New Scholar Program: I Have Stone Butch Blues

I Have Stone Butch Blues: Tracing the Publication Lineage of a Trans Bestseller

“I Have Stone Butch Blues” outlines the publication and distribution history of Leslie Feinberg’s groundbreaking 1993 novel and examines how this significant work of trans literature arises from and transforms lesbian publishing. Published in the height of 90s conflicts around trans-exclusion in lesbian spaces, the book became a massive success and cultural phenomenon, outselling the average Firebrand title 20 times over. I read Stone Butch Blues’s publication records, editorial correspondence, contracts, fanmail, desk copy requests, and marketing materials to analyze the components of a genre-changing independent press bestseller. The ways Stone Butch Blues has been distributed and read have a lot to teach us about how LGBT publishing has changed in the past thirty years and the ways that minoritized literary titles can signal changing political tides and new academic field formations. This bibliographic research illuminates the struggles, labor, and intersectional commitments behind the continued publication of this novel, offering a new perspective on its enduring legacy.

Cassandra Gillig is a writer and MFA/MA candidate in the Creative Non-fiction Program at Northwestern University. For work on Leslie Feinberg and Firebrand Books, Gillig was a 2024 Cornell University Zwickler Research fellow. Gillig’s project on Davina Anne Gabriel and TransSisters: The Journal of Transsexual Feminism received a 2025 KC Inspiration Grant and is part of the forthcoming book and digital archive An Era of Rights, published by the University of Missouri–Kansas City.