Rankings of Sexuality and Why They Are So...

                After our talk about Hanne Blank’s book and Gayle Rubin’s article in class and in discussion last week, I found so many things interesting. For one, I found the rankings interesting. The fact that they put the heterosexual people above all emphasizes the social construction and preference towards them. What I found surprising it that the gays, lesbians and transgendered are not in the same category at the bottom. They are actually separated, with the transgendered being above the gays and lesbians. This made me wonder and think back on an article I read in which it stated that people are always ambivalent at deciding whether a baby dressed in neutral colors is a boy or a girl. During class, as well, Professor Halberstam mentioned the uncertainty that people feel about themselves and the world that revolves them if they do not have clarity of what gender someone is. For this reason, I feel like the ranking of the gender identities is as described. Because gays and lesbians have a determined sex preference, they seem to be more accepted than transgendered individuals.

                What interested me more, however, was the fact that heterosexuality gained the top rank when it wasn’t until the late 1860’s that it was first thought of. This can be because it was the most useful for survival and evolution. Heterosexuality promoted the union of a man and a woman that would result in many offspring. These would make the work force of the world. Because the other genders weren’t essential to the creation of babies, then they were not valued enough and thus came about the order of the rankings that were explained in Rubin’s essay.