#i hope i helped anon; i'm no Master Historian by any means

[stonebutch]

Hey there I love your blog! I just finished Stone Butch Blues, I was wondering, are there any other books about our history? It resonated with me so much and has taught me so much, and I want to learn more

hello!! thank you for reaching out! there are many many books about butches, femmes, and lesbians throughout history. my schooling was more specific to medieval history so unfortunately i don’t have a lot of academic resources in this area. i’m always collecting sources though! the below links aren’t specifically only books.

@/persistentlyfem’s butchxfem history tag (here)

hell, anything on that blog is a great resource - and has links to other places for resources. if you’re interested in old fashion old school (OFOS) things, this is a great blog too. personally, connecting with OFOS behaviour and fashion has helped my femme and i come into our own understanding of what butch and femme means to us.

minne bruce pratt’s books (here) - she was the spouse of feinberg!

there’s this google drive (here) and its parent branch (here) with a lot of saved PDFs of zines and books and essays. judith butler is on there as are several others. credit to tumblr user @/fegeleh!

i’d highly recommend pursuing it because, as you’ll see, butch and femme history is intertwined with the history of the Black rights movement, the antiprison movement, and i’d really recommend perusing their feminism/womanism/Black feminism folder as well. seek out Black lesbians and read what they’ve written and listen to what they have to say. there’s plenty on tumblr alone!

transgender libration: a movement whose time has come by leslie feinberg (pdf here and here) 

@/lesbianherstorian (here) has sources for decades upon decades of lesbian content, not specifically butch or femme, but worth checking out regardless!

this interview with stormé delarvarie (here) and more info about stormé (here) and (here)

if you find a copy the video gender troubles: the butches is apparently really great - i can’t personally vouch for it because i haven’t found a way to p*rate am*zon video, so. the second i do you bet your ass i’m uploading that to g*ogle dr*ve.

a great list of Black feminist books (here)

some academic sources i’ve found but can’t personally recommend as i haven’t read them: note that i have used sci-hub to make them free but if it doesn’t work let me know and i’ll upload them to a drive:

butch between the wars: a pre-history of butch style in twentieth-century literature, music, and film (here)

the return of butch and femme: a phenomenon in lesbian sexuality of the 1980s and 1990s (here)

butches, femmes, and feminists: the politics of lesbian sexuality (here)

again, i have not vetted the above articles. if you want to find more of your own, go to jstor, search for butch and/or femme, find the direct link to whatever article you want, and enter the link into sci-hub for the free PDF. download.

ultimately, when you’re reading about our history, it’s important to keep some questions at the forefront of your mind.

does this author value trans women? does this author include trans women?

does this author recognize and understand how trans women have built our broader community, have fought for our lives and our rights?

does this author value Black lives?

does this author value Black lesbians, studs, stem lesbians? does this author respect Black lesbians?

does this author recognize and understand how important Black lesbians are to the community?

does this author acknowledge the intersections of being Black, trans, and a lesbian?

make sure that whatever you’re reading doesn’t use t/rf and f/cist buzzwords, but that should go without saying.

good luck on your journey!