There has always been a need for society to identify people based on the categories and social norms of the time. Something that is interesting about the transgender community is that even as society creates this new norm, there is still a sense of categorizing and grouping people together. David Valentine and Ramon Gutierrez both take on this idea and try to explain the importance of categorizing people based on their lived experiences rather than their outward appearance or their sexual preferences. Although they argue their points through different avenues, Valentine and Gutierrez establish one main argument, the need for society to label groups of people and group people together based on their gender and their sexual identity. In Valentine’s…show more content… This is why most transgender people do not refer to themselves as transgender and find other ways of identifying themselves. While on the other hand, Gutierrez makes a distinction between gender roles and social status in society. The berdache were viewed as women in their tribes, doing women’s work, wearing women’s clothes, and having sex with women. This translated in to their social status being even lower than women in the tribe. The berdache were expected to take on these gender roles and were not expected to question their social status. Although Valentine and Gutierrez break down these identifications in different ways, their overall reasoning is about the same. Both are arguing that the separation of these factors takes away from a person’s overall identity. Gender and identity are inevitably associated. One cannot simply label a group of people based on their gender. Gender and identity encompass a wide range of possibilities that are unable to be labeled. To acknowledge one without the other would be simplistic and would not include this wide range of personal identities. The use of terms such as berdache and ‘transgender’ have been used institutionally and constructed a new sexual norm. This socially constructed identity is not used by these people themselves, but by others in society who wish to label and group these people
