In some rural, northern communities of Albania there is a centuries-old tradition whereby it is socially acceptable for women to live as men. Despite strict gender norms and heteronormativity under general circumstances, these burrnesha are accepted by their communities and often highly respected and admired. By contrast, LGBT+ communities, who also represent some form of gender non-conformity, are subject to disproportionate stigma, discrimination, and violence. This dissertation research uses Social Representations Theory to investigate the construction of burrnesha social identity and the role of this representation in Albanian society. I conducted interviews with 48 average Albanian citizens from three regions of the country. These regions included: 1) the region where burrnesha are most common, 2) the country’s capital Tirana, and 3) a town that represents a cultural and geographical intermediate between the other two regions. I also conducted ten interviews with burrnesha themselves from various regions of the country. Using thematic analysis, I evaluated the most general representation that emerged from the data, as well as variations of that representation that appeared less frequently. In my first analysis, I found that nearly all respondents at some point in the interview engaged in a representation that justified the tradition of burrnesha. In this representation, living as a man served to preserve masculine leadership. The assumption of asexuality and external motivation to live as a man served to assure respondents that burrnesha did not conflict with heteronormativity. This representation revolved around themes of gender essentialism, utility, sacrifice, family collectivism, obligation, and hardship in order to reflect and reproduce patriarchal norms. In my second analysis, I found that during parts of the interviews respondents sometimes used other representations. These other representations reflected differences in respondents’ social position in relation to burrneshas’ communities. These social positions impelled respondents to construct social distance or proximity, which influenced and was influenced by changes to the structure of the burrnesha representation. Third, I compared responses from burrnesha themselves to their non-burrnesha counterparts. The two groups relied on many of the same themes. However, burrnesha saw their masculinity as an inherent part of who they were whereas community respondents positioned masculinity as the result of adverse circumstances.