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Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue
Those who have heard Leslie Feinberg speak in person know how powerful and inspiring s/he can be. In Trans Liberation, Feinberg has gathered a collection of hir speeches on trans liberation and its essential connection to the liberation of all people. This wonderfully immediate, impassioned, and stirring book is for anyone who cares about civil rights and creating a just and equitable society.
160 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
64 people are currently reading
5733 people want to read
About the author
Leslie Feinberg
10 books1,001 followersLeslie Feinberg was a transgender activist, speaker, and author. Feinberg was a high ranking member of the Workers World Party and a managing editor of Workers World newspaper.
Feinberg's writings on LGBT history, "Lavender & Red," frequently appeared in the Workers World newspaper. Feinberg's partner was the prominent lesbian poet-activist Minnie Bruce Pratt. Feinberg was also involved in Camp Trans and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the Ministry for transgender and social justice work.
Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues, which won the Stonewall Book Award, is a novel based around Jess Goldberg, a transgendered individual growing up in an unaccepting setting. Despite popular belief, the fictional work is not autobiographical. This book is frequently taught at colleges and universities and is widely considered a groundbreaking work about gender.
Leslie Feinberg was Jewish, and was born female. Feinberg preferred the gender-neutral pronouns "hir" and "ze". Feinberg wrote: "I have shaped myself surgically and hormonally twice in my life, and I reserve the right to do it again."
Feinberg's writings on LGBT history, "Lavender & Red," frequently appeared in the Workers World newspaper. Feinberg's partner was the prominent lesbian poet-activist Minnie Bruce Pratt. Feinberg was also involved in Camp Trans and was awarded an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the Ministry for transgender and social justice work.
Feinberg's novel Stone Butch Blues, which won the Stonewall Book Award, is a novel based around Jess Goldberg, a transgendered individual growing up in an unaccepting setting. Despite popular belief, the fictional work is not autobiographical. This book is frequently taught at colleges and universities and is widely considered a groundbreaking work about gender.
Leslie Feinberg was Jewish, and was born female. Feinberg preferred the gender-neutral pronouns "hir" and "ze". Feinberg wrote: "I have shaped myself surgically and hormonally twice in my life, and I reserve the right to do it again."
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
February 12, 2010
A few of my favorite quotes:
"While there is as yet no language for who I have become, I articulate my gender -- silent to the ear, but thunderous to the eye."
"I have seen a substantial current of women across the United States - straight, lesbian, and bisexual - welcome discovering more about trans liberation. They are thrilled at the way our movement is helping revitalize women's liberation by revisiting discussions about what it means to be a woman, and how the reduction of 'woman' to one common experience is transphobic, as well as insensitive to racism, poverty, disabilities, and other forms of multiple oppression."
"To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under seige."
"Genitalia, sexual desire, gender expression, identification with one sex or another -- one does not determine all the others."
"We all need to help in creating new words and concepts that say who we are, not who we aren't."
"As we fight for each other's rights, we strengthen our own."
"While there is as yet no language for who I have become, I articulate my gender -- silent to the ear, but thunderous to the eye."
"I have seen a substantial current of women across the United States - straight, lesbian, and bisexual - welcome discovering more about trans liberation. They are thrilled at the way our movement is helping revitalize women's liberation by revisiting discussions about what it means to be a woman, and how the reduction of 'woman' to one common experience is transphobic, as well as insensitive to racism, poverty, disabilities, and other forms of multiple oppression."
"To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under seige."
"Genitalia, sexual desire, gender expression, identification with one sex or another -- one does not determine all the others."
"We all need to help in creating new words and concepts that say who we are, not who we aren't."
"As we fight for each other's rights, we strengthen our own."
August 31, 2022
“gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.” i love you leslie i wish you lived forever <\3
February 17, 2014
This is a world where jokes about men getting confused at women's many emotions, and women being unable to enjoy a good round of guns and sports, are accepted and a good way to gain Facebook Likes. Feinberg considers anyone who deviates from these strict concepts of male and female, an ally in the trans liberation movement. To that effect, ze gave speeches in 1997 to rally troops to the cause.
Heterosexual cross-dressers, drag queens, drag kings, Queer Studies college students, Pride organizers, are all given a voice in this book.
There was much in this book that spoke to me. There were times where I felt like the confusing mess of words I've tried to organize into a coherent self-definition, was finally articulated. I felt that I didn't have to justify my identity anymore, to myself or others. It was soothing to read this book and be completely certain that the author would accept me as a comrade.
The revolution that Feinberg exhorts the reader to join and/or generate, finally did not materialize. No one would've guessed during the Clinton administration just what was to come in 2001. The conservative backlash against the "politically correct" warriors was strengthened by the fear caused by the attacks. Bit by bit, the LGBT community has reclaimed the territory that was lost during the early 00s. The same-sex marriage fight has been won in many states. And yet, the trans revolution to which Feinberg alludes in Trans Liberation, has fallen to the wayside.
Heterosexual cross-dressers, drag queens, drag kings, Queer Studies college students, Pride organizers, are all given a voice in this book.
