It assumes that one has "feminine" traits because one is born female, and femininity involves being attracted to "masculinity". This assumes that a way to prevent women from being in a relationship with other women is to eradicate "masculine" women. This is flawed. I have short hair, dress in shirts and pants, but won’t describe myself as feminine yet I am in a heterosexual relationship. I know of women who wear dresses and exude a gentle demeanour yet share their lives with a partner of the same sex, with the same mannerisms. I also know of "masculine" looking women who are happy couples.

But society tells us that these variations of living are "wrong", offering only a binary model where being biologically female equates to adopting a "feminine" gender role; and being biologically male means playing a "masculine" role. This rigid understanding organises society in the "masculine-he" plus "feminine-she" equals happy heterosexual couple and later, heterosexual family model.

This heterosexual norm works to uphold patriarchy through its assumptions that the role of a woman is to be heterosexual, submissive in marriage, with sex as something done out of duty to her husband. This is evident in the refusal to legally acknowledge marital rape; the idea that women follow the male leaders in family life and in society; and women’s "ingrained" duty to be mothers – among others.

Pressures and disapproval greet women who fall out of this heterosexual norm. Women who decide to have sex before marriage have no access to the state’s contraceptive services. Single mothers are often disparaged in Parliament and policies, from being ridiculed as gatal women to proposals by the Malacca government offering men RM1,000 to marry single mothers as second wives.

The further a woman moves away from the heterosexual ideal, the more she is punished through society’s hostility and state laws. Sex workers are demonised and punished by the lack of laws and policies to address the very exploitative and abusive systems they work in, with our lawmakers unwilling to move beyond the prohibition discourse. As for lesbians, the very idea that a woman would choose another woman over a man threatens this patriarchal order so much that lesbians are denied their existence. Lesbians being visible through the assumption of being "masculine" women, are outrightly prohibited.

It is not just Muslim women who transgress these heterosexual norms who are ostracised. It is women and men of different faiths and ethnicity. Laws like 377 of the Penal Code criminalise homosexuality and the Minor Offences Act is used against cross-dressers. Last year, the Higher Education Ministry stated it would not recruit effeminate men as teachers.

Perhaps the real reason for suppressing what isn’t normal ... is not just about women wanting to behave like men, or men behaving like women, or a person who doesn’t want be either. It is about us having to question the assumptions of heterosexual norms that we live with and perpetuate, and the fear that comes with the disruption of this patriarchal order. It is wrong to let our fear deny the rights of people. Defying norms has always been the cornerstone of progress: Galileo proved the sun was at the centre of the solar system; the suffragists claimed the right for women to vote; the Malayan left realised it wasn’t normal to be ruled by white people and called for self-rule, and the list goes on.

History has shown that what is normal is always changing. Isn’t it time we queried if this hetero-normal world we live in, isn’t queer?

Tze Yeng would like to thank Alina Rastam and Julian Hopkins for their invaluable input in writing this piece. Comment: letters@thesundaily.com.