Political labels are pretty junk, especially after centuries of mass media and propaganda in the mix. I find it helps to learn to convey your values specifically if you want to avoid that whole mess.

The 'left-right spectrum' is subjective and relative which makes it pretty useless without having a ton of context. "Leftist", by itself, is mostly a meaningless term. To socialists, a progressive liberal is usually considered center or even right wing. Some socialists even call other socialists right-wing. It's just pointless.
What the US mass media calls 'liberals' is a progressive liberal in political science. What the US mass media calls a conservative is usually a conservative liberal aka right-liberal, that's why they constantly prize liberty and freedom. The US libertarian is simply a classical liberal. They're all liberals!

Useful video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nPVkpWMH9k - "Why the political compass is wrong", explaining how vague and ultimately ineffective the left-right auth-lib models of politics are.