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Review

For fans of S. Bear Bergman (Butch is a Noun) her follow-up book The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You comes with a shocking development. Butch is a Noun told us masculine women about how great it is to be butch, how lovely femmes are as partners, and how gender is an elusive beast that slips through our fingers. The Nearest Exit tells us masculine women, genderqueer and transfolk how great it is to be on the outliers of the gender system; how lovely femmes, other genderqueer and transfolk and gay men are as partners; and how gender is still yet an elusive beast, still managing to wiggle through our fingers. The premise hasn't changed: gender is the shadowy figure, always in our peripheral; we sometimes use our imaginations to dream it into solid form, but it is ultimately always eluding us and shape shifting. Bear continues to write about the subject in hir funny, thoughtful, insightful and touching ways. Bear continues to give a voice to all the gender incongruent people who are flipping madly through the dictionary, trying to find the words to describe the gender mess they see in the mirror. Bear, once a butch lesbian, now a transgendered faggot, continues to be an absolutely vital voice in our queer community.

But the book -- the wonderful and delightful book that I thoroughly enjoyed -- does nag at a few questions. What happens when you write a book about one thing, then a few years later turn around and write a book about what you were kind of preaching against? And also, are butches becoming extinct? Part of the reason I love both books so much is because, very much like Bear and thousands of other women out there, I'm a masculine women that teeters on the fine line between butch and trans. But must all butches walk this tight rope? Does The Nearest Exit prove lesbians' and feminists' theory that all masculine women secretly long to be boys? Is being butch a thing of the past, when transitioning to male was just too outrageous to consider, but now has become so accepted that butches are lined up outside the doors of doctor's offices for hormones and chest surgery? It's all really hard to say.

I wish Bear would have lent hir always-illuminating thoughts on these questions, however ze seems just as confused as the rest of us, noting that transmasculinity (something that both butches and transfolk have in common) isn't something that can be charted or mapped out. Butch and Nearest Exit are full of thoughts and questions, which are mind-blowing for those who haven't been able to find the words to articulate the confusion, guilt, shame, happiness and excitement that accompany the sea-sickness of the genderfuck boat ride. As a novice self-taught gender expert (working my way to veteran, then eventually, hopefully to Bear's status of guru) the book evoked a mixed bag of feelings for me: confusion, shock, disappointment, enlightenment, agreement and warm fuzzies. However, out of all of those, even the bad feelings, the book never, ever left me bored and unsatisfied – which I was why I highly recommend it to all of you, gender rookies and gurus alike.