There was much in this book that spoke to me. There were times where I felt like the confusing mess of words I've tried to organize into a coherent self-definition, was finally articulated. I felt that I didn't have to justify my identity anymore, to myself or others. It was soothing to read this book and be completely certain that the author would accept me as a comrade.
The revolution that Feinberg exhorts the reader to join and/or generate, finally did not materialize. No one would've guessed during the Clinton administration just what was to come in 2001. The conservative backlash against the "politically correct" warriors was strengthened by the fear caused by the attacks. Bit by bit, the LGBT community has reclaimed the territory that was lost during the early 00s. The same-sex marriage fight has been won in many states. And yet, the trans revolution to which Feinberg alludes in Trans Liberation, has fallen to the wayside.
June 11, 2020
Trans Liberation by Leslie Feinberg highlights trans beauty, trans joy, trans struggle, trans resilience, and solidarity. It was so empowering to read, as a non-binary person. It was comforting and empowering to hear hir talk about solidarity in a way that was so much more comprehensive than I would have expected even from the late 1990’s. Ze discuss the importance of solidarity on issues of gender, sexuality, race, disability, and class. Ze also has several trans people of color featured in some of the portraits throughout the book.
Of course the language around gender is different from what we use today and that was an experience all on its own. The beautiful chaos of melding masculine and feminine and neutral terms, older and newer (for the time) is incredible. There is so much history and character in all of those labels. This was just the beginning of the legacy that is continued by more discussion of experiences that we get online. There is so much joy and power in the diversity of language that is constantly being created.
Of course the language around gender is different from what we use today and that was an experience all on its own. The beautiful chaos of melding masculine and feminine and neutral terms, older and newer (for the time) is incredible. There is so much history and character in all of those labels. This was just the beginning of the legacy that is continued by more discussion of experiences that we get online. There is so much joy and power in the diversity of language that is constantly being created.
December 29, 2017
I am surprised to see so many reviewers thought the language in the book was like a manifesto or that it sounded more like speeches. In my opinion, this book was beyond excellent. These are collected speeches (mostly), it will be written in a tone of addressing and mobilizing people and that is beautiful. I don't know if the rarity of trans-centered writing made people want everything from it, maybe some people expected more academic theorizing, I don't know. But I thought it was perfect, intersectional, sharp, accessible, and thought-provoking. It is also part of the documentation of grassroot movement of Stonewall, the documentation of the collaboration of the queer movement with the civil rights movement, and the documentation of the organic relations between class and queer activism. It is also, for me, a dignifying tribute to how much more expensive to work for social change with an empty pocket. When I read good, large books, I'm usually fascinated by how much time and effort have been dedicated to building the content. Knowing that Feinberg wrote so little, but while struggling with economic, as well as gendered, hardship makes me feel warm. Finally, a few of the speeches address the discourse of cis-queers regarding trans individuals. All of these points were for me priceless, I want to keep this book and reread it and quote it in so many ways... Again I have no idea why anyone would not like it.
December 28, 2024
Trans liberation is not a threat to any lesbian woman or gay man or bisexual person. Yes, trans liberation is shaking up old patterns of thoughts or beliefs. Good! Because most of those thoughts and beliefs that we are challenging were imposed on us from above, were rotten to the core and were backed up by bigoted laws. But we’re not taking away your identity. No one’s sex reassignment or fluidity of gender threatens your right to self identity and self-expression. On the contrary, our struggle bolsters your right to your identity. My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to right right to be you.
We’re not trying to barricade the road you travel; we’re trying to open up more avenues to self definition, and identity and love and sexuality. That’s a wonderful development for everybody.
What unites us is not a common sexuality or experiences or identities or self expression. It’s that we are up against a common enemy. And this inter-relatedness of our struggles is not simply an outgrowth of contemporary Western society. The fight-back of sexually- and gender-oppressed people in class-divided societies has historically overlapped.
-Leslie Feinberg
We’re not trying to barricade the road you travel; we’re trying to open up more avenues to self definition, and identity and love and sexuality. That’s a wonderful development for everybody.
What unites us is not a common sexuality or experiences or identities or self expression. It’s that we are up against a common enemy. And this inter-relatedness of our struggles is not simply an outgrowth of contemporary Western society. The fight-back of sexually- and gender-oppressed people in class-divided societies has historically overlapped.
-Leslie Feinberg
January 13, 2017
It's sad how many of the core issues Feinberg addresses are still key battlegrounds today, especially as we prepare for the trump presidency. Healthcare, trans* people's rights to use a bathroom, mainstream gay and lesbian organizing leaving trans* demands in the dust :(
November 23, 2022
Leslie Feinberg is my guiding light, mentor and soulful energy through this dark times 🧡
December 7, 2023
4☆ — a little collection of speeches delivered by les feinberg during various occasions, interspersed by inputs from various trans persons and their personal experiences and sentiments. this is my first experience with feinberg's work and i quite liked it; the writing kept it to the point and delivered what it had to. i also think it could be a good introduction for anyone looking to dive into literature concerning the trans experience.
April 1, 2018
I've strongly admired Les Feinberg for almost as long as i've been aware of my queer identity (12 years). It was a delight to find this book on a shelf and to have an evening alone to read it slowly and thoroughly, after wanting to read this for years.
