Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg

            At first sight, Stone Butch Blues might appear to be a straightforward narrative fiction that follows the sexual tails of lesbian Jess Goldberg. However, this compelling novel is startlingly rich in theory in the sense that it foregrounds the interrelationship of class structures and gender constraints. Feinberg forces a debate about whether society's strict gender categories are truly necessary or not. Haunted by herpes of being, beaten by her father, and raped by a high school football player, Jess leaves home in search of others like herself, By meeting other manly women in the factories, Jess continues to grown, and learns more about love from prostitutes and about survival from her older butch lovers. However, there is no security in her new home, as vicious policemen raid the gay bars regularly. From the late 1940s until the early 1960s, erotic communities whose activities did not fit the postwar American dream drew intense persecution. Homosexuals were, along with communists, the objects of federal witch hunts and purges.
             Jess believes the only way out of her plight is to take concrete steps to define herself and her gender. Venturing into new territory, Jess begins to take male hormones and breast reduction surgery, Jess finds that getting job becomes easier, but instead of making it possible for Jess to live an open life without deceit and lies, the sex-change further distances her from the life she truly wants. A yearning for a class status that might afford her more breathing room as a Tran gendered person. In presenting Goldberg's life as the personal side of political history, Feinberg demonstrates that sexual identity and gender are constituted as social constructs, evident in the series of brutal and humiliating punishments that Jess and her Tran gendered friends are subjected to for failing to conform to society's expectations.
             Jess identifies with the men she works alongside in the factories and warehouses for years, rather than with the middle-class feminists who exclude butch, and lesbians from their organizations.