Stone Butch Blues Quotes

“Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Who was I now—woman or man? That question could never be answered as long as those were the only choices; it could never be answered if it had to be asked.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“If I'm not with a butch everyone just assumes I'm straight. It's like I'm passing too, against my will. I'm sick of the world thinking I'm straight. I've worked hard to be discriminated against as a lesbian.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I remembered what it was like to walk a gauntlet of strangers who stare—their eyes angry, confused, intrigued. Woman or man: they are outraged that I confuse them. The punishment will follow. The only recognition I can find in their eyes is that I am “other.” I am different. I will always be different. I will never be able to nestle my skin against the comfort of sameness.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“But very quickly I discovered that passing didn't just mean slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I’m not saying we’ll live to see some sort of paradise. But just fighting for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you for sure. Take a chance, Jess. You’re already wondering if the world could change. Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask yourself if that isn’t worth fighting for. You’ve come too far to give up on hope, Jess.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I felt as though I was rushing into a burning building to discover the ideas I needed for my own life.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I hurried out to the pond to catch polywogs in a jar. I leaned on my elbow and looked up close at the little frogs that climbed up on the sun-baked rocks.

"Caw, caw!" A huge black crow circled above me in the air and landed on a rock nearby. We looked at each other in silence.

"Crow, are you a boy or a girl?"

"Caw, caw!"

I laughed and rolled over on my back. The sky was crayon blue. I pretended I was lying on the white cotton clouds. The earth was damp against my back. The sun was hot, the breeze was cool. I felt happy. Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Everybody's scared, but if you don't let your fears stop you, that's bravery.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Surrendering is unimaginably more dangerous than struggling for survival.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless state between here and there.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“The loneliness became more and more unbearable. I ached to be touched. I feared I was disappearing and I'd cease to exist if someone didn't touch me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I know the difference between what I can't do and what I refuse to do.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I've been going to the library, looking up our history. There's a ton of it in anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven't always been hated. Why didn't we grow up knowing that?”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become.
All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“This is what courage is. It’s not just living through the nightmare, it’s doing something with it afterward. It’s being brave enough to talk about it to other people. It’s trying to organize to change things.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“When I was really small I thought I’d do anything to change whatever was wrong with me. Now I didn’t want to change, I just wanted people to stop being mad at me all the time.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“I’m sorry it’s had to be this hard. But if I hadn’t walked this path, who would I be? At the moment I felt at the center of my life, the dream still braided like sweetgrass in my memory. I remembered Duffy’s challenge. Imagine a world worth living in, a world worth fighting for. I closed my eyes and allowed my hopes to soar. I heard the beatings of wings nearby. I opened my eyes. A young man on a nearby rooftop released his pigeons, like dreams, into the dawn.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“When my alarm jangled in the morning, I awoke feeling small and terrified. I couldn't find myself in my own life—there was no memory of me that I could grasp. There was no place outside of me where I belonged. So every morning I willed myself back into existence.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Strength, like height, is measured by who you're standing next to.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Sometimes I feel like I’m choking to death on what
I’m feeling. I need to talk and I don’t even know how.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“The shades of gender in her voice were intricate, like mine.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“You made me ache and you liked that. So did I.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Since I had no words to bring the woman I loved so much, I gave her all my tenderness.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others... two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Oh, Ruth. I wish we had our own words to describe ourselves, to connect us.”
Ruth stood up and opened the broiler. “I don’t need another label,” she sighed. “I just am what I am. I call myself Ruth. My mother is Ruth Anne; my grandmother was Anne. That’s who I am. That’s where I come from.”
I shrugged. “I don’t want another label either. I just wish we had words so pretty we’d go out of our way to say them out loud.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“Are you with women who only bleed monthly on their cycles?”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues

“My eyes filled with tears. "Ruth, there's flowers in my salad."
Ruth smiled. "Those are nasturtium. They're beautiful, aren't they?"
"Can I eat them?" She nodded. I shook my head. "I hate to eat this. It's like a work of art."
Ruth sat down next to me. "That's part of how starved you've been. I think you're afraid this is the last beautiful thing that's going to happen to you, and you want to hold onto it."
"How did you know that?"
Ruth smiled. "I'm your neighbor. It's a wonderful salad, Jess. I made it just for you to enjoy. But the next one will be luscious, too.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Stone Butch Blues