My Opinion: Labels!

Why do we all feel the need to label people? Fat, Ugly, Gay, Lesbian. These are things we feel we have to comment on, everywhere we go. 'Don't judge a book by it's cover' ? We don't think about this. Gay used to mean happy, not a nasty comment we make. I never call people Gay, I have no problems with people liking the opposite sex. What matters too me is their personalities: if they are nice too me, what matters? I struggle with the concept of going around and being labelled. We are constantly being given nick-names, teenagers and troublemakers for example. You hear it in school, 'He's so gay'. What is the problem with being Gay?. Gay's meaning has changed, for once why don't we use Gay as the meaning it really is. How about sitting close to one of your friends and being called a Lesbian, when all you were doing was talking? What about the fact you get called 'thick' when you are struggling in school? We should receive support from out peers as everyone struggles, not given a label. Why do we feel in this society we have to label people? Most of the time we are wrong but we don't think before we judge. We don't ask for these labels, why should we receive them?

People will label you fat, will label you ugly, you see it constantly in the Media. Does anyone understand what this does to your self-esteem?. Speaking from personal experiences, of being labelled, it tears down your confidence. It makes you wonder, if that's the impression your giving people, are you really fat or ugly? It makes you look at yourself and criticize. People in magazines call people who are Size 10 fat! When has this been fat? Labeling has found it's place in this society and is just another thing we do to have a joke. The thing is it will never be funny to the person who has the label: like a price tag being place onto you. It's like being put on display, like an item of clothing in a shop, or people to say 'That's a nice top' or "I hate the shape of the sleeves". You wouldn't like to be called those things? 

Adults feel they have the right to label us trouble makers when they don't know us. They don't know how tough it actually is to be a teenager in a messed-up society. We are continuously labelled, continuously criticized as a whole. They don't realise that labeling us all, effects the people who don't deserve these labels. There are even cases when you label someone 'fat' when they have been going through an horrific time and may be comforting eating. We don't think about the different options for why this person  may be this way. We don't know for sure whether the labels we give them are true. When did a boy having a pink pencil mean he's gay? How has our society got to this pitying state?

Everyone gets a label. We are constantly judged and then given a name before anyone knows us. I admit I have judged people. I have given them a certain label before I have got the chance to know them. I regret saying these things, knowing now that they are truly offensive. I don't label people anymore. I hear people everyday giving racist comments, commenting on people's looks, commenting on the person's knowledge. It has become a natural thing to do, point out someone in the middle of the street and say 'Look how fat he is!" I don't say this, but some people do. I have though, sat closer than usual to a friend in my school and been labelled 'Gay'. This is wrong. Why can't we be taken for who we are? We all have faults but there's no need to be labelled for: what we look like: who we are sitting next to: who we talk to: what shape we are: what size we are. 

There is no reason to have to label someone. When our society has come to a point where we are all judged. We are put out there to be criticized, we are celebrities, or public figures, or a normal teenage growing up with the every-day struggles we have to face.

Have you ever experienced labeling?
Sound off below!!
Sophie