NORTHAMPTON — Across college campuses and progressive communities like Northampton, Massachusetts, a growing number of people are adopting identity labels — specifically around gender and sexuality — that are raising questions about self-expression, community, and the role of language.
For some, labels provide a sense of belonging. For others, they can feel restrictive, excluding those who don’t fit into specific, defined categories. The tension between inclusion and limitation has become central to how people understand identity labels today.
A prominent trend across those in favor of labels is how they form community and bring people together.
“Labels give us a way to talk about how we might be different from each other,” said Nancy Whittier, a sociology professor at Smith College. “And, ironically, I think talking about that is really important for forming coalition.”
The shift reflects broader national trends. A 2021 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA estimated that approximately 2.8 million people ages 13 and older (1% of the U.S. population) identify with the label “transgender,” including about 1.2 million who identify as nonbinary. A 2025 poll from Gallup found that 9.3% of U.S. adults identify with the term “LGBTQ+”.
Many people believe that labels are not only descriptive but also help individuals make sense of their experiences.
“People are not just adopting them just for fun; it’s a process of making meaning of our experiences and feelings,” said Whittier. “If someone starts to think of themselves as ‘trans,’ that gives them a label that they can then search out other people who might share similar experiences.”
In contrast, there are those who disagree with the growing usage of labels within the queer community.
“I don’t think that I have any pronouns that feel accurate to my gender identity, but that stresses people out,” said Lily Wolf ’28, a Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality major at Smith College. “Even at such an open place like Smith, I get a lot of backlash. It’s like, oh, pick a pronoun.”
More than 150 years ago, Smith College was founded as a women’s institution. Today, the college identifies itself as a “historically women’s institution”
“One of the first things you learn at Smith is that they tell you not to call us a women’s college [rather] they tell you to say a historical women’s college because not everybody is a woman,” said Wolf.
In 2015, Smith College changed its policy to allow for the admission of transgender applicants, including trans women, trans men, and non-binary identities. Some critics have questioned the policy, asking why students who do not identify as women would choose to attend a women’s college.
“There definitely is a push towards gender inclusivity. Even when you go into classes, it’s immediately name and pronouns,” Wolf said. “Smith really is very inclusive, but in a way that it demands labels from people.”
The idea that labels demand categorization of people directly contrasts with the argument that the act of identifying oneself is an act of resistance against heteronormativity — the notion that it is the expectation of society to be heterosexual.
Moreover, there are those who feel the act of bringing a name to identity is a political choice.
“For me, ‘queer’ means deliberately and politically stepping outside the mainstream expectations of heteronormativity,” Whittier said. “I don’t want to make my relationships a mirror image of straight people.”
“I think it [labels] is just kind of a way that I feel I’m able to lose restriction, and that’s really helpful to me in terms of understanding myself and my behavior,” said Sofia Raquel Tarnow, a history major at Smith College.
Beyond the polarized tension, there is also a middle ground in the discussion surrounding whether labels and the use of identifying terms within the queer community are even necessary in everyday language.
“It’s a very human thing to try to categorize ourselves in that manner. It provides a lot of comfort,” said Tarnow. “But it also encourages this rigidity.”
Debates on identity language have extended far beyond college campuses and Northampton itself.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded,” President Donald Trump wrote.
In 2025, the Supreme Court ended a policy allowing people to self-identify their gender on passports. A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation that same year found that federal agencies removed questions about sexual orientation and gender identity from some surveys, reducing visibility of LGBTQ+ communities in federal data.
In the tension over the need for labels, their role as identification factors remains focused on the question of how much words truly matter.
“They’re just words. They don’t hold that much value, but I do understand that also, they can hold a lot of value for a lot of people,” said Sofia Tarnow.
As institutions, policymakers, and individuals continue to navigate gender and sexuality language, the necessity for someone to adopt a label continues to be challenged and defended — leaving communities like Northampton at the forefront of a debate with no clear resolution.
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