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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2008)
MARCH 21, 2008 |l books Read All About It Recent titles examine butch identity, family-of-origin disputes Butch Is a Noun Bear Burgman. The book brings together a collection of stories and chose to refer to hutches with gender-neutral pronouns unless ze knew the pronoun preference of a specific butch. My main critique of the text was that the same thing was not done for femmes, instead of the blanket assumption that all use female pronouns. Beyond that, Burgman humorously writes about everything from the awk ruminations about hir life, experiences and identities as a butch. wardness of buying hir first boxer briefs to the experience of filling volume, Silva creates (Burgman prefers the gender-neutral pronouns “hir” and “ze.”) out a bridal registry with hir now wife. Seamlessly weaving together accounts of hir history, family, sexuali Burgman describes how Butch Is a Noun is intended to provide a voice for the butch community’s diversity, and while I think ze falls short of this noble aspiration—the book more accurately could be fully imaginable worlds that live all the more by S. Bear Burgman; Suspect Thoughts Press, 2006; $16.95 softcover Butch Is a Noun is a collection of short stories by butch author S. ty, butch/femme dynamics and gender theory, Burgman carries read ers along through pieces that challenge the definitions and bound aries of what it means to be butch. As a femme who loves hutches, I read this brxik with considered a collection of stories about what it means to Burgman to have a butch identity, as opposed to some sort of universal butch great excitement, and ness—there is larger cultural power and importance to the text. The without a doubt 1 was author honestly brings readers into hir life, sharing with them the not disappointed. intimate details of what butchness means to hir. Furthermore, Butch she works on the case of one lesbian mother’s legal rights against another’s. In a slim paperback distinctive in their juxtaposition. The Bay Area details, including the loneliness of Sousa’s spare studio apart- -* ment and neighborhood cafe, stand starkly against the ancestral One of the most Is a Noun joins a fine tradition of texts that provide visibility to connections of the vibrant Baobique. The sometimes uncomfort able distance between characters is best understood in terms of Sousa’s inability to coalesce her identities: “When 1 left my uncle’s house that trip, running back to my United States so the part of me interesting and pow those in butch/femme relationships, which are too frequently con that was gay could think straight, 1 left behind the part that was erful aspects of Butch sidered relics of the past by modem queer communities. Baobiquen, as if removing one layer of myself to save another.” A tumultuous relationship between Sousa and the daughter of a —Sassafras Lowrey Is a Noun is the way family rival gives the novel a sexy edge—one of which readers’, no which Burgman bridges the theoreti A Simple Distance doubt, would enjoy more. The constant movement of the charac cal by K.E. Silva; Akashic Books, 2006; $14.95 softcover ters, between the United States and the island and between differ in divide between ent locales of family importance on the island, shows that coming butch and trans com out to your family is not a simple, one-time-only trip to make. munities, giving voice There is nothing simple about the distances described in K.E. to the many trans Silva’s debut novel. A young lesbian lawyer living in San Francisco, Silva has created a smart and heartfelt novel that speaks to press people who also maintain a tight Silva’s main character, Jean Sousa, is forced to traverse the distance between the United States and Baobique, her family’s fictional is ing issues of race in the United States, family-of-origin disputes and fear of intimacy. Whether we read more about Sousa in the future hold on their butch land home. On the island, she faces the distance set by a homopho or discover other worlds of Silva’s imagination, we can look forward identities. Driving bic ruling class and her personal struggles with love and acceptance. to another great read. this point home, ze Back home, the distance between right and wrong is examined as gender —Malka Geffen © Profile Theatre Presents - Landscape of the Body By John Guare March 8 - April 6, 2008 APRIL 17 • SCHNITZER HALL profil e A Cv à Theatre 503.242.0080 Buy your tickets online now! www.profiletheatre.org Theater! Theatre! ■ 3430 SE Belmont Street ™™ £ \ E3SLIVEnnTIOn.com Tickets available online at ticketmaster com and livenation com. at all Ticketmaster outlets. or charge by phone (503) 224-4400 Be offer a relationship instead of a one night stand. Media Sponsor: just out ticketmaster tf/ffffait/fTW hjj ij ui . i . i