This book brings together Feinberg's speeches writing during the year of 1997, after zie barely survived an illness worsened by the barriers of transphobia and poverty. The book also includes speeches / writing by many trans leaders young, old, Black, Latin@, Apache, AFAB, AMAB, intersex etc etc (including Sylvia Rivera). Feinberg's Marxist / socialist lens and undying commitment to solidarity is present throughout.
Example of Feinberg's writing style:
"(Gender is) one of two languages that we learn by rote from early age. To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. When i walk through the anthology of the world, I see individuals express their gender in exquisitely complex and ever-changing ways, despite the laws of pentameter" (p.10)
This book brings together Feinberg's speeches writing during the year of 1997, after zie barely survived an illness worsened by the barriers of transphobia and poverty. The book also includes speeches / writing by many trans leaders young, old, Black, Latin@, Apache, AFAB, AMAB, intersex etc etc (including Sylvia Rivera). Feinberg's Marxist / socialist lens and undying commitment to solidarity is present throughout.
Example of Feinberg's writing style:
"(Gender is) one of two languages that we learn by rote from early age. To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. When i walk through the anthology of the world, I see individuals express their gender in exquisitely complex and ever-changing ways, despite the laws of pentameter" (p.10)
February 28, 2024
i can see my own gender so much better now. i know better who i am and how i want to present myself and that is so much more than i ever could have asked for from 140 pages written in 1997. this book was outstanding, impactful, and inspiring. so many trans voices, not just leslie’s own. so many different experiences and identities and lives.
January 16, 2021
3.5 stars. I think this is a good intro book for people who've not thought about gender much before, but I guess I wanted a bit ... more? I think I agree with most of ze says anyway, and didn't really learn anything new, and the stuff that I wasn't sure about, I didn't get a deeper/different understanding of. It's definitely an interesting book historically - seeing where trans activism (and queer activism more generally) was at in the 90s.
October 25, 2010
First off: read Stone Butch Blues.
Leslie Feinberg reminds me of bell hooks in that hir writing is intersectional, sharp, and so clear that you can relax even as you read challenging work. I'm not psyched on the 'collection of speeches' format of this book, but the content was excellent, short, and to the point. Feinberg's speeches are juxtaposed with short essays by a range of trans activists writing about their identities and activism. There's a lot of passion, history, and hope in this small volume. It is geared towards activists and a lot of the fire comes from Feinberg connecting different oppressions and resistance movements.
The best essay by far, and the story that frames the collection, is about Feinberg's terrible ordeal with transmisogyny in the medical industry that delayed and worsened hir treatment of a life-threatening condition. I had the fortune to meet Jacoby Ballard this year, an herbalist who practices "holistic transgender health" at the Third Root Community Health Center that he co-founded in Brooklyn. Along with his community yoga and herbal practice, Ballard offers herbal, nutrition, and education support for people transitioning genders and undergoing hormone therapy and surgery. Every year he teaches workshops on transitioning support to herb school students in New York. Feinberg's experiences made me appreciate just how valuable Ballard's work-- both the healthcare practice and the education-- is. I wish more schools in a range of medical fields would outreach to practitioner-activists like Ballard to help ensure that all medical students learn not only to treat all patients, regardless of gender, with dignity and respect, but also how to offer treatment and support that is specific to the needs of transgender people.
I also really enjoyed the discussion in a few essays about the connections between lesbian, gay, and queer sexuality in relation to trans and gender liberation, the fluidity of gender expression, and how changing gender identities impact sexuality. This book is over ten years old and the word "queer" appears only a few times in it. I want to read more recent work by Feinberg and see hir analysis of things like Bash Back, genderqueers, and contemporary LGBTQ struggles, activism, etc.
Leslie Feinberg reminds me of bell hooks in that hir writing is intersectional, sharp, and so clear that you can relax even as you read challenging work. I'm not psyched on the 'collection of speeches' format of this book, but the content was excellent, short, and to the point. Feinberg's speeches are juxtaposed with short essays by a range of trans activists writing about their identities and activism. There's a lot of passion, history, and hope in this small volume. It is geared towards activists and a lot of the fire comes from Feinberg connecting different oppressions and resistance movements.
The best essay by far, and the story that frames the collection, is about Feinberg's terrible ordeal with transmisogyny in the medical industry that delayed and worsened hir treatment of a life-threatening condition. I had the fortune to meet Jacoby Ballard this year, an herbalist who practices "holistic transgender health" at the Third Root Community Health Center that he co-founded in Brooklyn. Along with his community yoga and herbal practice, Ballard offers herbal, nutrition, and education support for people transitioning genders and undergoing hormone therapy and surgery. Every year he teaches workshops on transitioning support to herb school students in New York. Feinberg's experiences made me appreciate just how valuable Ballard's work-- both the healthcare practice and the education-- is. I wish more schools in a range of medical fields would outreach to practitioner-activists like Ballard to help ensure that all medical students learn not only to treat all patients, regardless of gender, with dignity and respect, but also how to offer treatment and support that is specific to the needs of transgender people.
