I don't remember much from my college years, but somewhere in my cluttered head is the memory of "policing: gender" . The reason it's so distinct is because I'm often gender-policing, and looking back on it, it's not a time in my life that I'm proud of. At my school there was a boy named Nigel Richards. He tended to be a bit feminine, had a relatively high-pitched voice, and hung out with a lot of girls. He was called homosexual. Even though he was labeled as gay, everyone still loved him and he was never bullied. It turns out that he really isn't gay, but he just acts like a woman. Even if he wasn't bullied, what was wrong with him acting feminine? Some pawned it off as a stage in his life as if it wasn’t “normal.” What is normal these days? Some people talked about him behind his back to other friends and said he was gay, sure, because it wasn't "normal" for a man to be feminine or only have girlfriends . People use the word “normal” as if it actually exists. People in this world are socialized to believe predetermined stereotypes for each gender. A boy is therefore not supposed to behave like a “girl” and vice versa. These stereotypes can go back a long way, and as we talked about in class, sometimes it's easier to just put people in