We are enculturated into hierarchical domination. Our cultural institutions create and reinforce systems of oppression where we have to fight and contort and conform to get closer to the center of power (white, male, able-bodied, straight, etc.) in order to get power for ourselves. We all internalize that thinking (including white able-bodied straight males), and we turn those patterns inward, where we begin a lifetime habit of controlling ourselves, doing shit we don’t want to do, sublimating our own impulses and uniqueness in exchange for external validation, status, belonging, love, and survival.