Throughout history, people are constantly judged by their external characteristics and symbolically placed into cultural scripts that challenge their overall control of their lives. In "Son", Andrew Solomon discusses the many hardships he encountered in life due to his homosexuality. According to Solomon, there are vertical and horizontal identities that all individuals possess. Vertical identities reflect characteristics and attributes that are generally passed down from family to family through genetics; whereas, horizontal identities reflect traits that are generally out of the control of parents and are acquired from a peer group (370). Society's negative reactions towards such these identities that people retain and the myriad of challenges that Solomon faces bring to question the potential for all individuals to be able to attain self-fulfillment in an equal manner. In "Selections from Matthew Shepard", Beth Loffreda discusses the death and community's reaction to the murder of Matthew Shepard, a boy who was killed solely due to his homosexuality. Matthew's murder and the reactions that followed illustrate the impact of culture upon many of the minority groups in today's era. Although society's multitude of oppressions and injustices challenge the potential for horizontal and vertical groups to achieve self-fulfillment, these people can still attain happiness through self-acceptance as well as the creation of strong bonds with others in their own respective groups.
Solomon introduces this societal displeasure towards horizontal identities in his discussion of his mother and community's stances in regards to his homosexuality. "My mother didn't want me to be gay The problem was that she wanted to control her life, and it was her life as the mother of a homosexual that she wished to alter. Unfortunately, there was no way to fix her problem without involving me" (Solomon 376).
