Thursday, February 10, 2011
Final Reflections on Stone Butch Blues
To conclude class today, I’d like you to post one last reflection on this novel to our course blog. Imagine you are writing a letter to Jess Goldberg to tell hir what you’ve gained by reading hir life story. What would you like to tell this character about what you’ve witnessed in the past few weeks? What lessons, insights, or questions will you take away from hir experiences? What perspectives did ze share with you that you found valuable, challenging, difficult, or uplifting? Why do you think you’re responding in the way that you are? Based on your experience as a reader, how might reading this novel change your own life or future actions? To help you get yourself in the right mindset, make sure and start your comment with "Dear Jess," ...
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Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteI am amazed by your inner strength and your ability to persevere through all the troubles you have faced. I admire your ability to continue to love and to continue to look for your place in the world. I've learned that I have absolutely nothing to lose by trying to be who I am and working to become who I want to be. I will face nowhere near the adversity and oppression you did, so I have no choice but to face my challenges head on. It's difficult for me to imagine the violence, oppression, and hate that you had to deal with every day. I am uplifted because if you continued to face life with optimism and open arms, it's possible that I can face the world the same way. I think that I face life with too much fear and self-consciousness so if you, who are so much more oppressed than myself, can present yourself without reservation, than I hope I can too. I hope that I can love as openly and completely as you do too. This novel encourages me to face life with more confidence and to persevere through the challenges that I come upon. I will learn to embrace and love people fully and to face my challenges head-on.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteYour story has both saddened and inspired me. I do not know if I could have survived all you did. Your story made me want to become more of an activist for the LGBT community and to learn more about gender identities. Although the lives of lesbian and gender queer women vary from how they were when you were growing up, your story has helped me feel proud to be bisexual and a member of the queer community. After all of your adversity you were still able to survive and prosper. I do not know if I could have done that in a body that was not explicitly male or female, as often I feel my femininity defines me in a way. Either way, you are a great inspiration to all women or people stuck somewhere on the fence about their gender. I will take the lessons I learned from your story to my grave. These lessons will live on influencing my life as I may meet androgynous or just different people. Thank you for everything you have taught me Jess!
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteReading about your story was both inspirational and eye-opening. I think it is truly amazing the way you dealt with the challenges thrown at you. No one's struggles are the same but yours have helped me understand that we all just need to find the strength inside and fight for what we think is right. Reading your story has opened my mind up to the struggles and feelings of the LGBT community. Everything you dealt with was truly heartbreaking, but you always kept your head up and kept at it. I have realized that we all have difficulties finding the "right person" one that will listen and care for us, and your story has shown me that we all have a hard time saying goodbye to those we love. Thank you so much for sharing your story and giving us hope and strength to work toward equality.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the risk and exposing your life story through the pages of your novel. It shows how far you have come. It is humbling to have read the tragedies that you experienced and inspiring that you still held onto a bit of hope throughout the way. I can not relate to the type of challenges you faced throughout your life, but I feel such empathy for your losses and struggles. You survived through experiences no one should have had to go through, and managed to use those times to learn and fight for change. You have shown such inner strength throughout your relationships and make me believe fully in the power of friendships and love. You are an encouragement that some people are good and will help to balance the inequalities that are normal of society. Your fight for connections and communication and interactions between people is the reason why being different can change the world. Thank you for your words.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteThe life story you have shared has been incredibly moving. Although it was challenging to fully grasp the struggles you have faced, I am grateful that you have shared them with such veracity. It has been truly eye-opening to see the struggles that people of the LGBTQ community have had to face in the past and continue to face in our modern day time. I admire that you were able to continuously triumph over all the adversity that most people would consider horribly unthinkable. Even with all of the obstacles you have faced, you were still able to live with integrity, compassion, and liberty. I wish you could see how far your efforts and support for individual rights have come, in our present day time. Although there is still oppression, we have come a long ways in granting rights and inclusiveness for the LGBTQ community. You have broadened my perspective, my understanding, and you have inspired me to forever stay strong and fight for my values no matter the circumstance. Your uplifting story will stay with me forever; I will know that no matter what obstacles come my way, that I will be able to persist through it; I will remember to be grateful for the things I have usually taken for granted; and I will remember that enduring hardships and being aware of social issues provides great leverage for speaking out and creating change for social justice.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteYour story has given me more insight into the discrimination and abuse that you and others in the LGBT community have faced than any historical document ever could. Your story is an extraordinary example of being grateful for what you have, and your journey to find comfort within your own body is not a lonely one. You’ve faced so much that I’ve realized how privileged I am a white, straight woman and that nothing I experience can be as terrible as the injustices you faced. Your resistance to cave under pressure is beyond inspiring and I wish you happiness in the rest of your life. You became an old soul at a very young age and you survived.