When someone violates these norms, they are often monitored more rigorously than those who don't. Society has built this fixed guideline of gender norms and linked it directly to sex, any deviation from this norm makes people uncomfortable. Drawing clear differentiations between elements, such as sex, is something that allows people the comfort of expectation. So, when a member of a certain group, such as a white male, violates gender norms by being a homosexual male, he is policed. However, he would be less policed ​​than an effeminate homosexual male, because the effeminate male violates the norm more seriously in the eyes of society. This compares to DuBois's experience in how people outside the community approach the issue with skepticism, with elusive statements such as “I know an excellent black man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville” (DuBois 1903). These statements are in a sense ignorantly compassionate, they are a roundabout way of saying “how does it feel to be a problem?” (Dubois 1903). When the individual violates the norm to a lesser extent, he or she is seen as less a