Okay so putting this out right now, I'm a trans lesbian.

I wouldn't call things like genderqueer and whatnot made-up, at least not in the sense that people assume. For the sake of clarity, I assume people assume it means that people think they're not special enough, so they complicate their identity in an attempt to Mary Sue themselves. As a trans person, I can safely say that's not remotely what a lot of us do. People say transgender is made up, and dear God I wish it was. I would give anything for this to just be a phase I could grow out of and be done with, but it isn't. That is not to say that people won't grow out of these terms.

There was once a time in my life where I felt like all my weird issues, quirks, and hangups were worth quantifying. Like if I could make a checklist of my own identity issues, I could better grasp the kind of person I was. I've gone through that phase for personal identity, political identity, religious identity, and probably others. it was extremely important to me to have labels for myself, as a sort of anchoring point for my developing identity.

I feel as though people who don't automatically latch onto male or female identities, for one reason or another, seek out terms that do resonate with them. One of my closest friends identifies as genderfluid. For all intents and purposes, I use male pronouns for him, but he has a distinct feminine side, too. He's always had this sort of "why not both" attitude about life, and it's been very important to him to acknowledge both sides and give them equal time. From the outside it's really easy to just say he's a boy or a girl or just a middle gender, if we'll allow that, but that's never been good enough for him. To just say he's in the middle doesn't feel like an identity he can latch onto. Maybe it's a phase, and eventually he'll be content just not having a word for his identity, or maybe he'll take that label to his grave. The important thing is it gives him a sense of belonging, to have a word that describes how he feels about himself.

I agree, at times it can be ridiculous, and even set back trans people like myself. Even I have a hard time keeping up with all the terms people come up with. The important thing is not to keep up with all of them, but to respect that those labels are very important to those who wear them, who feel uncomfortable putting themselves in a box. If someone makes a big deal out you messing up their special label, I think it's important to recognize that they're not lashing out because you didn't automatically know they were polysexual or something, but because they feel trapped by the way society handles people like them. They're automatically on the defense, like an animal backed into a corner, and to feel more comfortable they prescribe more labels for themselves.

No part of the human mind is so clear that it can just be labeled in two or three ways and have it be 100% accurate. I've come to terms with that and tried to stop labeling myself so much, but not everybody agrees with that notion, and I think it's good to respect that a lot of people are figuring things out, and labels can be a handy security blanket. Like security blankets, sometimes people grow out of them, and sometimes grown adults keep them for the rest of their lives to go back to in times of distress. I think that's valid, but I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

tl;dr the last paragraph is kind of a summary