Stone Butch Blues

Jess is ecstatic the first time she is able to pass as a man at the barber’s shop. Jess also gets a job at a new plant, where she passes as male. By a quirk of fate, she runs into Gloria and the kids. Scotty and Kim recognize her and are thrilled to see her, asking “Do you still love me” (174). Jess answers, “More than ever” (174), but Gloria is horrified by Jess’s transition and tells Jess to get away from them and stay away from them.

Jess gets a job as a mechanic and life seems more sedate now that she passes for male. Still, she worries about being harassed by the cops, and being stopped and asked for her license, which marks her as female. Because of this, she decides to undergo breast surgery. The medical procedure is brief, with her regular doctor not even attending and offering no follow-up care. Once she is finally recovered, she calls her friend Edwin, only to learn that Ed has committed suicide. Disconsolate, Jess rushes to Theresa’s house and another woman opens the door. Jess turns away, feeling empty and alone.

On the job, Jess befriends an older man, Ben, who has had a checkered past and needs someone to talk to. Ben’s troubled youth culminated in a brief stint in jail; Ben tells Jess this one night, at a bar. He talks about his life in present day, as well, and worries about his daughter, who has Downs Syndrome. Jess is acutely aware that Ben wants her to reciprocate and tell him more about herself, but she doesn’t.

Jess meets an attractive waitress, Annie, at the local spot where Jess goes for coffee and a danish. Jess finds it strange to be able to flirt or ask someone out in public and for others watching to not be offended. Annie agrees to a date and Jess quickly gets to know Annie’s daughter, Kathy. Without Jess revealing anything more about her identity, the two of them sleep together. Jess decides to end their relationship when they attend a wedding and Annie lashes out about some “faggots” who are also there (195). Jess is shocked and appalled and ends the relationship quickly.

Jess’s union organizing continues at her new job, where she is well liked and feels secure, now that she is passing. She makes friends with a fellow organizer, Bolt, and is excited when her old friend Frankie shows up on the job as a new recruit. It remainsa happy reunion until Frankie introduces Jess to her lover, a woman named Johnny,whom Jess already knows. Jess is sure at first that there must be a mistake because Frankie and Johnny are both butch lesbians. She tells Frankie she can’t understand, and Frankie asks her to accept it, even if she can’t understand. Jess refuses to do so.

Another old friend also appears: Jess’s fellow union organizing associate, Duffy. Duffy is thrilled to see Jess and begins to sing Jess’s praises to the other employees. It is then that he makes a serious blunder, using the wrong pronoun when he is describing Jess. When he calls Jess “she,” Jess knows her time at that job is done. 

At the grocery store one day, Jess runs into the woman she once lusted after, Edna. The two catch up and they both admit to feeling like ghosts, Jess because she is passing as a man and Edna because she feels she doesn’t have a clear place in the women’s liberation movement. They are both alone and find solace in each other. Their relationship becomes sexual and Jess begins writing her poetry and bringing her flowers. Edna ends the relationship, saying she needs time to be alone.