Cranny-Francis et al (2003, p.1) claim “Every human body in modern societies is assigned a place in a binary structure of gender”, that is, one is either male or female, masculine or feminine. Rigney (2003, p.12) suggests the normative assignment of gender is determined by biological sex. The presence of male genitalia must indicate the masculine, while the absence of such body parts has to point to the feminine. Butler (Rigney 2003, p.12) argues “The cultural matrix through which gender identity has become intelligible requires that certain kinds of ‘identities’ cannot ‘exist’”. One must be either male or female and, respectively, masculine or feminine. To assert this binary opposition, Western society has conveniently devised various terms, such as transsexual, transgenderist, the effeminate homosexual, or the ‘butch’ lesbian, which enable so-called ‘deviant’ sexualities to be contained within a heteronormative division of the male as opposed to the female. Regardless of sexual preference or performance, society insists on a state of ‘either/or’. One must be male or female, a state exhibited by the presence or lack of specific biological parts. However, the story of Brandon Teena, as depicted in Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry (1999), which ends in “the violent rape and murder of Brandon”, a demise Woods and O’Brien (2005, p. 10-3) claim is the result of his “failure to truthfully reveal his anatomical designation as female”, presents serious implications for such normative measures that rely on such notions of truth, such notions of one or the other, male or female, true or false, honest or deceptive.

The story of Brandon Teena has been, as Sloop (2000, p. 165) states, “retold repeatedly and widely” in various media from print to web, with most critics, including Morris (2000) and Helvie (1997), agreeing with the above argument by Woods and O’Brien. But there is one key word in that statement: “anatomical”. While Koingsberg’s claim, cited in Helvie (1997, p. 37), that “Teena Brandon was killed … because she was too successful in passing herself off as a man”, may appear to support Woods and O’Brien, it is actually quite a different assessment of the situation. Koingsberg ignores Brandon’s preferred name of Brandon Teena as opposed to his birth name of Teena Brandon. Koingsberg also uses the feminine pronouns “she” and “herself”. What Koingsberg is actually saying is that Brandon was murdered because of an uncovered deception. For Koingsberg, the truth is that Brandon was a woman pretending to be a man. This conclusion supports Horrock’s criticism of normativity, that is, “Part of being a man is to demonstrate visibly that one is not a woman” (1997, p. 171-172). But, as Morris (2000, p.1) states, although Brandon may have been born with the anatomical features of a female, he saw himself “as a heterosexual male”, not as a transvestite, or even as a ‘butch’ lesbian. Brandon identified himself as a boy/man as opposed to his birth sex of girl/woman. For Brandon, there was no deception. He had merely been given the wrong body at birth.

The crisis of Brandon’s predicament is not his own sexual identity, but, as Anderson (Siegel 2003, p. 5-6) argues, “the male, heterosexual identity inhabited by … [his assailants] … an identity so fragile that when threatened … [responds with] … violence”. It was not a deception, but rather, a threat to normative notions of identity, sexuality – and truth. Indeed, Halberstam (Siegel 2003, p. 6) claims Brandon’s demise is a “chilling enforcement of normativity”. Brandon, according to Helvie (1997, p. 35), was raped and killed because “two barbarous men” believed he had broken out of “their prescribed boundaries for human sexuality”. He had crossed a line that is not supposed to either be crossed or even be able to be crossed. The rape of Brandon, argues Swan (Siegel 2003, p. 7), works to “reposition everyone according to their ‘god-given’ gender”. Because Brandon has a vagina rather than a penis, he must be male. Rape is an extremely powerful and violent means by which men are able to put women in their heterosexist position as receptors of the phallus. Murder or, as it can be considered in this instance, execution, is the ultimate punishment. Unfortunately for Brandon, as Woods and O’Brien (2005, p. 11-9) point out, he did not see himself as having committed any crime. If his performance of his sexual identity as a man had not been so convincing, as it was even to his girlfriends, “his threat to hegemonic representations and sexual identity”, according to Woods and O’Brien (2005, p. 11-9), “would not have been so great”.

The truth is not that Brandon was a woman or that Brandon was not a man. The truth, as Rigney (2003, p. 9) suggests, is that “he is neither man nor woman”. Normative notions of the binary man/woman, male/female, simply do not work.

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