Stone Butch Blues Stone Butch Blues a novel by Leslie Feinberg 20th anniversary author edition Available at www.lesliefeinberg.net © 1993 and 2014 by Leslie Feinberg Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feinberg, Leslie. 1949-2014 10th Anniversary Edition Afterword, Excerpts © 2003 by Leslie Stone Butch Blues/20th Anniversary Edition/Leslie Feinberg/ Feinberg. First Self-Published Edition Preface to Chinese Edition © 2003 by Leslie Feinberg. Includes: 10th Anniversary 2003 Edition Afterword, Excerpts; Note to Serbo-Croatian Edition © 2012 by Leslie Feinberg. Preface to 2003 Chinese Edition; Note to 2012 Serbo-Croatian Edition 20th Anniversary Edition Notes from Author, Author Acknowledgements, Author Rights and Requests, Author 1. Trans*—Fiction. Translation Agreement, and Author Biography © 2014 by Leslie 2. Transgender people—Fiction. Feinberg. 3. Butch and femme (Lesbian cultures)—Fiction. 4. Lesbians—Fiction. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form by any electronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) Freedman, Leslie Kahn, Adam Schiff, Kelly Wooten. other than those described in the Author Rights and Requests Statement. Cover Design by Kuan Luo Dedication, Back and Front Cover Photographs by Leslie Feinberg Published by Firebrand Books: 1993. Published by Alyson Books: 2003. Available at www.lesliefeinberg.net: 20th Anniversary Author Edition: 2014. NO COST Read online ISBN: Previously published with ISBN 1-56341-030-3, ISBN- PDF download 10: 156341029X and ISBN-13: 978-1563410291 by Firebrand Mobile device download Books, and ISBN 1-55583-853-7 and ISBN 978-155583-853-9 AT COST by Alyson Books. Print-on-demand 12 pt. & 16 pt. large-print type non-commercial publication. From 10th Anniversary Edition Stone Butch Blues “Leslie Feinberg has written a poignant, multilayered “In a world of polarities, where all we’re taught is story involving class, race, religion, politics, and black and white, Stone Butch Blues added to what we gender that touches the hearts and souls of anyone know is really a rainbow. How we choose to live in that has lived outside the purported norms imposed our bodies and our hearts is much more than a Dick- by mainstream society.” —Michael M. Hernandez, transgender writer/activist —Jewelle Gomez, author of Don’t Explain “Stone Butch Blues is a powerful novel written by a “In this revolutionary novel, Feinberg explodes the founder of the contemporary transgender movement. myth of the binary gender system and the feminist It is also an important historical text documenting notion that butchness is apolitical. The scenes of early the profound shift in how we all came to think about queer society are brought to vivacious life—I laughed, gender at the end of the last century.” I cried, and felt right at home.” —Susan Stryker, executive director of GLBT Historical —Chrystos, author of Fire Power and Fugitive Colors Society “Stone Butch Blues is a unique take on the universal “Reading this book changed my life. The narrator of theme of self-love and identity … written with a Stone Butch Blues both walks achingly alone and tells compelling passion that has its very own sound.” the sweet story of connecting to a society in which —Emanuel Xavier, author of Americano and Christ Like the vast criminality of homophobia, the tenderness and the wildness of love, and the tiny, massive “Stone Butch Blues has probably touched your life even vitalities of friendship, work, and political community. if you haven’t read it yet. It’s a movement classic, Everyone needs to know Stone Butch Blues and pass it one of those books that spilled right out of its around. It’s history out loud.” binding and into the world, changing the landscape —Eileen Myles, author of Cool for You irrevocably.” —Alison Bechdel, creator of Dykes to Watch Out For “Stone Butch Blues should be required reading in high school and college “The most galvanizing book I’ve encountered about classes across the county. This novel takes its place the alchemical transformations among pride, shame, not only within a long tradition of queer narratives of alienation and opposition, but, in form and content, it also hearkens back to radical proletarian —Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, author of Touching Feeling: U.S. literature from the 1930s. By weaving the story Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity through the narratives of the 1960s and 1970s social movements, Feinberg insistently reminds us that our “Stone Butch Blues is the queer great American novel— individual struggles are always part of a larger fabric it will be read, loved, studied, and denounced for a of resistance. Stone Butch Blues will be read for years to long, long time.” come!” —Holly Hughes, performance artist and author of Clit —Judith Halberstam, author of Female Masculinity Notes: A Sapphic Sampler Dedicated to CeCe