S/HE by Minnie Bruce Pratt

S/HE

by Minnie Bruce Pratt

1995, Firebrand Books

189 Pages


From the Introduction

The stories that follow are part of a new theory about that complexity which is appearing at the intersections: between the feminism of U.S. women's liberation; the writings of women of color nationally and internationally; the queer ideas of lesbian, gay, and bisexual liberation; and the emerging thought of transgender liberation - a movement that embraces drag queens and kings, transsexuals, cross-dressers, he-shes and she-males, intersexed people, transgenderists, and people of ambiguous, androgynous, or contradictory sex and gender. These intersections make clear that every aspect of a person's gender expression and sex will not be consistently either masculine or feminine, man or woman. I find many layers of my own experience in this theory, and I find an exhilaration at the connections between myself and others as I see, with increasing clarity, how gender oppression and liberation affect everyone, how my struggle as a woman and a lesbian overlaps and joins with the struggles of other gender and sexually oppressed people. A friend of mine has said of this exhilaration: "It's like being released from a cage I didn't know I was in."


Table of Contents

I.
Pink Cress, Women's Dance, Sister, White Camellias, Pocket Watch, Barbed Wire, Steam Heat, Rock. Cornfield

II
Roses, Fist, Closed Door, Mama, Green Scarf, Vera

III
The Old Days, Drag Bar, Camisole, Boots, Marks, Sugar Tit, Beard, Ashes, Pa, Marriage Proposal, Engagement Ring, New Year's Eve, Lunch, Paint, Cookpot, Husband

IV
Lipstick, River Bend, Cafe Paradiso, School, Folding Fan, Penis, Fuck, Cock, Mimosa

V
Perfume, Handcuffs, Camouflage, The Ritz, Pillow Talk, Frostbite, Lust, Jellyfish, Fear, ID, Thaw, Greed, Kisses, Marital Arts

VI
Bare Feet, Tattoos, Drag Show, Housework, Earbobs, Boy, Blade, Palace

VII
Stripped, Sunglasses, Art Gallery, Bathroom, Border, Profits, Stone Home