Labels are sometimes handy for quickly getting an approximate idea of what kind of person you're interacting with. For example, I'm a human rather than (say) a

Labels are sometimes handy for quickly getting an approximate idea of what kind of person you're interacting with. For example, I'm a human rather than (say) a turtle or a supernova, so the "human" label is very useful for telling you how to interact with me. Labels among humans have subtler distinctions behind them, but when people fall in useful clusters, labels can be useful if you bear in mind that they're necessarily fuzzy concepts. My gender is male, I have a fairly nerdy personality, I enjoy hiking and various such outdoor activities -- surely these are potentially useful things to know about me, even if they are not perfect descriptions of me, and do not define my identity. Labels aren't bad; just too often misused.