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Ximena Medina
Professor Rodrick
Queer Studies 115
October 18, 2016
Society and Queer Identity
Throughout history, people have shown a desire to express who they truly want to be,
whether it was being more feminine or more masculine. Society has also changed their attitude
towards the queer community throughout time. They have been a major factor in influencing the
queer community by having expectations and standards for the queer. The standard way of
thinking about the queer identity is that a gay man is feminine and a lesbian woman is masculine.
Society has stereotyped them so much that the queer dont want to be identified as something
unless they say so. Family, friends, school and other factors has shaped the queer identity by
making them afraid to stand out and wanting to be normal, to conform with what society
thinks they should be.
As kids, we are born either male or female or were given a gender role by our parents
when we were young. We do not get to choose what sex we want to be until we grow up to learn
about ourselves and who we are. The more we grow up, the more we see. As young adolescents
we start discovering our identity as it is influenced by the space around us. According to the
website boundless.com, However, many transgender, genderqueer, or genderfluid individuals
are not able to embrace their true gender identity until much later in life, largely due to both
societal pressure to conform to the gender binary and the societal stigma associated with
transgender identities. In other words, as kids we have to conform with what we have due to the
fact that our parents or family want us to dress a certain way, or act the way they want us to.

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When people dont want to stand out, they behave according to how society wants them to.
Sometimes the people who are out of the closet dont want to be seen as abnormal. They try to be
as normal as they could possibly be in society's eyes.
In this YouTube video https://youtu.be/LiC0Gi0nK9g they talk about how we conform
on a daily basis because we dont want to speak the truth so that people wont judge us. For
example, we wont wear a neon shirt because our friend thinks its too bright to wear, so we
conform with what they say and dont wear the shirt. Eric Knudsen himself writes, I never told
him, but when I got dressed in the morning before school, I always tried to look like him. Well,
maybe I didnt want to look exactly like him, but even if I could, I still couldnt buy the
confidence in his walk or free-spirited smile. (Knudsen 185) Basically, Knudsen is saying that
he didnt have enough confidence to be himself. He looked up at his brother and saw him as the
perfect person that society loved. He wanted to be seen as perfect as well. Knudsen had to
conform to not being as perfect as his brother. Society has put so much pressure on the LGBT
community to dress and act a certain way. Although this can be seen as performative, it can also
be conformist because they arent doing what they want to do.
Society has stereotyped the LGBTQ community so much throughout time. In the article
The Influence of Society on Queer Identity Development and Classification by Kristen E. Fricke,
she talks about the negative effects that the society has on the queer community. She states that,
AIDS was regarded as a gay disease. This assumption gave reviewed life to the belief that
queer sex was somehow inherently deviant (Warner, 1999). A new wave of conversationism took
hold leading to a crackdown on the queer community (Warner). (Fricke 40) Frickes point is
that when some people see a gay person they might automatically think they have some type of
STI. This has been stereotyped so much that the LGBTQ community has conformed and no

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longer say anything about it. They just accept what people think of them, even if it is not true.
Conformity can be something negative for the queer community if they keep on conforming to
these stereotypes. This makes others who are just discovering their identity afraid of expressing
themselves too much.
People have created something called Gender Non Conforming,
because of all these stereotypes. People who identify themselves as
this are people who do not follow other peoples ideas or stereotypes
about how they should look or act based on their sex. (google.com)
The picture on the left is a picture of a woman who shows her
masculinity and femininity. The purpose of it is to show that she can
still be both even if she is lesbian or transgender. She does not
conform by sticking to just one sex. That is what society pressures on
the most; having to choose whether you are male or female. Some people dont like to identify as
just one gender. Genderfluid people cant conform with what society has expected of them. They
break the rules of society in order to be happy being who they truly are. Even though Gender
nonconformists and Genderfluid people exist, others are still conforming with hiding their true
identity and affecting their own community without knowing it. In a sense, they just want to fit
in with the normal crowd and be treated the same.
As time progresses I feel that we are conforming more to what society wants especially
the queer community. They hide themselves to not stand out because they are scared of harsh
judgment. When someone queer grows up with a strict family, they tend to be more conformist
because they dont want to let their family down, or they are scared that their family may not
accept them as they really are.

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Some people from older generations dont believe it is right to change your gender or
sexuality. As I was talking to an old family friend, who is actually part of the LGBTQ
community said, I dont believe it is right for that someone who is lesbian have a partner who is
transgender because then you dont really like women. It would be like if you were with a man
and that does not follow the rules of a lesbian woman. For someone who is part of the
community, it is odd for her to think this way. She is middle aged, so she has different values
than someone who may be twenty. Although she dresses masculine, she still conforms with still
having her female parts even though she has the mentality of a man. She could be conforming
because of the space around her doesnt value a transgender person. If people conform, society
will be more accepting of who you are.
The space in which a queer person is in, whether it is their family, friends or school, may
shape the identity of someone who is queer to act less like themselves. Most of the queer
community has conformed with what society thinks is acceptable. If society think it is not
acceptable for two men to hold hands in public, they will conform just to be seen as two normal
men. Being normal has became one of the biggest standards for all of society, but no one is
really normal. Just standing out from a crowd could have a ripple effect.More people will want to
be themselves without the fear of what others will think of them. It could be the main factor of
accepting everyone for who the really are.

Resources
Development of Gender Identity. Boundless Psychology. Boundless, 08 Aug. 2016.
https://www.boundless.com/psychology/textbooks/boundless-psychology-textbook/gender-andsexuality-15/gender-414/development-of-gender-identity-297-12832/
https://goo.gl/images/oeAxr1

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Kristen E. Fricke The Influence of Society on Queer Identity Development and
Classification. The Vermont Connection, volume 31, 2010, pp. 37-45
Levithan, David and Billy Merrell The Full Spectrum, 2006
https://youtu.be/LiC0Gi0nK9g