ipl-logo

Stone Butch Blues By LGBT Activist Leslie Feinberg

1788 Words8 Pages

Stone Butch Blues is a novel written by LGBT activist Leslie Feinberg about Jess Goldberg, a young girl growing up in pre-stonewall America. The novel follows Jess’s from her early life as a child, all the way into adult life. Jess realized very earl1y on that she is fundamentally different from the girls around her in school, home life, etc. These differences are what makes her life so difficult, with her parents and other authority figures constantly trying to “fix” her differences and mold her into the idea of a woman they think is acceptable. Through therapy and even hospitalization for what is being framed as a biological or mental deficiency, Jess learns from a young age that her identity is problematic and will not be easily accepted. …show more content…

As someone who feels as though they are well versed in issues of LGBT discrimination and history, I felt so taken aback by this history of violence and systemic homophobia, and that I wasn’t even fully aware of it’s extent. Feinberg’s writing provided me with a lot of insight relating to current issues and the history of the LGBT movement. The most important thing I think to take away from this novel is to think outside of the binary in terms of gender expression or sexual orientation. Humans are not black and white and neither are their psychological makeups, trying to fit all of humanity into two neat, strict boxes does not work for a vast majority of the population. Realizing that even within the gay and lesbian community pressure to identify as “the man” or “the woman” in a relationship is very real. This puts pressure on those who don’t identify as either and invalidates their gender/sexual identity as a whole. In relation to the current bathroom bill issue and transphobia in general, I think this realization is the first step towards ending discrimination against these individuals. Instead of viewing transgender folks as “a man dressed as a woman” conservatives and transphobic people alike need to understand what it means to identity as transgender, rather than viewing it as playing dress up or one day deciding to dress as a different gender. This is a much more complex issue and needs to be addressed and discussed as such. Overall, Stone Butch Blues made me question how I view the gender binary, and opened my eyes to the plights of the LGBT community throughout

Show More
Related

Masculinity In Chulito By Charles Rice-Gonzalez

265 Words | 2 Pages

Often times, queer young adult literature highlights issues that plague adolescents without ever providing an account that feels authentic for its readers. Chulito by Charles Rice-Gonzalez is a gripping fictional account of what it means to be young, gay and Puerto Rican in New York City. Rice-Gonzalez is a lecturer at Hostos Community College and a longtime LGBT activist within the Bronx. Set in the South Bronx, Chulito explores a variety of themes, including masculinity, gayness, identity, and love. In this book, Rice Gonzalez highlights the importance seeing masculinity as being complex instead of dichotomous-

Read More

Review Of The Racial Imaginary: The Murder Of Matt Shepard

1058 Words | 5 Pages

Loffreda, Beth. 2000. Losing Matt Shepard. New York, New York: Columbia University Press. The murder of Matt Shepard, and the reason for it, will be remembered.

Read More

Ethos Pathos And Logos

877 Words | 4 Pages

Sandberg says “Like me Gayle Tzemach Lemmon[….] was encouraged to prioritize marriage over career” (649). The essence of this argument is that people can easily be persuaded by having more than just Sandberg as an example of having to marry someone before getting a career. She also built the people’s credibility by stating Gayle is the deputy director of the Council on foreign relations’ women and foreign policy program. Sandberg mentioning the rank of Gayle in her profession shows that the opinion of someone with a higher status is more important than an ordinary person. As Hooks argues “Sandberg effectively uses her race and class power and privilege to promote a narrow definition of feminism” (662).

Read More

Analysis Of Steven Seidman's Revolt Against Sexual Identity

200 Words | 1 Pages

Steven Seidman’s Revolt Against Sexual Identity provides anecdotes that describe the liberation that comes with rejecting these norms, “...her identities as transgender, female,

Read More

How Did Silvia Rivera Influence The Stonewall Movement

1270 Words | 6 Pages

“The Gay Liberation Youth Movement in New York: "An Army of Lovers Cannot Fail" : Stephan Cohen : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming.” Internet Archive, 14 August 2019, https://archive.org/details/cohen-gylib. Accessed 23 March 2023. K, Kristi. “Something Like A Super Lesbian: Stormé DeLarverie (In Memoriam).”

Read More

What Is The Thesis For The New Jim Crow

439 Words | 2 Pages

I believe this book goes into deep discussions on how racism plays a big role in life no matter what it is. This book is also discussing about how President Obama has changed the Old Jim Crow and remodeled a new one. In result this book talks about the discrimination we still have in the world. The book has many points to read.

