(S)mother No More

Redefining the self without parental guidance in Stone Butch Blues

Jess Goldberg, the butch queer protagonist of Leslie Fienberg’s Stone Butch Blues, struggles to define hirself outside of hir parent’s conventional gender expectations. As a child, s-he is forced to make performative decisions that are socially acceptable to appease hir parent’s demands. Hir inability to perfectly perform an accepted gender role leaves bother hir parents’ and hir own desires unsatisfied. It is only after Jess rebels against hir parent’s expecations and refuses to perform the gender role forced upon hir that s-he begins to visualize a self outside of an Oedipal logic. Jess’s refusal to wear feminine clothing and her rebellious decision to wear a man’s suit mark the beginning of the construction of her new sexual identity. Jess breaks two symbolic thresholds. When Jess commits an act forbidden by her parent’s rules and enters her parent’s room, she crosses the threshold of filial disobedience; indeed, when Jess reaches into her father’s closet and takes out her father’s suit to wear, she crosses the threshold of visibility. For the first time, s-he can visualize the person s-he will become in the future. For the first time, s-he is satisfied. In the mirror, s-he finds hir self in hir act of Oedipal rebellion. Jess furthers her filial separation when she wears another man’s suit instead of her father’s suit. In another man’s suit, she creates a self-image outside of her father’s expectations. Jess is able to discover hir sexual identity through this act of rebellion. It is in this pivotal moment of self-recognition that Jess breaks away from hir dependence on hir parent’s gender expectations. I will show that a woman can only visualize and define hir sexual identity outside of an Oedipal logic after s-he commits an act of filial rebellion.