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STONE BUTCH
B L 41 E S
p<kjp FEINBE K G
Plate 5.2 A transgressor represents transgression
This cover of the 'fictional' autobiography Stone butch blues captures the representational politics of
the topic's creation and contents. The image shows the author, who also happens to be the main
character in the story (Jess). Feinberg/Jess looks directly at the reader, perhaps challenging them to
determine who or what s/he is (man? woman? transvestite?). His/her's is the face of experience: seri-
ous and somewhat weathered. 'Hir' story is intended to represent the lives of others in hir situation.
The 'novel' is no mere concoction. It is intended to represent the difficult journey towards personal
contentment experienced by people like Feinberg/Jess.
This cover o f the 'fictional' autobiography Stone butch blues captures the representational politics o f
the topic's creation and contents. The image shows the author, who also happens to be the main
character in the story (Jess). Feinberg/Jess looks directly at the reader, perhaps challenging them to
determine who or what s/he is (man? woman? transvestite?). H is/her's is the face o f experience: seri-
ous and somewhat weathered. 'H ir' story is intended to represent the lives o f others in hir situation.
The 'novel' is no mere concoction. It is intended to represent the difficult journey towards personal
contentm ent experienced by people like Feinberg/Jess.
By electing to be sex- and gender-ambiguous, Jess Goldberg takes the huge
risk of being 'read' as neither a man nor a woman. S/he refuses to make her
'trans' predilections part of a transition to something 'whole' in physical
and identity terms (in this case maleness). S/he chooses not to submit to
the prevailing subject positions that structure heterosexual, homosexual and
many transsexual lives. Goldberg creates what taxonomic historian Harriet
Ritvo (1995) once called 'border trouble'. S/he inhabits a psychosocial and
somatic location that her society considers off limits. S/he is thus a pioneer
and an outlaw at one and the same time. In critic Jay Prosser's view, as a
(still) virtually unique presentation of a trans life, Stone butch blues 'wields
a powerful representational and representative force that's hard to resist'
(Prosser, 1998: 197). Certainly in 'hir' reflections on the topic's reception
10 years after publication, Feinberg (2003: vii) remarked on how affected
by Stone butch blues a remarkable diversity of readers had been within and
beyond the United States.
However, for all the topic's qualities, one suspects that it's a 'niche' text
with a socially distinctive readership whose story is too 'challenging' to
 
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