Title: Stone Butch Blues
Author: Leslie Feinberg
Date Published: March 1993
Publisher: Firebrand Books

Commentary:

This was the first trans book that I ever read. Actually, it might be the first trans story widely published in the US. A high school teacher recommended it to my then-girlfriend, and she in turn shared it with me. It was the year 2000 and I was eighteen. I remember reading it and feeling elated that for the first time in my life I could really identify with the protagonist, Jess. For instance, when Jess talks about their childhood and about being confused for a boy, much to their delight and their parent's dismay, I was like, "Yes! Me too!" But, Jess is also put through the fucking wringer. They're beat and raped and arrested and put in all sorts of awful situations. I think the reason why I still enjoyed this book, despite all the darkness, is that it is set in the 1950s-70s. The description of early gay bars and pre-Stonewall era butch life was like being sent through a time machine to see the history that I never learned in school. And, if you've ever spent much time on my profile, you know that I love history.

Stone Butch Blues is NOT a story to read if you want to feel positive and uplifted and validated in your trans identity. In this story, being trans is a hardship. Jess's identity is complex and complicated and shifting... but it's always an obstacle. Despite these insurmountable challenges, this story is also about resilience. Specifically, about how the LBGT community is resilient. Trans people have always existed, even when it was illegal to be ourselves. We found community in the shadows. Found a way to live and to love. And while there are ugly parts to this story, there is beauty in the fact that it exists.

This was the first trans story that I ever read, but I don't recommend that it's the first trans story that anybody else reads. However, once you've read all the wonderful and amazing trans books that have been published in the past few years, I do recommend that you go back and read this book for a history lesson. Both for the historical setting, and because this was a landmark #ownvoice trans novel.

Synopsis (copied from Amazon):

Published in 1993, this brave, original novel is considered to be the finest account ever written of the complexities of a transgendered existence.

Woman or man? That's the question that rages like a storm around Jess Goldberg, clouding her life and her identity. Growing up differently gendered in a blue--collar town in the 1950's, coming out as a butch in the bars and factories of the prefeminist '60s, deciding to pass as a man in order to survive when she is left without work or a community in the early '70s. This powerful, provocative and deeply moving novel sees Jess coming full circle, she learns to accept the complexities of being a transgendered person in a world demanding simple explanations: a he-she emerging whole, weathering the turbulence.