It doesn’t mean the person is strange. Any time we make a system of classification, someone won’t fit. This exclusion might say more about our need to classify people than about them.

It’s also performative. Labels describe how we live. Even when they describe reality, they’re about perceptions and performances. How we live interprets who we are.

She had two moms, and she didn’t like the word ‘straight’. If we have a stake in a shared outcome, we might avoid declaring how we’re different and separate from others, especially to imply our superiority.