LGBTQIA+ Havurah 6/9

Questions for discussion: (From source sheet by Dan Finkel)

• What possible motivations could Yitro (Jethro) have had for giving this unsolicited advice to Moshe?
• As an elder - or a younger- or somewhere in between! - of our community, what do you appreciate about the way this advice was delivered? Is there anything you would do differently?

From the article "Embracing Butch" in Guernica Magazine, by Eliza Kostelanetz Shrader published May 5, 2021

Today, there is considerably more space to be in-between or gender non-conforming than there was in the ’60s and ’70s, when much of Stone Butch Blues takes place; more too than in 1993, the year the book was published, or even as recently as five years ago. In fact, Feinberg was writing about what it meant to be nonbinary before it was a recognized term or identity in the white Western world (though it has existed throughout time, and of course is more or less accepted depending on a person’s location and identity markers). While binaries (cis/trans man, cis/trans woman) were very much the norm when I was finding my way in the queer world, more and more people are now identifying as nonbinary, and/or as they/them—and seem to be finding acceptance, or at least acknowledgement. There is also more recognition of a continuum between gender non-conforming and trans, acknowledging a connection between those of us who live outside gender norms and those who identify as trans, and/or who medically transition.

As I read and reread Stone Butch Blues, I wish Jess could know how beautiful she is, and that I could transport her to a time and place where her in-betweenness could be better appreciated. I want to tell my younger self how beautiful she was, too: that my short, styled hair, sports bra-bound chest, and men’s clothing needn’t have been a costume I only wore in the queer world. That I didn’t need to put on a skirt to go out to dinner with my grandfather when I was in college, or try to look less masculine when I traveled home from San Francisco in my early twenties. (This attempted butch obfuscation wasn’t working anyway; when I wore a skirt I looked both awkward and miserable.) It took me years to stop the masquerade. But even then, I would have blanched if someone called me butch. In his iconic 1998 book Female Masculinity, theorist Jack Halberstam writes about encountering “butch-phobia” when trying to get drag performers to cop to their butch identity: “Even drag kings who wore drag on- and offstage and who had very boyish or mannish appearances would not identify as butch.”

Questions for discussion:

- What resonates with you about what this author learned from reading her predecessor's account of butch identity?

- Have you ever read an account of LGBTQIA+ identity from the past that inspired you?

Note: more nuanced and literal translations of Hebrew words into English are included in parentheses above.

Questions for discussion:

• Transmitting information from generation to generation with high fidelity is tough - what guidelines are provided for that process in this text? Are they good guidelines?
• What differences in understanding of the text do you see from the italicized nuances?
• What specific resonance do you find in this text for the LGBTQIA+ community?

Note: more nuanced and literal translations of Hebrew words into English are included in parentheses above.

Questions for discussion:

• Transmitting information from generation to generation with high fidelity is tough - what guidelines are provided for that process in this text? Are they good guidelines?
• What differences in understanding of the text do you see from the italicized nuances?
• What specific resonance do you find in this text for the LGBTQIA+ community?

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יהוה אֱלהֵינוּ מֶלֶך הָעולָם משנה הבריות
Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the Universe, who makes creatures different.
Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu melech ha-olam, m’shaneh habriyot.

- This blessing dates back to the Talmud. What do you think?