Leslie Feinberg and Stone Butch Blues

I've been thinking a lot about Leslie Feinberg's death. I'm one of the many people who read Stone Butch Blues and was... mm. How do I say it?

Profoundly and intensely glad that it existed.

To my knowledge, there's really not that much out there about the particular slice of queer life that book deals with, and there's a lot of history of misunderstanding that community. People get strange when people defy gender-related expectations. And I do believe that certain kinds of queerness are more misunderstood than others. Gay people who don't "come off as gay" as much are more accepted. People "who are in your face" are taken to be calling attention to themselves, sometimes even to be gay in an unhealthy or poorly adjusted way.

So.... that book. I loved it, and I was thrilled to see it acclaimed for offering a glimpse into a side of gay life and trans life that doesn't get talked about as much.

But I also don't think it was written well.

I feel bad saying this. I have no interest in speaking ill of the dead, especially very important dead. I don't want to belittle Feinberg's legacy by saying this.

But I don't think that ze was first and foremost a writer, and I think it shows in the work. Parts are beautifully written, but parts are repetitive and slow. Parts feel a bit like "the gay Forrest Gump" to me, because the book uses a similar device, showing the main character grow as history happens around her.

And that makes me wish it wasn't the only book about a butch protagonist I can think of. I wish I could sit here and go "Start with Stone Butch Blues for its impact and importance. Then when you want something more finely crafted, turn to X. For a speculative fiction adventure, have a look at Y. If you're looking for a YA story about a young butch struggling with her identity as an adolescent, you'll cry your way through Z no matter what your gender and sexuality are."

I'm hoping that this is just a fault in my knowledge, and that this post will immediately be deluged by comments about the many books I need to immediately go and read. But I worry that it won't.

And I guess what I want to say is this: That I hope that writers, whether gay or straight, trans or cis, will look at and think about more than just "I want to write about a gay or trans protagonist." I hope they'll think about cultures and how they work -- even if butches from Alpha Centauri never had a bar scene or trans dragonriders in the land of magic and sorcery they've created are defying a forty-three gender system, not a binary one.

I don't think books have to be about those cultures the way a novel like Stone Butch Blues is. But even mentioning them in passing, I think, makes a story richer and makes representation feel more real.