Jerome Velasco BA (History) – III

201851020 Sociology 142

COURSE PAPER 2

Ching's (2014) editorial article entitled Her name is Jennifer is the deviant story I
chose to use in this activity. Published seven years ago on Inquirer, the article tackles a very
“deviant” topic that currently challenging the norm about gender-binary. Jennifer Laude is a
Filipina transgender woman who was found dead in a motel in Olongapo, on the evening of
October 11, 2014. The case of Jennifer Laude became popular because first, it exposed the
flaws of the Visiting Forces Agreement between the Philippines and the United States, and
second, the crime was presumed to be a hate crime because of Jennifer’s gender. However,
her brutal murder wasn’t the only one that reeks of hate. In the article, Ching criticized the
unidentified news outlets for not using Jennifer’s name on their headlines or content, their
lack of respect to Jennifer’s gender identity and expression leads the editorial writer and some
who recognize Jennifer as Jennifer and not “Jeffrey” react in a way that the behavior is
categorized as deviant.
           Robert K. Merton proposed what he called the Strain Theory or Social Strain Theory
which is based on two criteria: (1) a person’s motivation or adherence to cultural goals and
(2) a person’s belief in how to attain those goals (Theories of Crime and Deviance, n.d). In
the case of the article, the cultural goal is the acceptance of all genders in the newly-
established non-binary gender spectrum. The way or means in achieving that goal is to
respect or recognize the SOGIE or the Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression of
each person. According to Merton, there are five types of deviance based on the two criteria
of strain theory. The deviant in the story falls under “rebellion”, the people who substitute
new goals and means to create a new society. Ironically, the society to which Jennifer or
Ching belonged to are rebels themselves. They created the non-binary gender spectrum
because their goals, for example, Jennifer wanting to be a woman, cannot be fulfilled by the
given means of the society they were once belonged to. So, the very people who would not
react negatively to the “mistakenly peddled” name of Jennifer are the rest of the society who
do not subscribe to the idea of SOGIE or the non-binary principle.  
           I think there are two theories that better present the deviant behavior and reaction
toward the deviant behavior. Both of these theories stem from an interactionist perspective,
the first one is called Labelling Theory. According to Labelling Theory, what makes a person
deviant is not so much from the biological make-up of that person or even what he or she do
but rather the label which the people put onto their behavior or them (Crashcourse, 2017). So,
in the case of Ching’s Her name is Jennifer, news outlets that failed to call Jennifer by her
name became deviant because of the label put upon them by Ching and the members of the
LGBT+. In contrast, the media outlets made a conservative route in mentioning Jennifer’s
name because of their fear of getting labeled as deviant by their readers. 
           The second Interactionist tool is Sutherland’s Differential Association theory.
Differential Association states that who people interact with help in whether he or she will
commit deviant acts. In the article, most of the readers of the media outlets are conservatives
or are socialized into heteronormative ideals that is why they were able to commit deviant
acts labeled by Ching. In contrast, readers of conservative media outlets would’ve labeled
Ching’s article as deviant just because she tries to insist that there are more than two genders. 
            The greatest takeaway of this week’s lesson for me is the Functionalist view of
deviance. According to the Functionalist perspective, one of the deviance’s functions is to
challenge the current norm. For most of history, people believed that sex, sexuality, and
gender always align, and social control to maintain that norm was effective. However, if it
weren’t for Merton referred as “rebels” of the 20th century, SOGIE or the belief that gender
doesn’t always correspond with their birth sex wouldn’t be established, and it’s cool that
people are starting to re-socializing themselves that idea, even people bound to church or are
identified themselves as Cis-gendered.
 REFERENCES

Ching, M. (2014, October 21). Her Name is Jennifer. Inquirer.

https://opinion.inquirer.net/79470/her-name-is-jennifer.

Theories of Crime and Deviance. Lumen. (0AD).

https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-sociology/chapter/theories-of-crime-and-
deviance/.

YouTube. (2017). Theory & Deviance: Crash Course Sociology #19. YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=06IS_X7hWWI&t=415s&ab_channel=CrashCourse.

APPENDIX