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteYour story has enlightened my views on what the LBGTQQIA community goes through, although this wasn't an acronym during your time. It's amazing how much strength you had throughout all of the things you were put through in your life and it amazes me that you have stayed so strong. It has really showed me that although sometimes things seem rough in my life, it's important to be grateful for what I have because I don't go through the kinds of things that others do on a day-to-day basis. Privilege is not only wealth, but acceptance based on appearance. Despite the fact that this is a terrible way to view the world, everyone is judged prematurely because of what they wear and how they look physically, and so to be privileged is to be accepted before even beginning a conversation with a person. I know that I could never be strong enough to deal with the heartache and abuse you experienced, especially at such a young age, so you are not only a heroine, but an inspiration to all people who struggle and don't feel they can over come it.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteYour story, interwoven with personal experiences, has been incredibly eye-opening to me. I found it emotional, provocative, and inspiring. You provided rich historical detail of discrimination and prejudice as well as substantial reflections on the strength and time personal change and identity requires. My only critique would be that I had a hard time with the end of the novel. I felt that you made a jump to a place of peace and resolution when you moved to New York. Based on the extreme hardships and struggles you faced in the past, I had a hard time making the jump with you. I appreciate your bravery in sharing your voice and writing your story. It is among the ranks of other groundbreaking and significant stories of identity and discrimination. Thank you.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteI am amazed by the struggle you went through and your ability to still find humor and goodness within other humans after all you have been through. Your transitions across the gender binary have given me a lot of insight into how easily people can take the functions of society for granted if they fit in, but your life forced those processes out of invisibility. I think your life very much promoted visibility for issues found within the LGBTQQIA community and likely anyone who hears your story would desire transformation to correct the unequal outcomes of social arrangements through changing the underlying frameworks which generate such outcomes. It very much motivated me to grow in my challenging of the repressive discourses and practices through which life is made difficult fr those who do not pass as socieites most cherished versions of "normal". Thank you for your courage!
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ReplyDeleteDear Jess,
ReplyDeleteBy reading Stone Butch Blues, I feel as if i have gained a completely new perspective on the life of any member of the LGBTQ community. The hardships you went through, and the terrifying experiences you have overcome gives me great respect for you. But in turn with respect, comes concern. I wish taking the path you did in life did not have to be so strenuous and you did not have to suffer so much. From the novel, I took away the intense feeling of wanting equality for anyone, regardless of sex and gender, and also, I turned the final page wishing for more open-ness among people in modern day society. Although I may never experience the same hardships you have, I feel as if by reading Stone Butch Blues I had an eye-opening experience which engaged me in the LGBTQ world more than ever before. Thanks for allowing me to see this way of life through your perspective.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteYour story amazes me but not only that I have learned so much about LGBTQ and gained a whole new perspective on everything. I never would have thought that life would be so difficult for a transgender person I mean I knew it was hard but I would have never expected it to be this difficult for people. I can not believe the lack of knowledge and all the ignorance you described during the book. While reading your story I realized how easy it was for me and how sad that really did make me. However, I was so proud that at the end you finally came to realize what you really wanted and that you were willing to fight for others to be able to have the same feeling you did at the end. Jess I would like to say best of luck and that hopefully one day in the future people come to realize how cruel they are and that all this stops. Thank you for sharing your story with us.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteA trensexual friend recently sought me out. I knew him from my speech class in high school when I was a sophmore and he was a senior. He was Jennifer then and I was the only one in the class he would talk to. He identified as a lesbian at the time and after he graduated I heard that he was transitioning. While I read your book my thoughts went back to him. I knew he had a troubled home and that his girlfriend of the time did not treat him very well so I wondered about him a lot. I hoped he was doing fine. He recently contacted me and told me that he identifies as a gay man and that he is a recovering alcoholic and we talked about your story. He told me that your story guided him. I may not be trans, but I am a woman of a marginalized group. You helped open my eyes to the intricacies of silence. I have always been outspoken, but you've taught me the different ways silence can be empowering, helpful and/or harmful. Your story inspires me to do more. To challenge those around me. Now when people ask me if I feel pessimistic about the world changing, i think back to your story. I think that it is not about changing the world. And that it is not about changing yourself to fit into a community, rather changing your community to accept you. I was happy that he sought me out after all these years. It made me think of all the people that you reached out to and that I was not someone he felt that he had to apologize to, but thank for accepting him and be willing to understand him. Now I want to help do work so others can have that mindset as well. Thank you for your story, You have done great things with it.
Dear Jess,
ReplyDeleteReading your story has taught me so much about internal strength, resilience, and both the generosities and the hostilities that can be found within any given individual. It was difficult to read about all the atrocities that can and did happen to you in your life. Do you wish anything had been different for you growing up? How do you think your life would be different if you had been allowed to stay connected to the Indian family across the hall? I understand how easy it is to build a wall around yourself even to those people whom you’d like to share your life with. It was uplifting to know that through everything that can happen negatively to you that you can pull through and take something positive from it. Thank you for writing this book for the world at large to read. It helped teach myself and many others the importance about accepting others for everything that they are.