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A lot of times, societal norms call for us to mask so as not to defend our covert homophobic family at the dinner table, or any table for that matter. We end up carrying a cover for our sexual identities around with us ready at any moment to attempt to stow away our true identities and desires. We try our best to shield ourselves from the reality of racism by acting more like “them”. (Lorber, The Social Construction of Gender)

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II. Apparently it only works for girls. 

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We can’t have our boys riding pink scooters because it will make them gay. It will make them more prone to the idea that it is acceptable to sit down and pee rather than stand up like a man. Society tells us to separate the men from the women, the boys from the girls and the black from the white. We see and use sexist ideals daily as the most common way to differentiate the “pathway to masculinity.” (Orenstein p.65) We use colors and ambiguous mannerisms to define femininity and the harshness of certain masculine norms.

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III. Muting my Black Voice in a White World.

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Often times in society the black woman’s voice is muted due to outdated oppressive ideologies. The voices of black women are silenced by men who believe that a woman’s place is in the kitchen or in the bedroom. Those are the only times she is to have a say because those are the only times she is in her element. The intersectionality of being Black and a woman has more implications than just simply being a woman. There is a double edged sword forever pointing at the Black woman for belonging to two minority groups having to constantly fill the void of being compared to their white counterparts. (S. Cisneros, Guadalupe, the Sex Goddess)

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Relatively new gender norms keep us in a perpetuated cycle of equilibrium. We discuss how “normal” households should work, the man goes out to fish and the woman stays in, waits for the man to bring the fish home, and then she cleans and cooks the fish that was brought home. Alternatively we also discuss the times in which the woman is fishing and cooking the dinner afterwards while her husband or partner waits at home for things to be done. Messerschmitt argues that these norms can be interchangeable and rather fluid in the way the division of gender is portrayed on not depending on the particular space. (Hello to embodied Gender)

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That is the question. Much research has shown that androgynous women / men have been objectified as a “fascination from the beginning of the human species.” (Lorber p.1) In many circumstances we see people as definitive objects, either they are or they are not. Many homosexual beings are tasked with the responsibility to look and act like a stereotypical white, heterosexual male. When the notion of identifying with anything other than that prototype has been presented then there must be scientific research about the erasure of ones relation or lack there of to normalcy within society.