Cover of Butch Is a Noun

Butch Is a Noun

"Butch is a Noun is a book that a) should be required reading in any gender studies curriculum; b) femmes should read whenever they're feeling unloved, lonely, or misunderstood; c) butches should read; d) all of the above. The answer, of course, is d. Thank you, dear Bear."

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—Kate Bornstein, author of Gender Outlaw"Bear's poetry of butchness lets us see into facets of gender that usually aren't so transparent. And made me fall in love with butches all over again."

—Carol Queen, author of Real Live Nude Girl

Butch is a Noun, the first book by activist, gender-jammer, and performer S. Bear Bergman, won wide acclaim when published by Suspect Thoughts in 2006: a funny, insightful, and purposely unsettling manifesto on what it means to be butch (and not). In thirty-four deeply personal essays, Bear makes butchness accessible to those who are new to the concept, and makes gender outlaws of all stripes feel as though they have come home. From girls' clothes to men's haircuts, from walking with girls to hanging with young men, Butch is a Nounchronicles the perplexities, dangers, and pleasures of living life outside the gender binary. This new edition includes a new introduction by the author.

S. Bear Bergman is also the author of The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You(Arsenal Pulp Press, 2009). Ze is also a frequent university and college lecturer on issues relating to gender and sexuality.

Audience
adult
Length
medium · 223 pages

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Liked Butch Is a Noun? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Butch Is a Noun. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme Shares queer, LGBT, nonfiction
  2. Boys Like Her: Transfictions Shares queer, LGBT, gender
  3. S/He Shares queer, LGBT, nonfiction
  4. Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue Shares queer, LGBT, gender

“People who read Butch Is a Noun tend to reach for these next.”

  1. Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity
  2. The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader
  3. From the Inside Out: Radical Gender Transformation, FTM and Beyond
  4. PoMoSexuals: Challenging Assumptions About Gender and Sexuality

“If you want more of the same (lgbt), start with these.”

  1. Trans/Love: Radical Sex, Love & Relationships Beyond the Gender Binary
  2. Transmen and FTMs: Identities, Bodies, Genders, and Sexualities
  3. Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform
  4. Gender Failure

“If it was the queer that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Stone Butch Blues
  2. First Person Queer: Who We Are
  3. GenderQueer: Voices From Beyond the Sexual Binary
  4. Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Crybaby Butch
  2. Missed Her
  3. Beyond the Gender Binary
  4. Pregnant Butch: Nine Long Months Spent in Drag