Mistaken Identity
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April 5, 2026
I've never had more people ask me point-blank, "So, are you gay?" than when I moved to San Miguel. Each time, I am shocked by this intrusive and none-of-your-business blunt inquiry, so I began responding, "I'm surprised that you feel comfortable asking me that..." without any answer to the actual question.
I refuse to be labeled this way. Mainly because I may miss out on some incredible party invites if I claim one label or another! So I just sidestep and ignore. Occasionally, if I'm feeling pedantic, I'll add "You know, indigenous cultures recognized and accepted many different types of genders," to reference something more expansive and less binary. Straight or gay? How limiting!
Small Town, Smaller Boxes
The either-or gay question brought me back to my high school years. There was something about me that a small group of the "popular jocks" absolutely could not leave alone. I was bullied mercilessly for all four years. "Bitch! Dyke! Whore! Slut!" they would scream at me in the hallways. Pushing me, punching my arm, slamming me into lockers if they were close enough.
But I just laughed through the epithets and bruises. They were so pathetic. Desperately attempting to break my spirit? Furious that I just laughed and didn't burst into tears and try to kill myself? Or them?
Remember the anti-establishment lyrics from 'Youth Gone Wild' by Skid Row?
"Since I was born, they couldn't hold me down / another misfit kid, another burned out town."
Surprisingly, I was very popular in school. Despite this daily torture. Or because of it? Because I stood up to it? Because I represented the "resistance" to that terrorizing group of clueless bullies? I was friends with most of the disparate fringe groups in school: DJs on the high school radio station; "burnouts" who hung around smoking on "Cancer Corner"; the band; the drama club, the track team; student council members; the Advanced Placement kids in the high-level classes; the art, music, and literature teachers.
I wasn't a member of any of those groups. And yet I was welcome in all of them. Why limit myself? I could see it, even then. Instinctively, intuitively, I knew that labels were going to mean limitations. And here's the thing: the kids doing the labeling were probably the most trapped. The "popular smart jocks" were locked in the most rigid identity box of all — their entire social survival depended on the hierarchy they had been taught for generations. My moving freely between groups was a direct threat to the system they depended on.
We have come so far at this point in humanity's growth. It's difficult now to imagine how less evolved humanity was back in the 80s. Amplify that by being born into life in rural Wisconsin. A small town. Small minds. Imagine how all of us kids were put into boxes, particularly those "elite" jocks who probably had quite a bit of parental pressure on them to be one thing or another. It certainly wouldn't include anything alternative or outside strict conservative norms. I don't think we even knew what "gay" was at the time. I know I didn't! I had no clue about bands like Queen, The Village People, or Judas Priest. Not a hint. Apparently, those jocks didn't either because using "dyke" in the same sentence as "whore" and "slut"??? Hilarious!!
The author as an innocent Wisconsin teen
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One of the most impactful moments of that time in my young, innocent 13-year-old life was when one of the older DJs from our high school station handed me the first album from Motley Crue.
"Hey Marni, check THESE guys out!"; four sexy glam rock men in stiletto heels, leather, teased hair, eyeliner, looking simultaneously masculine and feminine.... and neither .... and both. In my limited rural environment (before MTV) this was like seeing a UFO. I couldn't believe my eyes. This image was like a lightning bolt of liberation to my psyche.
And looking back now, here's why it was so perfect: Motley Crue's entire early image was a walking refusal of labels. Are they men? Are they women? Are they dangerous? Are they glamorous? Are they gay? Are they straight? The answer was: yes, all of it, and no, none of it.
For a girl who was being called both "dyke" and "slut" in the same breath by confused bullies, here was a band visually embodying a refusal to be categorized. No wonder my brain was blown open. They were living proof that the small town boxes, the labels, were invented, arbitrary, and optional.
Same Girl, Different Decades
That first eye-opening Motley Crue album sent me into a beautiful new reality once I understood that there was a whole world of music and community out there that was groundbreaking, disruptive, galvanizing, and inspiring. Later, in my 20s, 30s, 40s in Chicago, New York, LA - I found my people - concerts, nightclubs and parties with underground, alternative themes - drag queens, goths, rock, metal, club kids, hip hop etc. - but when someone would call me a "goth" simply because I preferred black, I was furious. I wasn't wearing black lipstick or dying my hair black. Couldn't they see how my style was so much more than the boring basic goth attire? A Flava Flav clock necklace, roller skates, a blue wig... How dare they label me something so narrow?
