexuality could still mean “I am attracted to both men and women”. If I didn’t believe in that gender binary, it could mean “any form of gender expression can be sexually attractive to me”.

And so both bisexual and pansexual remain problematic and contested terms. Instead, some simply choose to identify as queer: broadly, this suggests a sexual and/or gender identity other than straight and cis.

Queerness, though, is not just an attraction label but a political identity. It’s a word that was reclaimed from its discriminatory and homophobic origins and brings with it a corpus of theory, civil rights activism, culture and community. I like that queer, stripped of all its politics, just means odd. That’s an identity I, personally, could get behind — but knee-deep into the 21st century, do we still think that sexuality and gender-diverse people are odd?

Young people are increasingly eschewing such sexuality labels altogether. All this identity work is heavy, and young people have so, so much work to do already to make sense of themselves in the world. I’m actually there with them: the truth is I no longer think of myself as queer, lesbian, pansexual or anything else. I’ve been in relationships with women for two decades and if someone needs one of those easy labels to refer to me in conversation, fine — but it’s for their benefit, not mine, and it won’t hold up to much scrutiny.

That’s not to say such terms weren’t useful for me in the past. Learning about queer history and theory was a powerful education for me. It gave me keywords to search for help and friendship, and to make sense of some of the questions I had. But I honestly never felt I belonged to a queer “community”. I’m kind of a homebody. The longer you contemplate a particular label, the more you realise it’s not a word for exactly who you are. It’s a foothold, a guardrail, a cutting in the path that will steady your feet and keep you from getting lost, but it’s not your ultimate destination.

I have similar thoughts about those conditions currently considered neurodiverse. Many argue that while autism, dyslexia, ADHD and mental disorders are diagnosable conditions, neurodiversity is an identity label. I, with my crisp degree in psychology from the University of My A**, should not be commenting on the “realness” of such conditions, but I’ll simply say that psychiatric diagnoses are always, always in transition. It’s not about whether they are right, but whether they are useful.

Asperger’s syndrome was removed from the DSM in 2013 but many people still use it to describe themselves because it works for them. That is the power of labels. And today people use ADHD because it helps them manage their needs, and gives them access to funding, and helps others learn better how to support them. Labels enable access to real, tangible, needed help.

I think of neurodiverse/divergent as similar to queer. Unlike homosexuality and Asperger’s, it’s not and never has been a clinical diagnosis. Instead it’s a political identity forged out of a civil rights movement, grounded in social rather than medical theory. To identify as neurodivergent is to side with the rights of all those under the neurodiversity banner: “mad”, “autistic”, “attention-deficit”, “dyslexic”, and any other divergent functioning people.

So labels are always wrong — but, like models, some are useful. As Gray-Hammond said, “autistic people exist”. That is, there are people who identify as autistic. Some prefer to call themselves Aspies. According to the DSM-V, today Asperger’s doesn’t exist but autism does. What will it say tomorrow? Which of us will change our labels when the DSM-VI comes out?

So can we say, as Gray-Hammond does, that autism doesn’t exist if we can’t find biomarkers for it? (This claim is, of course, still hotly debated.)

Could we claim bisexuality wasn’t real for the same reason? Could we claim bisexuality wasn’t real if, say, we experienced attraction to both men and women earlier in life, but now have a clear preference for one?

So Gray-Hammond is wrong that autism doesn’t exist — but his point is useful in that what he means is that such diagnostic labels are only transitory heuristics for generalising unique human experience. They fit about as well as a pair of pants that’s two sizes too big.

But in the winter, ill-fitting pants are better than no pants at all.

July is Disability Pride Month. Let’s celebrate, advocate, and be kind.