I understand how it may be important to define/demarcate words (recepticals of ideas–networks of associations), but it can also be rather “violent” in the sense of creating a conceptual zone of exclusion. Words with “open borders” may facilitate the “contamination” of the integrity of our idea(l)s, but the opposite, hegemonic definitons, seem to pose an alternative danger of percieving once potential allies as atagonists. Labeling people can result in their dismissal (both by non-vegans and other vegans). Further, labels may mislead us into assuming that we have things all figured out so that we may feel at ease that we have thought enough.

What seems more important is whether one practices veganism (though, I suppose these folks would be called “vegans”) and thus is committed to challenging privilege and its crresponding systems of subordination. Maybe veganism is prone to the same dillema as feminism in its multiplicity; and just as second wave feminists had to confront their own privilege in initially excluding queer, trans, and women of color, vegnas must do the same and be more racially and class concious.