Jack Valentine
3rd May 2023
WGSS 1105-001
Professor Barbara Gurr
Final Analysis Paper
Growing up in my family, I was always surrounded by family members with no filter.
Many politically incorrect jokes and ignorant comments are made at the dinner table and family
gatherings, just to name a few. A lot of my family members have no filter when it comes to
politics, especially my dad. He will speak his mind about how he doesn’t understand transgender
people, that he believes there are two genders and people should stick to one or the other. He
doesn’t appreciate when gay people “shove their sexuality in his face”, and he doesn’t like
reading about it on the news. I found that in general the older population and generations are not
very receptive to topics like this. The reason why I took this class was because I wanted to
become educated and learn a few things more about gender and sexuality, as I grew up in a
household where those teachings weren’t always present. Everyone is entitled to their own
opinions, but I think it’s important to be educated on these kinds of topics, as you shouldn’t base
your opinion on someone else's, regardless of what you absorbed growing up. Form your own
opinions and ideas around what you believe is right. Being in this class helped me learn more
about topics that I already had a basic understanding of, and expanded my knowledge on those
topics as well as broadened my horizons on things I never even considered beforehand. At the
end of this course, I feel as though I have learned enough to stand up to bigoted opinions and
beliefs, and I want to continue to educate myself more as well as others around me from what I
have learned in class.
One objective that really stuck with me was tracing the social and political constructions
of gender and sexuality to our everyday life experiences. I think that the impact that sex, gender,
and sexuality has on our society is often overlooked. As children, we are assigned to a gender,
and are expected to act as that gender and not overstep the boundary that once divided girls and
boys. In class, we then introduced the concept of drag, and the performance of gender, and that
really got me thinking. Am I always performing my gender when I go to class every day?
Through reading “Walk Like a Man” by Sheila “Dragon Fly” Koenig BA, I understood more
about the performance of gender. And it makes gender, what seems such a simple topic on the
surface, much more complex and intricate as you dig deeper. There is no outside to gender,
everyone is a part of it, and you cannot step out of it. That’s where drag comes in. According to
this reading, “Rather than an attempt to step outside of heteronormative gender practice, drag is a
practice which is immersed in gender. It is the hyperbolic enactment of gender, aimed at
exploding boundaries surrounding gender norms by highlighting their absurdity”. This is
important to understand the art of drag. It serves a purpose to undermine the social construction
of gender, and through extravagant performances and displays it truly shows that gender is not
specifically defined. I also want to relate this to music, which is rooted in my life. Artists like Lil
Nas X and Bad Bunny go against social constructs and bigotry and often bend gender in the
process. In class we watched the music video for “Montero”, where he breaks norms in a
symbolic way such as him descending into Hell via pole and is seen performing drag while lap
dancing on Satan. I love how he breaks down religious and societal standards in a shocking and
powerful way, where homophobia is rooted in Christianity and our society. He chose a powerful
vessel in order to convey his message, as music and pop culture touches everyone in one way or
another and influences mainstream understandings of sexuality and gender. Bad Bunny as well,
as I watched “Meet Bad Bunny” by dailymotion. Something that stood out to me in this video is
when it said that in a music culture that cherishes masculinity, Bad Bunny is a breath of fresh air
in his gender-bending performances that go against societal constructions.
Another objective that I felt that I grasped extremely well was being able to differentiate
between sex, gender, and sexuality, as well as being able to describe the linkages between these
three concepts. In my panel I discussed how my grandmother's cousin was transgender, as when
she was born she had a penis and ovaries. These topics overlap so much in society, especially
through transgender people. Reading into “A Guide for Transgender and Gender Nonconforming
Students” by the ACLU, it's sad to see that many people do not accept people who bridge the gap
of gender and transition to another, and transgender people need to be reminded of their rights as
they feel like they have so little because of how oppressed they are. Reading the article “What's
The Difference between Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Gender-nonconforming?” by Mary Retta
for Vice also gave me a better understanding of terms that may be considered overlapping at
first, yet are different in their own way. Where people do not define themselves, or move around
in gender to their comfort, they each have their own term to describe those who identify as it.
And people identify with these based on personal experiences and intersectionality. I think this is
important, because in our society we constrain people to the construct of gender, and using these
terms they can break free. As a cisgender white male, I do not face these issues and oppression.
That is why it is so important for me to learn about these topics, and be empathetic and
understanding to the struggles of these communities. This class has shown me new ways of
thinking and understanding, and I will be able to continue to expand my knowledge and pass it
on to others in the process.