Comparison between 'Twelfth Night' and 'Loving Outside Simple Lines' by Sonya Bolus

Shakespeare's play, "Twelfth Night," has a true happy ending where true love really sees the soul of the person.  In Act 5, scene 1, lines 313-319, Orsino states to Viola:

"Your master quits you, and for your service done him,

So much against the mettle of your sex,

So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,

And since you called me “master” for so long,

Here is my hand. You shall from this time be

Your master’s mistress."

Here, we can see that although Orsino knows that Viola was disguised as Cesario, but he still accepts her as a woman because he is truly in love with her.  In U.S. society, too many people see the person for what they look like on the outside, not the character of the person.  It needs to be recognized that there are other ways to love a person besides what is considered socially acceptable.  In comparison to Orsino and Viola's relationship in "Twelfth Night," Sonya Bolus' essay, "Loving Outside Simple Lines," is a personal narrative which describes her butch lesbian lover taking the necessary medical steps to go from a woman to the sex she identifies with, which is a man.  This essay was particularly powerful for me to read because I am heterosexual and didn't have a firm understanding of what being in love is like between two people of the same sex.  Bolus goes through many of the painful changes along with her partner's sex change, questioning herself, her sexuality, if she made her lover want to do this, etc.  However, she explains how these challenges have changed her for the better:

"[...] you inspire me to look with courage at my self-definitions.  I see how they are true to me.  I also see how they sometimes limit me.  Though they have often given be security and a means to self-awareness, I notice parts of myself I have suppressed: the attraction I once felt for men, the desire I feel now for other femmes, the need to examine my own "othergenderedness" (Bolus, 3-4).

The quote above greatly compares to Orsino's acceptance of Viola because even through all of the different "transformations" that both of them have gone through, he still accepts her as a woman because he loves her, first and foremost, as a person.  The rough patches they went through allowed them to reflect on their own values and discover what is really important to them.  After comparing the famous Shakespearean play, "Twelfth Night," and the contemporary essay, "Loving Outside Simple Lines," by Sonya Bolus, our society needs to reevaluate what is important and discover their own 'self-awareness' before judging those who question U.S. society's hegemonic sexuality value systems.