But during those decades, I still thought I needed to have a day job and work hard to move up the ladder... an "official" career in the stultifying corporate world. I remember an exchange with my boss at one of my jobs, where my function was as a utilitarian Product Development manager. This was for a bead and jewelry company. I would find lower prices and better suppliers for new items to include in our assortments. After doing this for a time, I knew that I had a larger vision for a themed, creative direction to take our jewelry programs. I asked for a meeting with the boss, and told her my idea - that I would like to be promoted to Creative Director over all the product managers and the art department. Well, she almost fell out of her chair. With a scoff, she sputtered and hemmed and hawed, deflecting my request, with an implied, "Who do you think you are?!" (which by the way is the number one phrase you can recognize as a tool employed by "Petty Tyrant" archetypes from the matrix - when you are asked this question you have stepped too far out of the status quo, and these agents of the matrix pop up (yes, just like the movie) and attempt to control you back into it. If you refuse to step back in, you will rise up to your next level of consciousness. I now realize that those bullies in school were also functioning as Petty Tyrants to challenge my fortitude and push me forward along my path - more on that in a future column.)
A few months later, I was the Creative Director over all the product and the art department. I guess what this illustrated in my corporate career was that people who were lifelong subscribers to the "categories and labels" mindset could not conceive (at first) of me working under a different department, function, title, or label? Until they sat with it a while?
But nothing brought this attempted labeling into sharper focus than what happened at my doctor's office here in San Miguel.
Medical Diagnoses, Labels, and Limitations
I only began to analyze my history with labels recently, as I began examining and excavating my inner life, my higher purpose, and the "me" that is so much more than my physical body in this world.
On a recent episode of Open Minds, I discovered RJ Spina, an author and thought leader who explained simply, "all labels are limitations" - wow. This resonated so deeply. Spina knows this from the inside. Diagnosed with multiple autoimmune diseases, sepsis, diabetes, and a massive spinal infection that left his vertebrae as fragile as an eggshell after surgery, he was told by doctors he'd never walk again and would be on medication forever. He rejected the diagnosis entirely; told everyone he would heal himself. The doctors shook their heads with pity. One hundred days later, he walked out of the hospital unassisted. As he tells it, he never would have attempted to heal himself if he'd believed their words. And his sentiment, "No label is large enough to encompass all that we are," is my new mantra.
Spina's talk show appearance was focused on medical diagnoses and how people immediately accept these labels and limitations placed on them without question. An institutional authority figure stands over you, usually looking down at you, wearing a white coat, carrying a clipboard. "You will never walk again." "You have ADHD." "Your child is autistic and will never be normal." "You have terminal cancer." etc..
The show made me recall a similar situation in my recent history (before I heard about Spina's experience) - A general practitioner here in San Miguel was going over my annual wellness check blood test results. She noted my kidney filtration rate was in a pretty alarmingly low range, 51%, which was categorized as "Stage 3 Kidney Disease".
She told me matter-of-factly, "Well, the only direction this goes is down, unfortunately. But it's okay for now, you don't have to worry about it until it gets down to around 10-15%, then it's time to start considering a kidney transplant." I sat there aghast. What? Who says things like that? Not, "This is only an estimate," "we need to do further testing," not "you can reverse this with diet and lifestyle" - nothing helpful or exploratory. Again, I was filled with rage! I did not accept this in any way. If there was something amiss, I knew there was a solution out there to help me reverse it on my own, naturally.
I never went back to that doctor again. I immediately began googling and found The Kidney Coach out of Australia. They offered a very specific protocol of diet, herbs and supportive lifestyle changes to heal and restore your "irreversible" kidney function. I began it immediately and followed it exactly. I went to Chopo Labs for another blood test three months later. My eGFR had risen from 51% to 63%. Three months later, it was at 78%. I was overjoyed, empowered. I wrote to that doctor and told her what I had done, and informed her that what she told me was the worst, most traumatic, and unhelpful thing I've ever heard from a medical professional, and that she should read about the program I followed that reversed kidney damage and improved my levels with only diet and lifestyle changes. She never responded.
My kidneys recovered. And I started asking bigger questions.
The Box You Built Yourself
Labels mean safety, belonging, clarity. On the flip side, they also perpetrate stagnation, division, and distortion.
The purpose of living a life on earth is to be as fully your unique self as possible. This is how the "puzzle" of the matrix of reality works. Each person is a perfect, unique piece of it. But only if you express your truest self. The more you accept limiting categories and boxes, not realizing or acting on your gifts, the less cohesive our collective humanity. Because it's out of balance. Too many people in those ticky tacky boxes - not enough variety to weave into the fabric, to create the highest expression, the rainbow of human experience.
What labels do you currently accept being placed on yourself? What would happen if you shed the labels? Decided not to be limited by them? Do you repeat things like "I'm bad with money," "I'm not confident enough/thin enough/young enough" or, "I have X condition/disease"?
Are you accessing your beautiful gifts, your special life wisdom, your unique differences -instead of staying inside that box? What if you ventured outside the lines and looked for what you CAN do instead of what you've been told you can't?
Start today with two simple exercises:
