es and boundaries through societal constructs isshown in Woodhouse's discussion of transvestites or cross-dressers. Cross-dressingheterosexual men (dressing in women's clothing) pose a threat to traditional society thatpresents male and female gender categories as immutable categories that have no roomfor malleability. "On a social and cultural level the two groups (male and female) aremutually exclusive…" (Woodhouse, p. 117). This is maintained and strictly enforced inour male-dominant society through approval of masculinity and disapproval offemininity. "Outside of the closely demarcated boundaries of the drag act or thefancy-dress party, men cannot appear in any item of women's clothing without immediateloss of the superior status attached to the male and the full imposition of ridicule andcensure" (Woodhouse, p. 119). We see examples of this ridicule from very earlychildhood and adolescence with boys being scorned and called a "sissy" for playing withdolls or expressing feminine traits which are reserved for the secondary, inferior femalerole and "should be eradicated" (Woodhouse, p. 119). There is a vice-grip on the primacyof masculinity which refuses to let go of pointing out that which is not masculine, andgiving it a value. "Any man who is effeminate cannot be heterosexual, there must besomething wrong with him" (Woodhouse, p. 137) and is therefore considered "less than." "To deviate from this [primacy] status is to take a step down; to adopt the trappings of thesecond sex is akin to slumming it or selling out. And those who protect and maintain theprimacy of masculinity cannot allow this to happen or the whole edifice would crumble"(Woodhouse, p. 119). "And identity politics as well as science has an interest in keepingthem ["homo" and "hetero"] opposite" (Garber, p. 231). However, the categories of sexuality (homo-, hetero-, and bisexual) and the use ofthe term "homosexual" to characterize the individual...
