Gender, race and sexuality in intimate relations - Topic development

Hello everyone, I was wondering if anyone could help me. I've been assigned an essay for my first year university women's studies class and am having a hard time getting started. My topic is "gender, race and sexuality in intimate relations" and the sub-topics that could potentially be discussed range from heterosexual to lesbian, bisexual, gay, queer, intersexed, two-spirited and trans-gender perspectives. Questions I could seek to answer are: is there a connection between homophobia and sexism? How do schools and organized sports reproduce hetero-normative ideals? And, how do trans-gender perspectives challenge ALL our ideas about gender?

As you can see, I have a lot to go on and am rather at a complete loss as to where I should begin. If anyone has any suggestions at all, it would be much appreciated.

I think one way to approach this situation would be talk about it chronologically. How we as a society have progressed in the barriers between race, gender, and sexuality.