Butch-Femme.com Members can review these books or any book or film of interest to Queers in our Interactive Media Reviews section.

The Little Butch Book by Leslea Newman
The author of the Femme Mystique explores butch issues.
ISBN: 0934678960 /Publisher: New Victoria /Pub Date: October 1998

The Last Time I Wore a Dress by Daphne Scholinsky and J.M. Adams
Account of a butch artist who spent years of her youth hospitilized for gender disorder. "Treatment" required she learn to love makeup and feminine attire.
ISBN: 1573226963 /Publisher: Riverhead Books /Pub. Date: October 1998 /

Stonebutch Blues by Leslie Feinberg
This compelling and heart-rendering first novel follows the coming of age of a transgendered, working-class butch who at one point transitions into a man. The novel describes the emotional struggles of a butch child, the treatment of queers in bars being raided, and the complications of changing sex during the burgeoning feminist era.
ISBN: 156341029X /Publisher: Firebrand /Pub. Date: March 1993

Crystal Diary by Frankie Hucklenbroich
Frankie Hucklenbroich's razor-edged, compelling, often wryly humorous story hustles us from the blood-and-beer-drenched corners of her St. Louis meat-packing district '5Os youth, through the sex-soaked Hollywood alleys of her '6Os baby butch years, into the druggy metropolis of '70s San Francisco.
ISBN: 1563410826 /Publisher: Firebrand /Pub. Date: February 1997

Nearly Roadkill by Kate Bornstein and Caitlin Sullivan
What-appears-to-be Boy meets what-appears-to-be Girl in the world of the Net where any persona--and any gender--can be created. They pose as a host of different personalities, switiching identities and genders as quickly as they create passwords. Named Scratch and Winc, these two genderless beings cybersurf into the various worlds of the Net as they fight government intervention in the last free frontier.
ISBN: 1852424184 /Publisher: Serpents T /Pub. Date: June 1996

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
Timeless struggle of a butch and femme couple to be accepted by "polite" society. This now classic was banned outright upon publication in 1928.
ISBN: 0385416091 /Publisher: Doubleday /Pub. Date: October 1928

Patience & Sarah by Isabel Miller
In an early puritanical New England town, a butch and femme fall in love and discover they can run a farm and live together away from the world that sought to limit them and their love.
ISBN: 0449210073 /Publisher: Fawcett Book Group /Pub. Date: December 1989

Lucy & Mickey by Red Jordan Arobateau
Both deeply philosophical and powerfully erotic. Most of all, this novel is about Mickey, a pugnacious butch who trades her powerlessness on the streets for prowess between the sheets.
ISBN: 1563333112 /Publisher: Masquerade Books /Pub. Date: June 1995

Rough Trade by Red Jordon Arobateau
Erotic stories about butches, femmes, queer bars, and gender fucks.
ISBN: 1563334704 /Publisher: Masquerade Books /Pub. Date: December 1996

Jesse's Song by Chea Villanueva
Unforgettable taste of rebellious butches, queer Guardian Angels, and their colorful lesbian street life.
ISBN: 1563332353 /Publisher: Masquerade Books /Pub. Date: February 1995

Bulletproof Butches by Chea Villanueva
Fiction and poetry from one of lesbian literature's most uncompromising voices. Never afraid to address the harsh realities of working-class lesbian life, Chea Villanueva charts territory frequently overlooked in the age of lesbian chic.
ISBN: 1563335603 /Publisher: Masquerade Books /Pub. Date: November 1997

Beebo Brinker by Ann Bannon
Dimestore novel from the 50's about an alienated butch. First book of it's kind published, and still in print!
ISBN: 0930044878 /Publisher: Naiad Press /Pub. Date: July 1988

Old Dyke Tales by Lee Lynch
Short stories of old by the prolific lesbian story-teller.
ISBN: 0930044517 /Publisher: Naiad Press /Pub. Date: July 1988

Macho Sluts by Pat Califia
Erotic short stories with butch-femme and S/M themes.
ISBN: 155583115X /Publisher: Alyson Publications /Pub. Date: April 1989

Doc and Fluff by Pat Califia
Set in the bleak and not-too-distant future of a culture in its death throes, Doc and Fluff careens through the adventures of an an outlaw butch biker and a femme struggling to survive on the road. Packed with true love, and rough sex.
ISBN: 1555833691 /Publisher: Alyson Publications /Pub. Date: May 1996

Doing it for Daddy by Pat Califia
Short and sexy fiction about a very forbidden fantasy. Crosses queer butch culture in for both fags and dykes.
ISBN: 155583227X /Publisher: Alyson Publications /Pub. Date: December 1994


Tomboys!: Tales of Dyke Derring-Do edited by Lynne Y. Fletcher & Karen Barber
This collection of childhood rememberances will help find the tomboy in all of us. Whether you just liked to climb trees, or were an all-out gun-toting, bike-riding, never-wear-a-dress homerun hitter, you will find yourself laughing and crying.
ISBN: 1555832857 /Publisher: Alyson Publications /Pub. Date: November 1995

Restricted Country by Joan Nestle
Short, touching autobiographical stories on desire, gender, and love by a famous femme historian.
ISBN: 0932379370 /Publisher: Firebrand Books/ Pub. Date: June 1989

