Stone Butch Blues
Leslie Feinberg
Feinberg’s book Stone Butch Blues was published in 1993. This fictional account of Jess Goldberg’s life is touching, brave and poignant. It is an excellent story of the complexities of being transgender. Growing up in a blue-collar town in the 1950s is never easy, but is almost nightmarish for anyone who was differently gendered. Jess is institutionalized after mom and dad begin to see the real Jess. Jess comes out as queer and butch in the bars and factories, and finds community and support from butch dykes and drag queens. But when the police start to beat and brutalize the patrons, including Jess’s mentors Butch Al and Jacqueline, Jess is again adrift in the world. Different bars, different friends, different cops, same brutal treatment. At every turn, Jess faces being ostracized and embraced by LGBTQI+ people. Jess begins the transition process and gains acceptance as a man in the world, but loses connecting to the lesbian community. We are taken on a journey to self-acceptance through a complex issue that society demands simple answers to. Stone Butch Blues is a 1994 Lambda Literary Award finalist for Lesbian Fiction, and a co-winner in the Small Press Books category (along with Sojourner: Black Gay Voices in the Age of AIDS). Stone Butch Blues also won the 1994 American Library Association Gay & Lesbian Book Award (now Stonewall Book Award).
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Details
| ISBN | 156341029X |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Copyright Date | 1993 |
| Publication Date | 1999 |
| Publisher | Firebrand Books |
| Format | Trade Paperback |
| No. of Pages | 304 |
| Language | English |
| Rating | NotRated |
| BookID | 12413 |
