Jess Goldberg

The protagonist and narrator of Stone Butch Blues. The novel is her autobiography from birth to early middle age.

From a childhood of shame and ridicule for simply being herself - a girl with too many masculine characteristics for society's taste - to an adolescence and young adulthood marred with beatings and rapes, Jess is a walking contradiction, a tough and taciturn butch on the outside, frozen with helplessness and terror on the inside. Jess is no coward, but the implicit and explicit messages of hate she receives nearly every day hardens the stone around her heart because of the human reflex to protect oneself. Unfortunately, this impulse is difficult to turn off, even with lovers.

When Jess makes the most important decision in her adult life - taking male hormones in order to pass as a man, it separates her from the Buffalo gay community and...