Persistent Desire: a Butch-Femme Reader edited by Joan Nestle
This anthology of stories, poems, and nonfiction accounts pays homage to a host of femme and butch relationships that have flourished over four decades. Butch and femme narrators recount their experiences to insure that the integrity and diversity of our relationships and history will not be lost.
ISBN: 1555831907 /Publisher: Alyson Publications/ Pub. Date: June 1992

The Femme Mystique by Leslea Newman
Explores aspects of Femme life from many different viewpoints encompassing every inch of Femme expression, from the casual Femme to the lipstick-toting, stiletto-wearing High Femme.
ISBN: 1555832555 /Publisher: Alyson Publications /Pub. Date: June 1995

Butch/Femme: Theorizing Lesbian Genders edited by Sally Munt
A collection of essays by British and North American academics, writers, and artists who attempt to think creatively about butch-femme in a way that honors the intimacy of the designation. Combines traditional academic pieces with poetry, autobiography, fiction, interviews, and photography.
ISBN: 0304339598 /Publisher: Cassell Academic /Pub. Date: March 1998

S/HE by Minnie Bruce Pratt
This is a richly lyric memoir in which Pratt, a femme, peels back daily life to reveal how many fears, hopes, desires and expectations wriggle through our consciousness to coalesce as gender, primarily focusing on lesbian desire.
ISBN: 1563410591 /Publisher: Firebrand /Pub. Date: February 1995

Boots of Leather, Slippers of Gold edited by E. Kennedy & M. Davis
A ground-breaking account of the growth of the lesbian community in Buffalo, New York from the mid-1930s to the early 1960s. Drawing on oral histories collected from 45 women, it is the first comprehensive history of a working-class butch-femme community.
ISBN: 0140235507 /Publisher: Viking Penguin /Pub. Date: March 1994

Nothing But the Girl edited by Susie Bright and Jill Posner
Excellent esays in a photo album containing many contemporary images of butches and femmes.
ISBN: 01860470017 /Publisher: Freedom Editions/ Pub. Date May 1996

Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers by Lillian Faderman
Using journals, unpublished manuscripts, songs, novels, medical literature, and numerous interviews, the author relates a rich tapestry of lesbian and butch-femme history. This book recieved excellent reviews.
ISBN: 0231074883 /Publisher: Columbia Univ. Press /Pub. Date: May 1991

Femme: Feminists, Lesbians, and Bad Girls by L. Harris and E. Crocker
One of the first books with essays examining femme gender as a distinct and seperate identity from butch.
ISBN: 041591874X /Publisher Routledge /Pub. Date: August 1997

The Lesbian Erotic Dance by Joann Loulan and Sherry Thomas
Subtitled: Butch, Femme, Androgyny and Other Rhythms, this is a review of roles and lesbian desire.
ISBN: 0933216769 /Publisher: Spinsters Ink /Pub. Date: March 1991

Dagger: On Butch Women by Lily Burana, Roxxie, and Linnea Due
Photos, poems, stories, accounts, essays, and interviews with and/or about butches and femmes.
ISBN: 0939416824 /Publisher: Cleis Press /Pub. Date: March 1994

Butch/Femme by M. G. Soares, with Judy Grahn and Nisa Donnelly
Presents a collection of thoughts and photos celebrating the gender roles, erotic desires, and self-perceptions of butches and femmes. Modern photos.
ISBN: 0517702223 /Publisher: Crown Publishing /Pub. Date: September 1995


In You, I Am by Chrystos
Poetry by a powerful femme of color, describing desire and alienation.
ISBN: 088974033X /Publisher: Lpc Inbook /Pub. Date: November 1993

Deisel Fuel by Pat Califia
Poetry both lyrical and gritty by a famous butch bottom in San Francisco.
ISBN: 1563335352 /Publisher: Masquerade Books /Pub. Date: April 1997


Masculinizing Hormonal Therapy for the Transgendered by Sally Kirk, MD
This book contains the latest and most accurate information on Masculinizing Hormonal Therapy for the non-operative, pre- or post-operative transgendered individual. Based on the world-wide literature and her experience in private practice specializing in transgender medical care.
ISBN: 1887796029 /Publisher: Together Lifeworks /Pub. Date: June 1997

Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, & the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
Bornstein considers herself a gender outlaw because she breaks the laws of nature. A former heterosexual male and now a femme lesbian woman, Bay Area Reporter writer, and actress who has appeared on talk shows, she has completed the transsexual process, including surgery.
ISBN: 0679757015 /Publisher: Random House /Pub. Date: March 1995

Transgendered Warriors by Leslie Feinberg
The first and only fully illustrated transgender history.
ISBN: 0807079413 /Publisher: Beacon Press /Pub. Date: May 1997

FTM: Female to Male Transexuals in Society by Holly Devor
Compilation of indepth interviews and research from the lives of FTMs and transgendered butches, tracing the everyday and significant events that coalesce in FTM identity, culminating in gender and sex transformation.
ISBN: 0253336317 /Publisher: Indiana Univ. Press /Pub. Date: September 1997