And my dad said “Wow, [the queer community has] so many labels, don’t you.”

Me: “Cisgender, heterosexual, white, able-bodied, neurotypical, male. These are your labels. You just don’t notice them in the same way you notice ours, because yours are assumed. It goes without saying. Me? I have to explicitly point to my labels in order for people to see them at all, because unless I do they assume my labels say ‘default’. There’s a reason that authors usually only mention the skin colour or race of people of colour, or describe the fact that a person is using a wheelchair to get about, or that someone is transgender. There is a reason that people rely on stereotypes to convey labels without having to explicitly say ‘this character is gay’, ‘this character is trans’.”

Dad: “I hadn’t thought about it like that before.”

Me: “Exactly.”