Queer Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Queer - Essay Example The most common being those of homophobia because the word queer means deviant sexual practices that are frowned upon by the society. It can also mean strange sexual characteristics ranging from being a hamerphrodite to having abnormal genitalia. When an individual is not a heterosexual as the society dictates, then that person is referred to as a queer for being a lesbian or gay. Those people who have changed from being female to being males or vice versa are also regarded as queers by the society. The society we live in chooses to assign the word queer to this group of persons because they do not conform to the accepted gender roles assigned to them by the community. Gender has been divided since time in memorial into two groups. According to Bornstein, â€Å"choice between two of something is not a choice, but rather the opportunity to subscribe to the value system which holds the two presented choices as mutually exclusive alternatives and our choice puts us into the system that perpetuates the binary† (Bornstein 101). Different cultures assert that we belong to either one of the two chosen genders without question. If a person chooses not to belong to any of the two, then they are branded as outcasts. Bornstein wonders if the bi-polar gender system were a group and if its members were following rules that they can neither question nor be capable of challenging making group become more like a cult (Bornstein 103). In this context, gender is made up to look like a club for the privileged where the members, exhibit patterns both structural and behavioral that are common to cults (Bornstein 103). In his book â€Å"The Trouble with the Normal†, Warner says â€Å"even after fifty years of resistance, loathing for queer sex, like loathing for gender non conformity remains powerful†(Warner 48). This illustrates the society’s unwillingness to accept those who do not practice what their culture dictates as normal, especially if they are t o be accepted under consideration of sex only. The lesbian and gay movement in America was expected to shed more light on sexuality, but it did not because according to Warner in his book it shows that even after these â€Å"queer† people declared their sexual orientation to the public, they did not get the reaction they expected from â€Å"straight† people as envisioned. The end to stigmatization that they were used to did not end, but it, in fact, escalated because the abuses and threats now had a defined target (Warner 50). In his book, Warner uses the term queer to stand for the sexual acts that gays and lesbians engage in, it is also used to represent those who are sexually oriented towards homosexuality. Queers are understood to be separate from the other part of the population, and their political rights activist movements advocate that they be considered under the minority or special group category. The society we live in makes it hard for these people to be as similated into the community and be perceived as normal because it needs a group to dominate, have power over and control. Even if, the gays and lesbian movements did not arise, the culture we practice has always had a way of isolating an element in a society that is portrayed as queer so that there can be something for the society to frown upon and discriminate. The culture we live in, designed gender in such a way that it would