34 pages • 1 hour read
Leslie FeinbergStone Butch Blues
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1993A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Jess’s Turquoise Ring
The Dineh elder that watches Jess when she is very young gives her a turquoise ring to remember her by when Jess’s parents abruptly end the relationship. The ring becomes a kind of talisman for Jess. Wearing it or even just having it gives her a sense of empowerment. When it is stolen by the cops who attack her, she is devastated—it is as if they have stolen an essential secret part of Jess.
Jess’s Motorcycle
When Jess amasses enough savings from her union job, she buys herself a motorcycle. In addition to obviously giving her greater mobility, it also makes her feel more at home in her butch identity. More than once, she is able to evade cops that haunt the gay bars looking to harass patrons by jumping on her motorcycle. The motorcycle also attracts the attention of women she is interested in. When Jess moves to New York City, she has to get rid of her motorcycle and instead travels by subway. It is a tough adjustment for her and she is later attacked by teens on the subway and ends up with a broken jaw.
Clothes
Clothes are a major issue in the book for Jess and others. In her childhood, Jess is drawn to men’s clothes. When she tries wearing them as a minor, her parents commit her to a mental hospital. Later, with Butch Al’s help, she is able to find suits that she can wear that make her feel true to herself. Jess’s friends are angry with her when she refuses to wear a dress to Butch Ro’s funeral and it is clear from the Ro’s relatives’ behavior that Jess’s “deviant” wardrobe enrages them. Later, Jess decides to take hormones partly because she is not willing to dress feminine in order to get a job.
Bathrooms
On the job, Jan and Jess watch out for one another when it comes to bathroom use. They both experience harassment and intimidation as women run out of the bathroom when they enter and men run in to try and drag them out. Using the women’s room is dangerous but so is using the men’s room; Jess tries to use the latter when she is taking hormones. Not neatly fitting into a binary group makes this basic functional a dangerous activity. Using a public restroom is so dangerous, in fact, that Ruth and Jess decide to avoid rest stops altogether on their road trip home and just go wherever they can.
Books
Friends and lovers share books or gift books to one another throughout the novel. Edwin gives Jess a copy of W.E.B. Du Bois’s Souls of Black Folks in order to better illuminate the struggle of African Americans. Duffy gives Jess the autobiography of Mother Jones because he wants to encourage Jess to become a union organizer and labor activist. Theresa shares a copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves with Jess as she tries to communicate to Jess what the goals are of the women’s liberation movement and why she finds them so vital.