I also really enjoyed the discussion in a few essays about the connections between lesbian, gay, and queer sexuality in relation to trans and gender liberation, the fluidity of gender expression, and how changing gender identities impact sexuality. This book is over ten years old and the word "queer" appears only a few times in it. I want to read more recent work by Feinberg and see hir analysis of things like Bash Back, genderqueers, and contemporary LGBTQ struggles, activism, etc.
Read
November 12, 2025VICTORY, FINALLY!!! It takes me so long to read any theory, at all, my executive dysfunction is so bad.
I don't usually write a ton about theory, because like, who the fuck am I to criticise Engels or something, right? But Gender is the one thing I have literacy in and this particular Feinberg is very old, relatively speaking. So, how'd it go?
I am such an utterly weird sicko that I was pretty much familiar with what Feinberg and co. say in these pages, so I wasn't reading a whole ton that was new to me. I thought, especially for something that predates my zoomer ass, the strong calls for unity and not to view eachother as our oppressors (an unserious and sadly prevalent view) within the trans community was one of those "JUST AS RELEVANT TODAY" things. In a lot of places today, trans communities falter along binary gendered lines, or binary vs nonbinary gendered lines, the fruit of a thousand COINTELPRO-style infiltrations of queer movements. So Beyond Pink and Blue hasn't really aged much, as far as its core messaging goes.
The only thing that feels crusty and ancient about it is the terminology. Particularly, it has that "transgendered vs transsexual" thing going on where the latter is only for those who get bottom surgery? or are of binary gender? something??? And then "transgendered" is for anyone who "transcends stereotypes of man or woman", okay. I can see how this got outta hand. The whole pile-up of terms mostly just made me realise that A) the thing I self-describe with barely existed in use when this was published, B) aaaaaa gender is fuckin fake shit I changed my sex this past year aaaaaaaaaaa. In seriousness, if you're gender literate enough you can draw connecting lines between some of the funny words in this to more modern terminology, and gain a pretty normal understanding of it. The text isn't leaning on your understanding of labels, really.
Also, seeing so many disparate, strained ways of describing ableism made me greatly appreciate the invention of the term "ableism". I think our language in general has improved, ngl. A passage reads, "The gender-neutral pronoun 'it' is an epithet meant to strip us of our humanity. We need a gender-neutral pronoun that honours us as unique human beings." Hard to describe the exact mix of feelings I had reading that, both "ah how quaint, back in the day" and also reflecting that both they/them and it/its are in wide usage now. Something good has happened.
In a way, it's like one of the earliest queer anthologies, since the PORTRAIT sections are of other voices, which rule. Except instead of the disastrous mixed-bag of quality endemic to Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, you get to read Sylvia Rivera talk about Stonewall, speak fondly of Huey Newton. It's a historical document too, nowadays.
There are also scattered pieces of what is basically the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto in here, if you look. The stuff about state enforced gender as a means to visit violence on those who step out of line, the arbitrary nature of gender markers. The undeniable fact that whatever gender a patient was assigned at birth is not a caregiver's fucking business. It kind of makes me sad that I didn't have enough brain power to put it together on my own: within the first like, year of being openly trans I was already asking myself, *if nothing is inherently gendered, which is true, how can anything even be gendered?* but I wouldn't carry the thought to its logical conclusion (RAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH THE GENDER BINARY IS WEAPONISED AGAINST ALL QUEER PEOPLE AND EVEN STRAIGHT PEOPLE BUT IT'S JUST MADE UP BY A GUY RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH) until reading the silly lil manifesto. Alas, maybe it just took time for Queer As A Third Class Of Gender to emerge. Maybe if I could actually read more often I'd be a superpowered gender theorist and shit.
I am also always keeping eyes-up for people who like, sincerely believe gender is false as a concept. Y'know, those who unironically want to delete gender expression. The people Julia Serano is getting mad at, or indeed that Feinberg disagrees with in this very book! Nowhere within, however, did I once see any insinuation that a person's gender is not innate to them. Seems to be a very 1970s idea, what Feinberg is responding to early in this text. Mainly I just found big expansive thoughts about gender I really fuck with: Michael Hernandez writes "I have grown beyond the numbers game. There are more than two or even three. Gender and behaviour are as variable as stars in the sky."
Mostly reading Pink and Blue was a lot of me sitting around, ruminating and pondering. Since it is an older work intended to be broadly approachable and written by a smart motherfucker, (guest starring other smart motherfuckers) it approaches a lot of what I view as 101-ish questions very sharply. I got to sit back and consider things, Are You Comfortable With Your Body? Do You Want To Fit In? These are questions I can answer now with more certainty than ever, I think. When I first heard of Leslie Feinberg, I wasn't even 20 and I was a hateful little ball of self-disgust and fury and shitty thoughts. Reading Pink and Blue a decade and change on, after considering for so long, felt good. A passage by Gary Bowen reads,
"I live proudly in a body of my own design.
I defend my right to be complex.
I am a person who does not wish to be referred to as Ms or Mr."