McDonald CeCe McDonald’s tenacious courage and organizing inspired an CeCe McDonald wrote from a prison cell on international united front: against violence targeting oppressed November 16, 2012: youths and women--particularly the war on (trans)women of color, “Trans Day of Remembrance: A Proposal” against the school-to-prison pipeline and racist mass incarceration, white supremacy and transmisogyny; and for the rights of oppressed “We need for our mission to promote racial, social, and sexes, self/gender expressions and sexualities, and the right of the economic justice for trans youth, with freedom to self- oppressed to self-defense. These excerpts and more information: “[T]o have rights and a voice. To be able to walk in this supportcece.wordpress.com world, not afraid and actually feel like a human being and not a shadow in a corner. grocery store with some friends, all of them young, African “I would have rather been punished for asserting myself American, and LGBTIQ or allied. As they passed a local than become another victim of hatred. bar, the Schooner Tavern, a group of older, white people who were standing outside the bar’s side door began hurling “We need to not only celebrate for Trans Day of racist and transphobic slurs at them, without provocation. Remembrance, but also become self-aware and ready to … When CeCe approached the group and told them that put an end to our community being the focus of violence. her crew would not tolerate hate speech, one of the women Of course it is more than important to recognize and pay homage to our fallen, but we also need to put our feet during which one of the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was fatally down and start being real leaders and making this stand.” stabbed. The only person arrested that night was CeCe. …” CeCe McDonald won her release on January 13, 2014. Photo made together by CeCe McDonald & Leslie Feinberg during a jail visit in South Minneapolis McDonald’s trial. Creative Commons: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic No commercial use except for social/media reports Visit www.lesliefeinberg.net for ‘This is what solidarity looks like!’ Slide show documenting breadth of demand to ‘Free CeCe!’ i have been locked by the lawless. Handcuffed by the haters. Gagged by the greedy. And, if i know anything at all, it’s that a wall is just a wall and nothing more at all. It can be broken down. from “i believe in living.” By Assata Shakur assatashakur.org ‘Stop Wall Street’s war on women!’ Wall Street New York City March 31, 2012 I delivered many messages of solidarity to CeCe McDonald during a brief visit with her in jail on the evening of her Reina Gossett (center, holding sign), in- cluded the last lines of Assata Shakur’s poem. I conveyed Reina’s message, omitting the poem. After the visit, I explained to Reina that I had feared the jailers who listen in might errone- ously jump to the conclusion that the message was code for escape. With this epigraph, I complete the task with which I was entrusted by Reina Gossett (thespiritwas.tumblr.com). Photo credit: Gabriel Foster —Leslie Feinberg, August 2013 ‘May Day 2012’ Union Square New York City May 1, 2012 Table of Contents 001Stone Butch Blues Chapters 1-26 333Author Notes on the 20th Anniversary Edition 336Author Afterword to the 10th Anniversary Edition, Excerpts 339Author Preface to the Chinese Edition 343Author Note to the Serbo-Croatian Edition 348Publication History 349Author: Thanks to the Team! 352Author Rights & Requests 358Translation Agreement 360About Leslie Feinberg 363‘Free CeCe!’ Previously translated into: Chinese, Turkish, Slovenian, Serbo-Croatian, Greek, Italian, German, Dutch, and Hebrew (author royalties donated to Palestinian ASWAT) Dear Reader: I want to let you know that Stone Butch Blues is an anti-oppression/s novel. As a result, it contains scenes of rape and other violence. None of this violence is gratuitous or salacious. Leslie Stone Butch Blues a novel by Leslie Feinberg 01 DEAR THERESA, themselves so much they have to look and act like men. I felt I’m lying on my bed tonight missing you, my eyes all telling her, all cool and calm, about how women like me existed lightning storm raging outside. Tonight I walked down streets since the dawn of time, before there was oppression, and how those looking for you in every woman’s face, as I have each night of this societies respected them, and she got her very interested expression lonely exile. I’m afraid I’ll never see your laughing, teasing eyes on—and besides it was time to leave. again. So we walked by a corner where these cops were laying into I had coffee in Greenwich Village earlier with a woman. a homeless man and I stopped and mouthed off to the cops and they started coming at me with their clubs raised and she tugged since we’re both “into politics.” Well, we sat in a coffee shop and my belt to pull me back.