The novel challenges heteronormative ideology by demonstrating intersectionality and how each aspect of Krissy is vital to who she is. Intersectionality is incredibly prominent in the novel, as Krissy has a multitude of aspects that inform her identity. Heteronormative ideology is about looking at heterosexuality as the norm, and the un-questioned ‘given’. Intersectionality in this novel is key to Krissy’s identity, and her identity is unique because she is not binaried. Krissy’s gender identity, biological sex, her athletic career, title as Homecoming Queen, her mother passing away, her boyfriend dumping her, and her experiences with public rejection and her classmates actions, are all a part of who she is. At one doctors appointment, Krissy …show more content…
learns “I know it’s really confusing, but chromosomal sex, gender identity, and sexual orientation are all separate concepts” (Gregorio 59). Learning this shows Krissy that even though she is intersex, she is still the same person. She may not be able to have children, and she may never envision her life through the same heteronormative lens, but all these aspects make her who she is as an individual. One of these realizations is that her gender identity has not changed, she is still female because her gender is how she feels, and the novel helps separate these factors of her identity by illustrating Krissy as a feminine girl who is intersex. Krissy is a teenager, and this aspect of her identity is perhaps one of the largest, as she has never gotten her period, or developed underarm or pubic hair.
She is a college level athlete, and her scholarship to State takes a great deal of pressure off her dad and it is something she has been working toward for years. She is heterosexual, which allows the reader to focus on how the novel queers the heteronormative, rather than nitpicking about how the main character is queer. The various aspects of Krissy’s identity are all interconnected, and “McClinton argues that race, gender and class are related realms of experience, but that they cannot simply be yoked together. They come into existence in, and through, relationship to each other, ‘if in contradictory and conflictual ways’” (Monro 18). Intersectionality is demonstrated through each and every aspect that make up a person, and Krissy struggles to understand that her being intersex may mean that she is unable to compete as a collegiate athlete. However, her dad works to help her, and lets her know that he will fight to ensure that she is able to keep her scholarship because he understands how much it means to her, and how integral it is to her identity. Her father discovers good news later in the novel, and tells Krissy, “‘I finally found the right NCAA guidelines’ he said ‘and people with AIS are considered women for competitive purposes. They can’t take your scholarship away” (Gregorio 200). The knowledge that she will be able to keep this piece of her identity is a turning point in the novel, in which she realizes that her identity has not changed as drastically as she initially thought. Her intersectionality is what keeps her going, and encourages and informs her daily life, even during the time where she is unsure of who she can trust. The various aspects of her identity cannot be easily separated because they inform each other, and even as her viewpoint of herself changes, she knows inside who she truly
is. Throughout the novel, Krissy discovers the facets that inform her intersectionality, as well as how being intersex does not mean that she can not live the life she has always wanted. She feels pressured through others policing her, and while she struggles with her gender identity, she comes to terms with her body and discovers that she is inherently no different. The text as a whole opposes the gender and sex binaries that our society has constructed, and the reader is challenged to rethink the heteronormative ideology through recognizing how Krissy is growing sideways while ultimately becoming the person she was always meant to be.
Sabrina Rubin Erdely’s “School of Hate” is about a young girls experience growing up in a deeply conservative American state. Brittany Geldert has to endure the bullying that is unleashed upon her. No matter how traumatic the experience, it is ignored by the teachers. They betray Brittany by turning the other way on these issues. The wrong religious mindset appears to take paramount no matter how scandalous the ¨Bullying on LGBT¨ issues is in a modern day America. This is a great injustice to the people who have to endure this.
In many contemporary spaces, intersectionality is taught and consumed as a static concept of merely listing identities carried by one person simultaneously. It’s used more often as a checklist than a place of analysis or resistance. However, the use of intersectionality as just an apolitical tool, rather than a theory born from the knowledge of Black women experiencing a “triple jeopardy” of oppression and seeking liberation by deconstructing the institutions that bind them, is reductionist at best. In “Intersectionality is Not Neutral”May communicates that intersectionality pushes us to question and challenge the relatively mundane or acceptable norms in society that lend themselves to a continuous legacy of systemic inequality.
Her father works out of town and does not seem to be involved in his daughters lives as much. Her older sister, who works at the school, is nothing but plain Jane. Connie’s mother, who did nothing nag at her, to Connie, her mother’s words were nothing but jealousy from the beauty she had once had. The only thing Connie seems to enjoy is going out with her best friend to the mall, at times even sneaking into a drive-in restaurant across the road. Connie has two sides to herself, a version her family sees and a version everyone else sees.
The novel “Women Without class” by Julie Bettie, is a society in which the cultural you come from and the identity that was chosen for you defines who you are. How does cultural and identity illustrate who we are or will become? Julie Bettie demonstrates how class is based on color, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. The author describes this by researching her work on high school girls at a Central Valley high school. In Bettie’s novel she reveals different cliques that are associated within the group which are Las Chicas, Skaters, Hicks, Preps, and lastly Cholas and Cholos. The author also explains how race and ethnicity correspondence on how academically well these students do. I will be arguing how Julie Bettie connects her theories of inequality and culture capital to Pierre Bourdieu, Kimberle Crenshaw, Karl Marx and Engels but also how her research explains inequality among students based on cultural capital and identity.
