Stone Butch Blues

The narrator, Jess, recounts how her mother rejected her at birth. Her mother had wanted to escape the monotony of marriage but when she got pregnant she was effectively trapped. She gave birth to Jess on a day too stormy to allow travel. Alone, giving birth, the narrator’s mother screamed so loud that the elderly Dineh woman across the hall came over to assist her. This elder encouraged the narrator’s mother to hold her newborn but Jess’s mother refused. When the pattern of neglect continued, the Dineh family across the hall began caring for the narrator during the day. This ended when the narrator’s father overheard the narrator speak in the native Dineh language and decided that “he couldn’t stand by and let his own flesh and blood be kidnapped by Indians” (14).

The narrator recounts being harassed even as a child for being non-gender conforming and being constantly asked if they were a boy or a girl.Additionally, she, along with the rest of her family, was ostracized for being Jewish. When her family tries to observe holidays by lighting candles, they are watched through the windows and rocks are thrown at them. A tragic turning point in her coming of age is being caught dressed up in her father’s clothes. After finding her dressed in a suit and tie, the narrator’s parents check her into a mental hospital, where she befriends a woman named Paula, whose parents have sent her away for dating an African-American man. While there, she is heavily medicated and only manages to get discharged when she agrees to do whatever her parents want. After that, she is sent to charm school, which isn’t effective in transforming her into someone else but does leave a lasting sense of shame.

Getting a job at a printer shop at age fifteen changes Jess’s life in a positive way. For once, she is able to dress in jeans and a t-shirt. The people around her do not ask her to explain herself. One co-worker, Gloria, tells the narrator about her brother, who is feminine and wears women’s clothes sometimes. The narrator is able to extract from Gloria the name of a bar that her brother frequents, where Gloria confesses there are also women who look like men.

The narrator begins frequenting a gay and lesbian bar in Niagara Falls called Tifka’s. The first time she enters, she feels intimidated and afraid that she will not be acceptable, or accepted. Straightaway a drag queen named Mona befriends her and teaches her the ropes. Mona informs the narrator that yes, she can walk over and ask a femme to dance. The narrator makes the mistake of asking a woman named Jackie for a dance straightaway and Mona intervenes before Big Al, Jackie’s butch girlfriend, throws a punch. Soon though, Big Al approaches the narrator, sizing her up. Big Al decides to take the narrator under her wing.

The narrator goes shopping with Big Al and Jackie, who help her pick out clothes. Big Al gives Jess a dildo and sex advice. Big Al works to toughen up the narrator, telling her constantly that life will be rough.

The narrator experiences some of these difficulties when she first tries to have sex with a woman. Monique, a femme lesbian she meets at Tifka’s, takes her home and aggressively pursues an intimate encounter. The narrator decides she does not feel ready. The next night, at the bar, another butch attempts to pick her up, saying that she mistook the narrator for a femme. Big Al punches the other butch in the face and is angry when the narrator doesn’t join in the violence.

One night, the bar is raided, and several drag queens and butch women are hauled down to the police station. The narrator waits in the holding cell and watches as Mona reappears, dazed and bloody. Later, Big Al emerges from a back room in a similar state. When the cops corner the narrator, they tell her that next time they’ll “take care of [her] like [her] pussy friend, Allison” (36). Back at Jackie and Al’s house, the narrator tries to make sense of what happened. Jackie tries to comfort her as well as warn her about what’s coming ahead. After this incident, the narrator never sees Al again. Mona, she learns, has overdosed on purpose. Jackie has turned to prostitution. The narrator sees Jackie one last time as she is walking the street. Jackie walks over, straightens the narrator’s tie and walks away, tears in her eyes.

Back at home, the narrator still can’t fit in. She is alerted by a female friend, Barbara, that adults are on to her skipping of school and disappearing on the weekends. The narrator cuts class one day to escape the tyranny of gender-constricting roles and, when going to sit out on the bleachers at school, is attacked and gang-raped by high school football players. The coach discovers her covered in blood and bodily fluids and calls her “a little slut” (41).

The next day, she is barely able to get out of bed and make it to school. She is desperate to find someone to confide in and tries to find the one friend she thinks might listen, an African-American classmate named Karla. Despite Karla’s warning to her that it is a bad idea, the narrator sits with Karla and other black peers at lunch. For this, she and Karla are both suspended. Jess is suspended for one week while Karla is suspended for two. The narrator decides that this is the right moment to quit school permanently. She says goodbye to an inspiring English teacher then runs home to write a note to her parents, informing them that she is running away.