Teena's Masculinity In Society

The plight of LGBT+ Americans has come to a head in recent years as the gay rights movement has achieved its most notable goal: the legalization of same-sex marriage across the nation. After this was achieved, the focus of LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) Americans has shifted towards the transgender section of the LGBT+ community. This is most notably presented in the bathroom debates, or a political question of should transgender people be allowed to use the bathroom that corresponds to their gender identity or made to use the bathroom that matches their biological sex? Despite the popularity of this debate, the social norms underlying this topic and the struggles faced by transgender Americans in other spheres of life are

Despite presenting himself as—and successfully passing as—a male, Teena was still biologically female. Gender roles are often, especially in traditionalist circles, regard as innate and at least partly biological; women are supposed to be demure, emotional, and submissive solely because they are women. Teena 's masculinity despite his female anatomy is a direct threat to these assumptions; if a female-bodied person can embody masculinity, then masculinity can be divorced from biology. If a woman can be masculine, then men can be feminine. Further, masculinity is valued culturally; traditionally masculine traits are viewed positively in the media, in the workforce, in academia, and in religion. Men claim the unearned value of being male, and a biologically female person claiming the same value forces us to examine this unearned value. Teena was a threat to the system, and he was punished and eventually killed for that reason. People reacted—and continue to react—surprisingly violently to attempts to cross the gender binary; men exist in a state of comfortable silence in regards to their unexamined and unearned privilege, and any attempt, even incidentally, to question the system is regarded as