Stone Butch Blues - Tumblr Posts

bagalois

1 year ago

One day I came home from work and found Theresa stewing in anger at the kitchen table. Some of the lesbians from a newly formed group on campus had mocked her for being a femme. They told her she was brainwashed.

“I’m so bad,” Theresa thumped the table. “They told me that butches were male chauvinist pigs!”

I knew what male chauvinist meant, but I couldn’t figure out what it had to do with us. “Don’t they know we don’t deal the shit, we get shit on?”

“They don’t care, honey. They’re not going to let us in.”

“Should Jan and Grant and Edwin and I go to one of these meetings and try to explain?”

Theresa put her hand on my arm. “It won’t help, honey. They’re very angry at butches.”

“Why?”

She thought about the question. “I think it’s because they draw a line—women on one side and men on the other. So women they think look like men are the enemy. And

women who look like me are sleeping with the enemy. We’re too feminine for their taste.”

“Wait a minute,” I stopped her. “We’re too masculine and you’re too feminine? Whatdya have to do, put your index fingers in a meter and test in the middle?”

Theresa patted my arm. “Things are changing,” she said.

“Yeah,” I told her, “but sooner or later they’ll change back.”

“Things don’t change back,” she sighed, “they just keep changing.”

I slapped the table. “Then fuck those people. Who needs them, anyway?”

Theresa frowned and played with my hair. “I need the movement, Jess. And so do you. Remember you once told

“... me about a factory you worked where the guys didn’t want the butches to come to the union meetings?”

I nodded. “Yeah, so?”

She smiled. “You told me Grant said to hell with the union. But you knew the union was a good thing. You said what was wrong was keeping out the butches. You tried to organize to get the butches into the union, remember?”

Theresa held me tight against the warmth of her body and kissed my hair. She gave me time to think about what she’d said, instead of shooting off my mouth. I felt scared, so I got up and started making dinner. Theresa just sat at the kitchen table looking out over our backyard.”

leslie feinberg uses the term "he-she" to describe hirself through this section of the book and discusses taking hormones with the other butches at multiple points throughout. at the time, "butch" included everything from masc lesbians to he/him lesbians to outright trans men.

events quickly progress from calling butches and femmes brainwashed to kicking butches out of meetings and bars for being gender traitors. hir decision to start HRT was so controversial in separatist lesbian circles that it ended zir long-term relationship.

“I’ve been trying to tell you what I’ve been wrestling with lately, but you haven’t wanted to talk about it.” I shrugged. “I can’t go on much longer without something changing.”

Theresa sighed. “I’m a femme, Jess. I want to be with a butch. And I’m starting to feel like part of the women’s movement, even though I can’t be all the parts of who I am at the same time. My world’s expanding.”

“Great,” I snorted. “Mine’s shrinking. But the hormones are like the looking glass for me. If I pass through it, my world could open up, too.”

Theresa shook her head. “I don’t want to be with a man, Jess. I won’t do it.”

“I’d still be a butch,” I protested. “Even on hormones.”

this was the impact of a separatist feminist movement on queer icon leslie feinberg, who suffered immensely from the hostility of the queer community toward zirself and the ensuing isolation and lack of community support. because denying queer people access to their community is a death sentence. zie went on to write stone butch blues about this oft-ignored and maligned branch of the queer family.

we know that transandrophobia exists. one of the most important landmark queer texts discusses it extensively. we know that separatist rhetoric harms every single member of the queer community with a connection to masculinity (A LOT OF US). we have been on this merry-go-round before, and we already know it sucks. let's not go around again. let's get off

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stone butch blues transgender

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deeerlydeparted

1 year ago

Some Excerpts From Stone Butch Blues That Really Spoke To Me As A Transmasc Nonbinary Person

Some excerpts from “Stone Butch Blues” that really spoke to me as a transmasc nonbinary person

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stone butch blues transgender transgender liberation queer lit

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deeerlydeparted

1 year ago

Trans joy , love and beauty

More excerpts from stone butch blues.

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stone butch blues

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sirenium

1 year ago

that is so fucking insulting. The history of queer identity, 'outdated' or not, is still important to take into account, especially when people still identify with certain identities used in history!

Imagine walking up to a queer elder and telling them they need to change their identity because it's 'outdated' and therefore invalid because the tumblr brigade of teenagers said so. How insulting and arrogant, to write off queer history as 'outdated' and brush it off.

I know to be an exclusionist you have to be close minded, but holy shit that take is so far gone. And fun fact, that book was published in 19. fucking. 93. That was not that long ago in the grand scheme of things! I dare say it's even recent!

I don't like queer discourse because it shouldn't exist but I came across a post yesterday where someone was like "I hate when pro mspec lesbians tell me to read stone butch blues it's outdated" ????????? Queer. Queer history is outdated???? HUH?

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mspec lesbian stone butch blues

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mivrip

1 year ago

i’m the little angel on your shoulder and i’m telling you to read stone butch blues

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book recs stone butch blues lgbtqia Pride

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