In discussing the gay liberation movement’s metamorphosis over the last twenty-five years, Hollibaugh’s main point seems to be to expose the movement as one that has come to prioritize “normality” in ways that seem to both deny and jeopardize the very culture which many have fought to support. The gay liberation movement has transformed from a freedom struggle that encompasses all aspects of life to one that is merely shaped into following a preexisting agenda written at the hands of our heterosexual system. As Hollibaugh writes, the “struggle now parodies and duplicates a heterosexual middle-class/upper-class agenda based on re-creating the rights of heterosexuals for gay people.” It has become a movement that seems to aim at fitting gay people into this box of normalcy in order to ultimately be able to say the gay community is unlike any other.
Riki Wilchins, in her book Queer Theory, Gender Theory, claims that, “White American culture tends to be one of the few that splits sexual orientation from gender.” (27) In discussing this distinction, she offers up many examples that demonstrate how it is questionable. Sexual orientation and gender identity are often thought as being distinctly separate but also linked. Wilchins explains that “homosexuality itself is the most profound transgression of the primary rule of gender. Girls sleep with boys, and boys sleep with girls.” (20) Therefore, from a practical standpoint it would be “difficult—if not impossible—for gay activists to pursue the right to their sexual orientation without engaging issues of gender.” (20)
The connection between sexual orientation and gender was expressed to me at a very young age by my peers. I was a complete tom boy growing up. I loved to play sports, shop in the boys’ section of Children Place and follow my father around everywhere he went. I was a heterosexual woman who liked to dress in masculine clothing and to participate in activities that were deemed masculine by society. I never truly received any judgment on my sexual orientation based solely on my fashion habits or extracurricular activities—or at least that I heard of. As I got older, I began to notice that if I were to wear boy’s/men’s clothes on a consistent basis some may question my sexual orientation. Therefore, in order to conform to society and its standards, I began to wear my hair down more and ditched the masculine appeal to display my gender and thus “inherently” my sexual orientation.