Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg 12/29/07

There are books that I’ve read that I know I’ll never read again but that I needed to read. This is among them.

SBB was an emotional read for me. While the main character, Jess, came out before I was born, the fact is that all of this happened not that long ago. Jess was still dealing with it about the time *I* came out in the 80s. It wasn’t that long ago that butch women were raped and beaten, that drag queens and trans people were brutalized. By the police who are supposed to protect us. I know, I know, naive. It ticks me off to no end that the butches and the femmes were excluded from the larger lesbian world of the 1970s. It wasn’t that different in the 80s when I came out but it was less overt.

Had I been born in a different time, would I have had the courage of my convictions? Would I come out and lived that life or would I have married a man, safe and conventional. I wonder. I would like to think that I’d have been strong enough but I don’t know if I would have.

Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent 09/23/07

So, Norah, a lesbian who is not transgendered, decides to see what it’s like to live life as a man, for the purpose of writing about it.

 Norah’s alter ego, Ned, joins a blue collar bowling league, stays at a monastary, gets a job as a salesman and joins a men’s group.  Ned also dates various women. In the end, Ned tells everyone (except the men’s group) that he is really Norah, to various responses.

I won’t tell you everything but she came to some interesting conclusions about what it is like to be a man in America today.  She does tell us that she doesn’t *really* know what it’s like to be a man, but that she has a greater appreciation for them now.  She also encounters the bitter single women about whom men complain.  Interesting book.

The Girls in 3-B by Valerie Taylor 09/19/07

This is a re-issue of a pulp fiction book from the 60’s.  It’s called a lesbian book but only one character of the 3 main ones is a lesbian and then only in the very end.  On a good note, at least it’s a happy ending for the lesbian not a tragic story of suicide.  The funny thing?  The lesbian’s name is Barby.