Stone Beach

Stone Butch Blues is a novel by Leslie Feinberg. Written from the perspective of stone butch lesbian Jess Goldberg, it intimately details her life in the last half of the 20th century in New York. While fictional, the work takes large inspiration from Feinberg's lived experiences, describing it as "Like my own life, this novel defies easy classification. If you found Stone Butch Blues in a bookstore or library, what category was it in? Lesbian fiction? Gender studies? [...] this book is a lesbian novel and a transgender novel—making 'trans' genre a verb, as well as an adjective." They also describes it as their "call to action." While Stone Butch Blues is a heavy read as noted by its advisory warning, it is frequently discussed as an essential work for LGBT communities, as it "never shies away from portraying the anti-Semitism, classism, homophobia, anti-butch animus, and transphobia that protagonist Jess Goldberg faced on a daily basis—but it also shows the healing power of love and political activism."