Book Review: Stone Butch Blues and Building a Home in the Self
Home in the body, as I understand it, is a feeling within oneself as an identification with one’s body and presence in life. Home in the transgender body can be described as a feeling of “centeredness” or like a person’s soul returning to fit in their body. Home in the trans body is also another way of understanding how inner identities can be transformed and brought into the physical realm through the search for a bodily home, or a true and uncovered state of being. Throughout the book Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, the character Jess has gone through a lifetime of challenges around what home truly means to them.
There are multiple homes that Jess moves through within the story, from boarding schools, to bars, and friends’ apartments. Jess never stays stagnant for long. This constant movement later in life is a result of Jess attempting to navigate the uncertainties of living as a visibly queer person, and their search for something to call home, whether that is within a person or in a physical space. The more that Jess interacts with the butches that they relate to and identify with, the more they recognize a home in the other people and commmunity, but their own identity is still turbulent and unaddressed within themself.
As a “stone butch” Jess has extreme trouble managing their feelings within a world that has hurt them every chance it could get. The challenge for Jess is that their refusal to acknowledge certain parts of their emotional nature and queer identity limits them from locating the parts of theirself that could give greater clarity to and settle some of the emotional turbulence that they constantly experience. Jess has lived their entire life with their guard up, only sometimes coming down with romantic partners like Theresa, and their intent in keeping a guard up is to protect theirself, but it effectively masks their own emotions from them.
Jess longs for a body that makes sense to them, a person to love them for who they are, and a life that does not depend on other people’s acceptance of their presentation. I can personally relate to the fact that one of the most difficult parts of realizing that you are trans is going through the process of breaking down the conception of yourself that you thought you previously understood, and forming something new from it. Gender transition is the act of breaking down the parts of yourself that you cannot take into the future with you. Which extends to then rebuilding in a constant cycle of change and newness.
Jess’ transition in this book is not as much about the act of becoming one gender instead of another, but rather finding out how they can best build a home within their body. Near the end of the book, Jess slowly realizes that you need to break down certain walls first to be able to build again. The foundations of Jess’ home begin to lay within their body as they ride this feeling of openness further. The building and rebuilding of oneself is never over, and this story reminds me that the work cannot be done alone; the necessity of community and relating to others is what helps us further understand ourselves.
Work Cited
Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. Alyson Books, 1993.