It goes hard, to say the least. The point of this lolloping weird writeup is that you've gotta read Feinberg, I guess. I still need to get around to hir other stuff, A Movement Whose Time Has Come and Rainbow Solidarity: In Defense of Cuba and such. Beyond Pink and Blue is itself a useful quickstart guide, covering how race and US indigenous status interact with gender, the ongoing crime of disfiguring surgeries unecessarily performed on intersex infants for the sake of gender conformity, (I did not know that the Rudolph allegory/satire was from the 1990s which rocks) how capitalist growth cannot and will not meet human need, the perils of assimilation as a strategy for acceptance, how lesbian, gay and bisexual (nowadays also pansexual) people factor into the struggle because the ruling class see us all as guilty of the same fucking thing: queerness!! It's pretty much the works, and even some of the dusty-ass urls like isna.org still lead to the webzones of current activist groups.
Beyond Pink and Blue states: When the borders of sex and gender are not fixed, neither is the definition of what constitutes gay or lesbian or bisexual. Beyond Pink and Blue makes the argument that the shifting ground can be traversed with skill and care. Those who deny that seek to hold us in place for their own benefit.
There's actually so much socialist commentary in here that I feel like you could go from the Manifesto, to this, to Gender Outlaw to the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto and become extremely powerful in no time flat. Even though the pacing is sort of uneven (partly because the epub is poorly minted) I feel like this is a good volume to throw at people, for fun. Excellent reading, thank you!
I don't usually write a ton about theory, because like, who the fuck am I to criticise Engels or something, right? But Gender is the one thing I have literacy in and this particular Feinberg is very old, relatively speaking. So, how'd it go?
I am such an utterly weird sicko that I was pretty much familiar with what Feinberg and co. say in these pages, so I wasn't reading a whole ton that was new to me. I thought, especially for something that predates my zoomer ass, the strong calls for unity and not to view eachother as our oppressors (an unserious and sadly prevalent view) within the trans community was one of those "JUST AS RELEVANT TODAY" things. In a lot of places today, trans communities falter along binary gendered lines, or binary vs nonbinary gendered lines, the fruit of a thousand COINTELPRO-style infiltrations of queer movements. So Beyond Pink and Blue hasn't really aged much, as far as its core messaging goes.
The only thing that feels crusty and ancient about it is the terminology. Particularly, it has that "transgendered vs transsexual" thing going on where the latter is only for those who get bottom surgery? or are of binary gender? something??? And then "transgendered" is for anyone who "transcends stereotypes of man or woman", okay. I can see how this got outta hand. The whole pile-up of terms mostly just made me realise that A) the thing I self-describe with barely existed in use when this was published, B) aaaaaa gender is fuckin fake shit I changed my sex this past year aaaaaaaaaaa. In seriousness, if you're gender literate enough you can draw connecting lines between some of the funny words in this to more modern terminology, and gain a pretty normal understanding of it. The text isn't leaning on your understanding of labels, really.
Also, seeing so many disparate, strained ways of describing ableism made me greatly appreciate the invention of the term "ableism". I think our language in general has improved, ngl. A passage reads, "The gender-neutral pronoun 'it' is an epithet meant to strip us of our humanity. We need a gender-neutral pronoun that honours us as unique human beings." Hard to describe the exact mix of feelings I had reading that, both "ah how quaint, back in the day" and also reflecting that both they/them and it/its are in wide usage now. Something good has happened.
In a way, it's like one of the earliest queer anthologies, since the PORTRAIT sections are of other voices, which rule. Except instead of the disastrous mixed-bag of quality endemic to Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, you get to read Sylvia Rivera talk about Stonewall, speak fondly of Huey Newton. It's a historical document too, nowadays.
There are also scattered pieces of what is basically the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto in here, if you look. The stuff about state enforced gender as a means to visit violence on those who step out of line, the arbitrary nature of gender markers. The undeniable fact that whatever gender a patient was assigned at birth is not a caregiver's fucking business. It kind of makes me sad that I didn't have enough brain power to put it together on my own: within the first like, year of being openly trans I was already asking myself, *if nothing is inherently gendered, which is true, how can anything even be gendered?* but I wouldn't carry the thought to its logical conclusion (RAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHH THE GENDER BINARY IS WEAPONISED AGAINST ALL QUEER PEOPLE AND EVEN STRAIGHT PEOPLE BUT IT'S JUST MADE UP BY A GUY RRRRAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH) until reading the silly lil manifesto. Alas, maybe it just took time for Queer As A Third Class Of Gender to emerge. Maybe if I could actually read more often I'd be a superpowered gender theorist and shit.
I am also always keeping eyes-up for people who like, sincerely believe gender is false as a concept. Y'know, those who unironically want to delete gender expression. The people Julia Serano is getting mad at, or indeed that Feinberg disagrees with in this very book! Nowhere within, however, did I once see any insinuation that a person's gender is not innate to them. Seems to be a very 1970s idea, what Feinberg is responding to early in this text. Mainly I just found big expansive thoughts about gender I really fuck with: Michael Hernandez writes "I have grown beyond the numbers game. There are more than two or even three. Gender and behaviour are as variable as stars in the sky."