Read More

Analysis: The Dialetic Of Disco

1073 Words | 5 Pages

For example, many songs that are hailed as gay anthems in disco, one being ‘I Will Survive’ by Gloria Gaynor, are not explicitly about queer experiences, but the overall messages they relay and sometimes the singers behind the message hold the power. There is an idea of gay ‘knowingness’, expressed in The Dialetic of Disco, that reinforces this idea of the songs being important to queer culture but not necessarily directly about queer experience. Songs like ‘YMCA’ are much more popular with those who are not queer, but they fail to see the homosexual implications of its content. Contrast this to songs which are openly concentrated on the subject of being queer, especially in punk, such as ‘I’m Illegal’ by Team

Read More

Why Nice Guys Finish Last By Julia Serano

929 Words | 4 Pages

Serano effectively emphasizes herself being transsexual to make herself appear to have a broader, and unbiased, perspective on the way both men and women are treated, providing credibility to her large use of anecdotal evidence later in her essay. However, some may be unsatisfied in Serano’s omission of the limits of her knowledge, leading her audience to question the authority of her claims when blind spots in her knowledge exits. For example, to explain her ability to analyze the predator/prey mindset Serano explains, “In thinking about these issues, I

Read More

The Role Of Southern Lesbians In The 1940s And 1950s

766 Words | 4 Pages

While white lesbians like Boyd would be welcomed into Black bars and clubs , the reverse was not true; Black lesbians were typically not welcomed into white spaces and so they had the added task of creating their own spaces for socialization. Thus, race, as well as class and social status, were crucial factors in dictating the ways in which Southern lesbians and women loving women interacted with their same-sex attraction. This emphasizes the importance of considering different people of different backgrounds in the study of the queer South, as a person’s background helps shape their queer identity and

Read More

Theme Of Blues In Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man

928 Words | 4 Pages

In the article, “Blues as a Literary Theme,” Gene Bluestein asserts that the theme of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man is the blues. Not in the literal sense of the feeling, but in the sense of the musical genre and all that it has to offer. Through emphasizing the American mold “without a past or anterior folklore which will serve to define his national values and literary expression,” Bluestein argues that the narrator fit this mold and, therefore, depicted a lot of bluesy ideals. In other words, he argues that the narrator of Invisible Man incorporates little of his past life to show his creative expression through speech, and this parallels with the ideal American man that is emphasized in blues music.

Read More

Heroism In Christopher Isherwood's A Single Man

920 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine a homophobic world in which those who are different are forced to uphold a barrier for their emotions, to put their sexuality in a hole in fear of the consequences and to find a “cure” for this so-called disease. A world of which, did exist, in 1960s America, which coincidentally, was the era the novel was set in. The novel provides an insight of the ups and downs as homosexuals in a conservative time with a touch of despair in the equation. George Falconer, the protagonist in Christopher Isherwood’s “A Single Man” develops a coping mechanism for the grief, caused by the loss of his lover, Jim, as a gay white English male professor in 1960s America. Through its contrasting scenes in the absence or presence Jim, Isherwood’s “A Single Man” suggests that George has a critical view of the people around him as he sees himself as a minority which affects his thinking process.

Read More

Analysis Of Cycles Of Sameness And Difference In LGBT Social Movements

1040 Words | 5 Pages

This is namely in the fact that most literature reviews do not take up the entirety of the work. We also see that there is not much original data present in the work. Rather, the work pieces together theories, ideas, and trends from work within the same field with a focus on LGBT rights. In doing so, the article attempts to create a cohesive and chronological telling of LGBT movements, including the subcultures within the movement and the other social movements occurring at the same time, such as the feminist movement. In observing other articles within the Annual Review of Sociology, we see that this is actually not uncommon, however.

Read More

Desiree's Baby By Kate Chopin Analysis

999 Words | 4 Pages

It highlights the drastic differences in people’s lives just because of the color of their skin, the gender they were born, and most important, how much wealth they have. If you can pass for white, happen to be born a male, and have wealth, the world is your oyster to open. You can pluck the pearl from the safety of the oyster’s cavity and do with it what you will. Much like taking a young woman as your bride from another wealthy family and treating her as you wish, or buy a slave and separating that person from their family and treating them as you want. You can do almost anything you want, and very few people will question or care what you do.

Read More

Robin Thicke Blurred Lines Analysis

750 Words | 3 Pages

This song in particular is degrading to women, sending a negative message to them, possibly deeply impacting their views toward consent and their value as human beings. I believe that music does have the power to shape the perception of reality and society for individuals, as music is a form of art that expresses deep emotion. The emotion and catchy tunes behind music causes people to be moved by it, with people often getting very into what they listen to. Moreover, views repeatedly being expressed in different songs will cause people to begin to believe that what they are hearing is true, shaping their

Read More

Margaret Atwood The Edible Woman Analysis

3192 Words | 13 Pages

This novel follows the life of a recent college graduate, Marian MacAlpin, through her career and emotional maturation in a somewhat unnatural, if not threatening world. The queer concept of this world is branded by a spectrum of moral viewpoints of gender politics that manifest themselves and surround Marian. The political and cultural values and practices of a male dominated and sex driven society depicted in the novel are so strong that they seem to devour Marian physically and emotionally. She rebels against this cannibalistic, patriarchal society through a comestible mode and the end, reclaims her identity crisis by restoring her relationship with

Read More

More about Stone Butch Blues By LGBT Activist Leslie Feinberg

Related Topics

Open Document