Gender Non-Conformity In 'Stone Butch Blues'

In Stone Butch Blues, Jess struggles with her identity as a butch lesbian, while simultaneously facing prejudice and violence from biased people around her. As she is physically and mentally violated, she shields herself from the world by adopting a stony demeanor. Relatedly, Roshaya Rodness investigates the significance of stone in her article, “Hard Road Ahead: Stone’s Queer Agency in Stone Butch Blues”. Out of many of stone’s properties, protection is one of the most important. After being arrested for the first time and witnessing the police’s brutality towards queer people, Jess is comforted by Al and Jackie. In this scene, she navigates the fragile balance between remaining tender and kind, while still protecting herself. In this scene,

Furthermore, the coexistence of these properties illustrates Jess’s gender nonconformity.

The material of stone, along with its cold and strong qualities, is associated with masculinity in the novel. When Jess finds herself hurt and afraid after being arrested, she feels the need to seem strong. To do this, she closes herself off emotionally, narrating, “I was mortaring a brick wall inside myself” (Feinberg, 41). The brick that Jess protects herself with evokes textural imagery. Bricks are hard and rough, and when put together into a wall, impenetrable. The fortitude of the bricks provides insight into Jess’s idea of masculinity. She wants to be strong and unshakable against her oppressors. The brick wall, however, also creates a sensation of being trapped. Jess confines herself within the strong emotional barriers that she creates. The isolating effects of Jess’s emotional fortification are touched upon by Rodness, who writes, “hardened, or frigid figurations of female masculinity and gender queerness provide modes of withdrawal and antisociality” (Rodness, 550). Rodness highlights the negative effects

To Jess, femmes are one of the only sources of comfort and softness. As some of the only people who see and accept her for who she is, femmes are critical to Jess’s social life. Jackie is the first femme in Jess’s life, and acts almost like a mother figure to Jess. She provides Jess with soothing physical contact, and verbally reassures her: “She pulled my face against her cheek. ‘Who is, honey?’ she whispered” (Feinberg, 41). The physical softness of Jackie’s cheek combines with the auditory softness of a whisper and the sweetness of the word “honey”. To both Jess and the reader, these characteristics are associated with emotional openness, and comfort. They are traditionally feminine traits, and are embraced by the femme characters in the book. Similarly to how masculinity contrasts with femininity, the open, tender femmes contrast with the sheltered, toughened butches. Tenderness is also embraced by the butch characters in the book, despite behind closed doors. When Jess asks Jacqueline if Al is tender with her, she responds, “Yeah, I don’t think I could be with her if she wasn’t tender with me” (Feinberg, 42). In this context, the physical quality of softness is synonymous with emotional vulnerability. When Al, a butch, is emotionally vulnerable, she steps out of the bounds of her masculinity. The novel poses homosexual relationships as a way to embrace vulnerability and