Mostly reading Pink and Blue was a lot of me sitting around, ruminating and pondering. Since it is an older work intended to be broadly approachable and written by a smart motherfucker, (guest starring other smart motherfuckers) it approaches a lot of what I view as 101-ish questions very sharply. I got to sit back and consider things, Are You Comfortable With Your Body? Do You Want To Fit In? These are questions I can answer now with more certainty than ever, I think. When I first heard of Leslie Feinberg, I wasn't even 20 and I was a hateful little ball of self-disgust and fury and shitty thoughts. Reading Pink and Blue a decade and change on, after considering for so long, felt good. A passage by Gary Bowen reads,
"I live proudly in a body of my own design.
I defend my right to be complex.
I am a person who does not wish to be referred to as Ms or Mr."
It goes hard, to say the least. The point of this lolloping weird writeup is that you've gotta read Feinberg, I guess. I still need to get around to hir other stuff, A Movement Whose Time Has Come and Rainbow Solidarity: In Defense of Cuba and such. Beyond Pink and Blue is itself a useful quickstart guide, covering how race and US indigenous status interact with gender, the ongoing crime of disfiguring surgeries unecessarily performed on intersex infants for the sake of gender conformity, (I did not know that the Rudolph allegory/satire was from the 1990s which rocks) how capitalist growth cannot and will not meet human need, the perils of assimilation as a strategy for acceptance, how lesbian, gay and bisexual (nowadays also pansexual) people factor into the struggle because the ruling class see us all as guilty of the same fucking thing: queerness!! It's pretty much the works, and even some of the dusty-ass urls like isna.org still lead to the webzones of current activist groups.
Beyond Pink and Blue states: When the borders of sex and gender are not fixed, neither is the definition of what constitutes gay or lesbian or bisexual. Beyond Pink and Blue makes the argument that the shifting ground can be traversed with skill and care. Those who deny that seek to hold us in place for their own benefit.
There's actually so much socialist commentary in here that I feel like you could go from the Manifesto, to this, to Gender Outlaw to the Gender Accelerationist Manifesto and become extremely powerful in no time flat. Even though the pacing is sort of uneven (partly because the epub is poorly minted) I feel like this is a good volume to throw at people, for fun. Excellent reading, thank you!
May 22, 2011
I read this a few years ago, and I remember it actually being my favorite of Leslie Feinberg's books.
The thing I loved about this book is that Leslie really connects the experience of having a trans body and/or a trans experience with a greater struggle of trying to live and survive in the midst of a horrible economy made up of "haves" and "have-nots"--stuff that is not unique to the trans experience.
I sometimes get frustrated that a lot of awesome books out there that discuss trans stuff do so in a way that ignores the fact that it doesn't matter if health insurance companies will pay for your hormones or surgeries if you don't have health insurance in the first place. And non-discrimination policies that are inclusive of trans folks in the workplace don't really matter if there are no jobs.
Leslie Feinberg makes those connections and talks about trans folks' struggles within the context of greater class struggles.
It's a great book for trans folks wanting to feel connected to a greater movement and non-trans folks involved in those movements who want to understand how to be more inclusive of trans folks in the work they're doing. I wished I owned a copy because I would totally loan it to people. But I got it from the library.
I also remember it being a pretty quick read. I read it in a weekend, and not one of those get-sucked-in-and-don't-eat-or-sleep book reading weekends, just a weekend when I read a few chapters here and there.
I finished the book feeling energized, connected and ready to save the world.
The thing I loved about this book is that Leslie really connects the experience of having a trans body and/or a trans experience with a greater struggle of trying to live and survive in the midst of a horrible economy made up of "haves" and "have-nots"--stuff that is not unique to the trans experience.
I sometimes get frustrated that a lot of awesome books out there that discuss trans stuff do so in a way that ignores the fact that it doesn't matter if health insurance companies will pay for your hormones or surgeries if you don't have health insurance in the first place. And non-discrimination policies that are inclusive of trans folks in the workplace don't really matter if there are no jobs.
Leslie Feinberg makes those connections and talks about trans folks' struggles within the context of greater class struggles.
It's a great book for trans folks wanting to feel connected to a greater movement and non-trans folks involved in those movements who want to understand how to be more inclusive of trans folks in the work they're doing. I wished I owned a copy because I would totally loan it to people. But I got it from the library.
I also remember it being a pretty quick read. I read it in a weekend, and not one of those get-sucked-in-and-don't-eat-or-sleep book reading weekends, just a weekend when I read a few chapters here and there.
I finished the book feeling energized, connected and ready to save the world.
June 21, 2009
This quote from the introduction We Are All Works in Progress sums up the relevance of the book:
"To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught."
This book is a wonderful read for people new to trans issues because each chapter is from a different perspective, written by a different trans identified person. The language is accepting and free of jargon. Trans liberation is ultimately the liberation of the self from society's oppressive confines, whether you consider yourself trans or not.
"To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught."
This book is a wonderful read for people new to trans issues because each chapter is from a different perspective, written by a different trans identified person. The language is accepting and free of jargon. Trans liberation is ultimately the liberation of the self from society's oppressive confines, whether you consider yourself trans or not.
June 2, 2019
This was excellent. For just 147 pages Leslie Feinberg managed to discuss so much and be as inclusive as possible.
