Masculinity, this book will claim, becomes legible as masculinity where and when it leaves the white male middle-class body.
-- Jack Halberstam (author) (chapter 1 paragraph 2)

Importance: One of the main themes of Female Masculinity is that masculinity is legible and valid outside of maleness. Importantly, then, Halberstam argues, masculinity can only be defined when it leaves the dominant bodies of white, middle class males. Otherwise, one risks equating the traits of white, middle class males with masculinity.

It happened that green a crazy summer when Frankie was twelve years old. This was the summer when for a long time she had not been a member. She belonged to no club and was a member of nothing in the world. Frankie was an unjoined person who hung around in doorways, and she was afraid.
-- Narrator of Carson McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding (chapter 1 paragraph 2)

Importance: Although tomboy narratives are not Halberstam's focus, the description of a masculine female as "unjoined" recurs throughout Female Masculinity. Masculine females, especially once they...