Free Write for Inquiry Paper

So our first real paper is an inquiry paper, which I'm still not sure I understand. I'm having some trouble nailing down a topic, so this post will serve as a sort of, flow of consciousness free write to help sort things out!

When I first got this assignment I knew that I wanted to investigate something to do with gender identity. I wanted to explore the idea that gender is a construct and may not have any direct correlation with one’s physical or biological sex. First I looked at the connection between gender identity and language. The English language has a strong gender bias. When referring to a singular person, the pronouns are masculine or feminine, it is not okay to refer to a person as being neutral or “it”. If a person is biologically male but feels that they identify more strongly with the female gender, which pronoun is more acceptable to use? The research articles I found on this topic were, well, dense linguistically. I’m not very strong with linguistics, and this would require a lot of background research that isn’t directly related to my area of inquiry.

Next I came across the term Childhood Gender Nonconformity with its relation to adult personality. This was really interesting, it dealt with children who didn’t conform to gender stereotypes either in free time activities or in hobbies and interests, who later grew up to be homosexuals. But once again, all of the research for this topic is very dense and difficult for me to make my way through.

I’m currently at a loss for what my topic should be, because gender identity as a whole is too big of a topic to tackle, but when you start getting more specific, the research becomes too difficult to work with. I have ideas for my paper, but as of right now, I don’t have enough research to say whether or not I can use them. I think I’d like to do something with the occupations chosen by gay men and women, to see if they are less likely to coincide with gender role stereotypes. I’m sure there is lots of research on this topic, and it would be interesting for me personally, because of the nature of my future occupation. Costume design deals with a lot of things that fall on to the feminine side of the gender spectrum, sewing, style, etc. But as a career it attracts a lot of men, often men who are homosexual.

The problem I have with finding a topic is choosing what it is I want to say about that topic. Do I want to make a comment on how some occupations like costume design have high percentages of males, but are still considered feminine. If so how does that deal with the issue of identity?