I read Stone Butch Blues years ago just after it came out. A friend of mine told me that I had to; it had affected her so strongly that she had been ill for ten days after reading it. I was a graduate student with no free time to read; I read the book: reread it, and cried both times. Then I recommended it to every TBLG person I knew, or met, and gave away at least a fifteen copies to straight people where I thought it could do some good. One of my friends told me that she read the book from cover to cover at one sitting, only getting up to pee. I visited Firebrand books, the original publisher, to try to order in bulk and arrange to use a chapter in my English classes at Indiana University. I am glad to see that the new edition will be available free online, not because I begrudge Leslie, or her family, well-deserved royalties, but because, in the past, the book has been hard to get and needlessly expensive, at least to my way of thinking. It is an important work that deserves wide distribution and recognition.
I got to meet Leslie when she spoke at DePauw University in 1998; they engaged her to speak to their students for their Diversity Week, and mandated that the students attend. The students were present and polite, but not really engaged and the question period was soon at an end. A book signing had been scheduled to follow, but the only person to attend was me. As a result, I got to talk to Leslie for at least twenty minutes. She presented as one of the most male presences I have met, wearing a man’s suit that I describe as “sharp” because it looked good on her, but more because I believe that you could have cut yourself on the creases. The suit seemed large on her, not ill-fitting, but as though she was protected inside it, as if she were wearing a suit of armor. Her comfortable shoes contrasted with the rest of her attire.
Reading Stone Butch Blues, I had been struck by the remarkable care she displayed in using pronouns throughout; I was just getting launched in the TBLG community, and knew almost nothing about gender variance; I do not believe that I attached the label “trans” in my mind to any of the characters in the novel. Along with the care in assigning pronouns: each character had a pronoun that fit the person, not the body, and such decisions were highly nuanced, not simplistic, I read a lesson to let people be who they are, without burdening them with a label not of their own choosing, and the difficulty that allowing them this dignity can involve. I believe that lesson was very important and has helped me ever since.
In my conversation with her, I mentioned my admiration for her skill with pronouns, and she expressed gratitude, noting that she had expended enormous effort on them, and was glad to see that it had been recognized. It is my belief that such effort is often rewarded even by those who do not recognize why they are so enthralled by a work.
I hesitate to question Minnie Bruce Pratt, Leslie’s spouse, but when she quotes Leslie in her lovely, caring, obituary: “I care which pronoun is used, but people have been disrespectful to me with the wrong pronoun and respectful with the right one. It matters whether someone is using the pronoun as a bigot, or if they are trying to demonstrate respect.” The language persuades me that she has erred, probably in the emotion of the moment. I believe that what Leslie said was rather: “I care which pronoun is used, but people have been disrespectful to me with the right pronoun and respectful with the wrong one. It matters whether someone is using the pronoun as a bigot, or if they are trying to demonstrate respect.”
Because I never saw Leslie using male pronouns for herself, I have persisted in using “she” and “her”, always a little worried that it would not be what she wanted. I am somewhat relieved to see that is what Minnie Bruce called her in her obituary, but even more so to have confirmed my sense that she would have cared more about the effort, and the care, than about the details of the final result even though the details mattered so much to her. I feel that Stone Butch Blues and other writings by Leslie Feinberg constituted a graduate course in the use of pronouns and respect for individuality that was of great benefit to me as I learned to honor people as they wished to be recognized.
In Transgender Warriors, she exposed the slight of hand that makes gender variant persons disappear when they can be classified in some other way. The example that struck home to me was Joan of Arc (who among other achievements invented the modern nation state). I knew for as long as I can remember that Joan was burned at the stake for refusing to wear a dress (yes, there were political influences, but they only served to ensure that the charge was brought and the penalty enforced). Until Leslie pointed it out to me, I did not make the connection in a meaningful way that Joan was trans; she was a warrior, a saint, a visionary, but those qualities did not accrue to the transperson, they overshadowed, erased the trans identity.
Leslie was a Communist. I disagree heartily with her politics, but still admire the person and the writer.