This book was published in 1999 and it’s 2019 now and activists and grassroots are still calling out for the same rights, demanding respect and discussing similar issues that Leslie Feinberg called out for then and mentioned in this book.
Sometimes I’m wary picking up books written years ago because I don’t want the bulk of my reading to be about the history and not the present (I recognize both are equally important) but this book doesn’t feel like history. It feels very of the moment. It contains essays of speeches given throughout America in different events and it’s great.
This book was published in 1999 and it’s 2019 now and activists and grassroots are still calling out for the same rights, demanding respect and discussing similar issues that Leslie Feinberg called out for then and mentioned in this book.
Sometimes I’m wary picking up books written years ago because I don’t want the bulk of my reading to be about the history and not the present (I recognize both are equally important) but this book doesn’t feel like history. It feels very of the moment. It contains essays of speeches given throughout America in different events and it’s great.
May 30, 2024
a very digestible read while still being insightful with a revolutionary lens, as Leslie Feinberg always does. such a good read on the need for solidarity both within and outside of queer/trans circles and while still being able to apply it to our current struggles. love love love
July 31, 2014
Since it was the first book on trans politics I was ever exposed to, I got the impression this book was something of "the manifesto," the standard comprehensive intro to the topic. It kind of is that, but the speech-collection format is something I never enjoy, and it's certainly not a good way to make a book. The ideas are repetitive and shallow for book content, since Les has to cover the same ground for each audience and doesn't have the time to go to deep into any one thing.
So Les makes a couple really great, simple points, but that's really all. First, that we should respect everyone's unique gender expression, and that there are tons of those outside the man/woman binary in a zillion ways, including transsexuals and transgender people. Second, that the struggles of trans people are deeply intersectional with the struggles of all other oppressed groups (though distinct from each other - it's not the same as misogyny). Third, that transsexuals don't reinforce binary gender norms by their very existence any more than anyone else does by performing any other gender norms. It's not the people, and their expression of unique gender, that's the problem; it's the policing of deviations from those norms with violent force and systematic discrimination.
Overall, it's a nice short and layperson oriented book that was a very welcome reprieve from intricate bullshit knots of debate in feminist theory like this thing I just read: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fem... (which is great but just really overwhelming and complex). Feinberg's ideas seem almost naively simple and genuine at points - much more on the "why don't we all just respect each other and get along" end of the scale.
Couple nice quotes I wanted to save, with some interpretive notes-to-self:
"To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write."
"Many in the [second wave feminist] movement who yearned not only for women's liberation, but also for human liberation, embarked on a bold social experiment. They hoped that freeing individuals from femininity and masculinity would help people be viewed on a more equal basis that highlighted each person's qualities and strengths. They hoped that androgyny would replace masculinity and femininity and help do away with gendered expression altogether.
Twenty years after that social experiment, we have the luxury of hindsight. The way in which individuals express themselves is a very important part of who they are. It is not possible to force all people to live outside of femininity and masculinity. Only androgynous people live comfortably in that gender space. There's no social compulsion powerful enough to force anyone else to dwell there. Trans people are an example of the futility of this strategy. Mockery and beatings and unemployment and hunger and threats of rape and institutionalization have not forced us as trans people to conform to narrow norms.
Why would we want to ask anyone to give up their own hard-fought-for place on the gender spectrum? There are no rights or wrongs in the ways people express their own gender style. No one's lipstick or flattop is hurting us. No one's gender expression is any more "liberated" than anyone else's."
- just as femininized women aren't responsible for patriarchal norms because they enact them, so too are trans people not responsible for them. Such norms are caused by violent policing and disrespect for the choices of others, not by what anyone, of any gender expression, chooses to do or not do.
"Holding transsexual men and women responsible for the man-woman binary is tantamount to accusing anyone who uses a public toilet with a gendered stick figure on the door of upholding patriarchal paternity and inheritance."
"Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition."
- and, when opening up that world is paired integrally with combating oppression based on gender expression, it is by definition destroying the oppressive system of binary gender known as patriarchy.
So Les makes a couple really great, simple points, but that's really all. First, that we should respect everyone's unique gender expression, and that there are tons of those outside the man/woman binary in a zillion ways, including transsexuals and transgender people. Second, that the struggles of trans people are deeply intersectional with the struggles of all other oppressed groups (though distinct from each other - it's not the same as misogyny). Third, that transsexuals don't reinforce binary gender norms by their very existence any more than anyone else does by performing any other gender norms. It's not the people, and their expression of unique gender, that's the problem; it's the policing of deviations from those norms with violent force and systematic discrimination.
Overall, it's a nice short and layperson oriented book that was a very welcome reprieve from intricate bullshit knots of debate in feminist theory like this thing I just read: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fem... (which is great but just really overwhelming and complex). Feinberg's ideas seem almost naively simple and genuine at points - much more on the "why don't we all just respect each other and get along" end of the scale.
