Dear Editor,
Thanks so much for having your sassy writer Mary Sarsfield do an interview with me for Issue 15! There’s something I forgot to tell her though, a little bit of history of cross-dressing in Buffalo.
In the historical fiction novel Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg, the author follows the difficult life of hir character, Jess Goldberg, who was a butch lesbian growing up in Buffalo in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Like me, she wears men’s clothes, has a man’s haircut and loves other women. Jess dropped out of a high school where she was not accepted, and ran away from parents who refused to understand her. She found the butch community at bars; finally other women who she could relate to. They slicked back their short hair and wore sport coats as they chatted with femmes over a beer.
Feinberg goes on to describe the abuses that happened at the hands of police in this city, in bars on Chippewa or on the East side. There used to be a law about wearing at least three articles of clothing from your own sex. The cops loved that law—it let them raid bars, humiliate everyone inside, and then take them to jail overnight, where guards beat them, forced them to perform oral sex and raped them, all the while calling the prisoners “perverts”. If you weren’t white, or were white but were friends with people who weren’t (“Traitor!”), the punishment was even worse. Those experiences are part of why the book’s entitled Stone Butch Blues; the shame the masculine women were dealt by the police made them go stone. They could no longer express their feelings. The story also rings true for feminine men and drag queens.
I keep that in mind when I perform drag in Buffalo. I can’t help but think that if I tried to live my life like I do now 40 years ago, I would be beaten and raped by the people supposed to “protect and serve.” I’m so grateful for what those pioneers endured so that I could live more freely.
Sincerely,
Jim Klass
Class of ‘08
PS: You can catch my shows now every third Saturday at Ms. Kitty’s or most Thursdays at Roxys!
Dear Generation,
Can somebody please tell me exactly what purpose “Stopping the Suicidal” served?
OK, Peter Scheck, we get it. There are killers on the loose, they’re coming after us, gun control laws won’t stop them, but cars kill people too! We’re all doomed!
Mr. Scheck, I don’t know your experience with suicide, or depression. But as someone who has felt the ripple effects of both, I must ask, how dare you say that an emergency text response system is “all we can do?” The truth is, the American College Health Association estimates that 15% of college students suffer from depression; other sources predict numbers even higher. And while suicide is the third leading cause of death among 15-24 year-olds, depression remains one of the most underrated ailments on college campuses. Whether we like it or not, there is still a stigma associated with mental illness to this day, as well as a prevailing ignorance regarding the signs and symptoms of depression (which is a physical illness as much as it is psychological). What we need is a nationwide effort to eliminate both. It may not be a complete cure, but hey—it’s a start!
And there are, in fact, many lessons to be learned from the Northern Illinois University tragedy, as well as Virginia Tech, Columbine, and even Timothy McVeigh. Instead of lining up to “piss our insides” on these killers, maybe we should stop and hear them out. Marilyn Manson said that if he was given the chance to speak with the Columbine killers, he wouldn’t. He would just listen, because, as Manson believes, “that’s what nobody did.” You’re right, Mr. Scheck, we may not have crystal clear answers to that fateful question ‘Why?,’ but we do have letters, voicemails, videos, and even their final words. Each one of these is another puzzle piece into the mystery that is depression, which we can use to open our eyes and ears to other potential assassins exhibiting similar behavior.
Because the minute we sit back and say “that’s just the way it is,” that’s the way it will always be.
Signed,
Concerned student
