Nicholas Gibas Allison Fernley December 9, 2013 English 2850-001 Reflection Queer Studies 1.

The final work that I have done in the course, English 2850-001 has shown how far my critical thinking has grown. From focusing mainly on problems that only homosexuals face to not only thinking about those problems but also gender issues. When I talk about gender issues that can mean many things. It can mean things such as sexism towards women and the hatred of women to the adventure that Trans people go through in their life. As far as my writing process growth, I have learned the proper way to mention Trans people by using the pronoun, they instead of anything else. Knowing that knowledge I am now able to give an informed research paper on the topic of Trans people and mention which pronoun to use. What I have really taken away from this class is one of the goals, which is to define what is normal. I find nothing to be normal now. What is considered normal by society is what creates the idea of normal but there is no such thing as normal. With so many people in the world and so many different minds, it is impossible to define what is normal and what is not normal. To give an example on how I find nothing normal, you can look at my presentation on clothing binaries. In this society we believe items of clothing belong to one gender and if someone breaks that gender binary they are

not normal. When doing my presentation research I came to the realization that clothing is never set in gender binaries because fashion is always changing. High heels used to be for both men and women, showing class and wealth until it was sexualized towards women. Another piece of work that I did that shows how I believe nothing is normal is by my research paper on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. When the normal story goes on about a man stopping the bad guy and saving the blonde haired damsel in distress to the blond haired damsel in distress becoming the hero and saving the man from the bad guy it creates a non-heteronormative story. In my research paper I go on about the patriarchal society being changed to fit a sexless society and how that is not considered normal. What I mainly took away from this class is to always have an open mind and never find something normal. 2. What I have been taught in English 2850-001 that I can take to other classes is the deep analyzing skills that I had to do in each assignment. From figuring out how homophobia originated from biblical times into modern day society and how it has stayed in our society to analyzing what being transgender means. What I have been taught in this class that I can take outside of the classroom is the respect towards everyone and how they want to be addressed. Simply asking someone how they want to be talked to, such as he or she, can create a whole new type of society and creating a country where people can feel more respected. What I can also take into my everyday life is the drive of wanting to learn about people and how they came to find themselves, what helped them and what did not help them. I was taught a lot in this course and I am very glad I took it.