Although it often goes unknown, Allison wrote Two or Three Things I Know For Sure and it shares experiences that reveal intersectionality and it addresses how her life experiences and environment shaped her into who she is now. This book also reveals the juxtaposition between how people identify themselves with intersectionality and how society or others view and hold them to specific standards. This book reveals how history can repeat itself, how others can be impacted by the intersectionality surrounding them and how they feel pressured to stick to a standard placed upon them such as the reoccurring idea of being “pretty”. The book ends with Allison and her sister addressing Allison’s niece as being “pretty” and Allison breaks down the walls surrounding her allowing herself to see the battles she’s faced in the
Almost immediately we are faced with the conflict of everyday life for Brittany, and as she enters the main setting of the story and a place that should be a safe environment she is immediately besieged. The author, using simple diction, describes another morning at school for Brittany where we see how her classmates attack her verbally with derogatory terms such as “Dyke” and “Whore”(Erdly 253). Because of this and other more physical bullying we see a safe setting become a source of anxiety and fear, and instead of combating the problem the school district does nothing. In clearly understandable writing Erdely deciphers the situation and relates to us how the school district passed a regulation effectively stating that staff “shall remain neutral on matters regarding sexual orientation” (Erdely 264). Effectively preventing children in need of guidance and role models from reaching out. The author uses an easily relatable setting, common vernacular, a clear point of view and familiar events to highlight the issues in this essay. Those issues detail the conflict that LGBTQ children face from people that don’t empathize with them, and understand that just because of who they are doesn’t mean that they aren’t still children in
influence all her life and struggles to accept her true identity. Through the story you can
Daphne’s struggles with a perceptive look at how you can’t change what certain things feels right for you. Through out Daphne’s life she was pulled to being a boy. Instead of altering how she felt she learned that this was good for her, and this is how people should see gender identity disorders but people are afraid of the unknown. Daphne’s strength is covering the way to new thinking and understanding of this disorder. The LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and along with heterosexual) has come a long way and everyday their effort to notify us on how they want to be treated evenly is allowing them to gain more acceptances. Our society is slowly fluctuating for the better and hopefully one day LGBT won’t have labels.
As well, by Castillo sharing the story of Chloie Johnson, it gives the audience a chance to live through the transgender vicariously. Another example in which Castillo creates a shocking experience for the reader is when she states that “The NCAA in its ‘Transgender Handbook’ debunked the notions that people born male would have advantages over females, and that men would pretend to be trans females in order to have a completive advantage.” This addition to her article was very crucial to her argument as it disproves
Characterization plays an important role when conveying how one’s personality can disintegrate by living in a restrictive society. Although Kat is slowly loosing her mind, in the story, she is portrayed as a confident woman who tries to strive for excellence. This can be seen when she wants to name the magazine “All the Rage”. She claims that “it’s a forties sounds” and that “forties is back” (311). However the board of directors, who were all men, did not approve. They actually “though it was too feminist, of all things” (311). This passage not only shows how gender opportunities is apparent in the society Kat lives in, but also shows the readers why Kat starts to loose her mind.
It shows the yearning for liberation from the societal expectation of a woman through the eyes of the main character, Bliss. The catalyst for this liberation being roller derby, a sport in which Bliss finds herself in. Roller Derby represents a femininity that defies the gender roles placed upon women in society, it acts as a guide to Bliss own definition of the American dream. Roller derby was Bliss societal control factor that led her to accept and embrace her womanhood. Though Whip it did an exceptional job critiquing the gender roles established in today’s society, an in depth look at the relationship between gender and sexuality should be further explored. For instance a look into what it means to be a man, woman, transgender, asexual, pansexual and so on can be examined and deconstructed. This examination can explore the various forms of masculinity and femininity within these groups, and how their gender influences their view on what the American dream
Intersectionality is a term used to describe a situation whereby an individual has multiple identities and as result, the person feels that he or she doesn’t belong to one community or another. Because of the many conflicts in an individual’s identities, he or she could be a victim of multiple threats of discrimination (Williams, 2017). The discrimination could be a result of race, gender, age, health and ethnicity among others. To give an example, a black transgender woman could be discriminated in the workplace because of being black and also because she is transgender. From an intersectionality perspective, the woman faces multiple threats of discrimination because of the overlapping identities of gender and race and therefore the transwoman faces a bigger struggle (Barber, 2017). Transwomen of color will most likely encounter prejudices in the form of homophobia, racism or sexism in many dimensions of their life. The perspective of intersectionality is not only applicable to women but it can also be applied to males. For example, a gay Latino man could be discriminated based on race because he is an immigrant into
21st Century Race-Class Intersection will be a project that analyzes the current racial and class relationship through the form of a website. I am very intrigued by the unique racial formation theory of Omi and Winant and racial triangulation theory by Claire Jean Kim though in DOC class as well as dazzled by the strict racial hierarchy in United States history. Thus, I decided to wield my DOC tools as wells as econometric tools in unearthing the racial and class intersection in 21st century.
The other main character, Clare Kendry, is another light skinned, colored woman; however, she is married to a white man and is actually passing for a white woman. Through these two characters, Larson conveys how easy it is to lose one’s sense of self and her belief that it is a tragedy for human beings to live inauthentically.
Intersectionality was one of the greatest concepts this course shed light on, intersectionality is can be broadly defined as the coming together of various social groups to work together to fight against forms of oppression. In the conceptual frameworks portion of the book Readings for Diversity and Social Justice, they talk about the importance of privileged identities and disadvantaged identities coming together to work towards solving a particular issue. While before taking this course I was somewhat aware of the various forms of oppression, I never gave much thought to how I could help combat forms of oppression that I did not necessarily experience with my own identity.