Product Description

This brave memoir chronicles Pratt's struggle to overcome the repressive traditions of Southern womanhood and live her life honestly. It chronicles her youth, her marriage, her eventual decision to come out as a lesbian, and her life with transgendered activist and author Leslie Feinberg.

Minnie Bruce Pratt is the author of We Say We Love Each Other, Rebellion, Crime Against Nature, Walking Back Up Depot Street, and The Dirt We Ate.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #615416 in Books
• Published on: 2005-03-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

From Booklist
Pratt breaks traditions, restrictions, and taboos in what many--some with shocked horror, others with fascination--will find a high-risk book, almost sure to become one of the hottest this season in and perhaps also outside the lesbian community. In a long series of vignettes, Pratt chronicles her Southern youth, during which she was "trained into the cult of pure white womanhood" and raised to be subjugated by a man; her lengthy marriage, the birth of two sons, and her eventual leave-taking from that traditional role; her coming out, living as a lesbian, and the fear it brought of "a sisterhood based on biological definitions" ; and--at the book's pulsing, erotic core--her passionate love for a woman born female but male in gender expression, who often lives as a man and whom Pratt calls "my husband." Some straights and gays alike may be repulsed by Pratt, finding her neither a "real woman" nor a "real lesbian." Others may applaud her efforts to eradicate boundaries. Whitney Scott

About the Author
Minnie Bruce Pratt is the author of We Say We Love Each Other, Rebellion, Crime Against Nature, Walking Back Up Depot Street, and The Dirt We Ate.

Customer Reviews

Hoping in vain for enlightenment
I honestly tried to read with an open mind, but if this pretentious, pornographic little book is meant to shed light on the notion of gender fluidity, it comes up woefully short.

i give this to everyone
I never seem to have a copy of this beautiful book because i am always giving it to people, telling them to just keep it, because i feel like it will enrich their lives. I read this when i was first exploring my femme identity, and i found every piece beautiful, moving, powerful, and transformative. I cried again and again as MBP moved through her journey from young wife to lesbian feminist to femme, to powerful superfemme force to be reckoned with. This book is the only one i have ever read that deals perfectly with the pain and shame and profound sadness and lonliness of growing up filled with a desire that is not recognized in our culture, and is difficult to understand inside ourselves. For a long time i thought of this book as a love letter to Les Feinburg, MBP's partner, but now i read it as a love letter to herself, revealing her growth and strength and wisdom. When i grow up, i wannabe Minnie Bruce Pratt!!

Minnie Bruce Pratt is an extraordinarily irritable person
I admire Leslie Feinberg a great deal. Hir life hasn't been easy, but ze's managed to handle herself like a real gentlewo|man.

As for Minnie Bruce Pratt, she seems to have a chip on her shoulder. When strangers eye her, wondering what sex Feinberg is or what she sees in hir, she thinks it's grand fun. I remember quite clearly an anecdote she tells about a self-defense class she once took: the teacher told her not to worry if she couldn't bring herself to hurt him because most women have a hard time overcoming their nice-girl training at first, and then she nearly broke his kneecap.

I think Pratt loves the hostility Feinberg engenders more than she loves Feinberg, and I didn't enjoy her (temporary vicarious) company.