Couple nice quotes I wanted to save, with some interpretive notes-to-self:
"To me, branding individual self-expression as simply feminine or masculine is like asking poets: Do you write in English or Spanish? The question leaves out the possibilities that the poetry is woven in Cantonese or Ladino, Swahili or Arabic. The question deals only with the system of language that the poet has been taught. It ignores the words each writer hauls up, hand over hand, from a common well. The music words make when finding themselves next to each other for the first time. The silences echoing in the space between ideas. The powerful winds of passion and belief that move the poet to write."
"Many in the [second wave feminist] movement who yearned not only for women's liberation, but also for human liberation, embarked on a bold social experiment. They hoped that freeing individuals from femininity and masculinity would help people be viewed on a more equal basis that highlighted each person's qualities and strengths. They hoped that androgyny would replace masculinity and femininity and help do away with gendered expression altogether.
Twenty years after that social experiment, we have the luxury of hindsight. The way in which individuals express themselves is a very important part of who they are. It is not possible to force all people to live outside of femininity and masculinity. Only androgynous people live comfortably in that gender space. There's no social compulsion powerful enough to force anyone else to dwell there. Trans people are an example of the futility of this strategy. Mockery and beatings and unemployment and hunger and threats of rape and institutionalization have not forced us as trans people to conform to narrow norms.
Why would we want to ask anyone to give up their own hard-fought-for place on the gender spectrum? There are no rights or wrongs in the ways people express their own gender style. No one's lipstick or flattop is hurting us. No one's gender expression is any more "liberated" than anyone else's."
- just as femininized women aren't responsible for patriarchal norms because they enact them, so too are trans people not responsible for them. Such norms are caused by violent policing and disrespect for the choices of others, not by what anyone, of any gender expression, chooses to do or not do.
"Holding transsexual men and women responsible for the man-woman binary is tantamount to accusing anyone who uses a public toilet with a gendered stick figure on the door of upholding patriarchal paternity and inheritance."
"Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition."
- and, when opening up that world is paired integrally with combating oppression based on gender expression, it is by definition destroying the oppressive system of binary gender known as patriarchy.
September 29, 2020
It’s not very often a book on transness resonates so deeply with me. The quote “I live proudly in a body of my own design. I defend my right to be complex,” grabbed me and left me feeling understood and empowered.
Also hell yes re: the Marxist lens Feinberg gives to trans liberation. We love 2 see it.
Also hell yes re: the Marxist lens Feinberg gives to trans liberation. We love 2 see it.
February 19, 2021
This book is incredible. I wish I had read this book years ago, but I am thankful to have found it now. It is absolutely going on the Required Reading list, and I would recommend it to everyone working in progressive circles, especially white cisgender people.
When I looked up books about trans liberation, this book kept appearing, and now I know why. It is heartbreaking and very frustrating to me that we don't seem to learn much of value in schools but I am very thankful to be able to learn from books like this. It's beautiful to me how many of these very progressive books & collections of speeches encapsulate all aspects of the movement. Leslie Feinberg and Angela Davis seem to share the same vision for a better world, and the difference is just their lived experience and therefore the lens they frame the movement in.
I thought it was really wonderful how many other authors contributed to this book.
"This movement will give you more room to breathe - to be yourself. To discover on a deeper level what it means to be your self." Page 6
"To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. When I walk through the anthology of the world, I see individuals express their gender in exquisitely comlex and ever-changing ways, despite the laws of pentameter." Page 10
"I never describe anyone's gender expression as exaggerated. Since i don't accept negative judgements about my own gender articulation, I avoid judgements about others. People of all sexes have the right to explore femininity, masculinity - and the infinite variations between - without criticism or ridicule." Page 25
"But what a ride! Even at gunpoint, I would not choose a different path in life. My determination to remain a person who I can be proud of has made all of my views and insights and consciousness possible. It has made me see more clearly how many other lives in society are being limited through forms of discrimination and injustice. It has illuminated my relatinoship to them as an ally, and steeled my resolve to spend my life actively working for a world in which economic and social equality, and freedom of self-expression, are the birthrights of every person." Page 29
"I actually feel that on my own loom, weaving my internal weft against the warp of external pressure, I have created a tapestry far more intricate and complex." Page 33
"No matter where you place yourself on the sex and gender continua, the degradation, depisal, and unequal treatment of all who are "not male" is on obstacle to solidarity." Page 47
“None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains. That’s the truth underlying the need for solidarity. Trans liberation is inextricably linked to other movements for equality and justice.” Page 48
"But just because an individual is drawn into the vortex of a movement, it doesn't mean that person will automatically be enlightened on every aspect of other peoples' oppressions - particularly that which they do not directly experience. Each individual still needs to overcome the bigotry that has been instilled in us from an early age." Page 51
"And so if we really want that friendship and that understanding, we have to build it. All of us in this society are wounded. But we don't always know where each other's injuries are located. That means we may thoughtlessly hurt each other. Everyone who has ever been treated unjustly or been disrespected in this society is full of justified anger. I believe wed need to take care not to unleash that rage on each other." Page 55
"It's one thing for transwomen to discuss issues of socialization as an internal discussion in transsexual space. But it's a prejudiced and dangerous formulation for non-transsexuals to make. It's a fast and slippery slide from the rigidity of biological determinism to an equally narrow position of social determinism." Page 56
"All of us came into movements with rough edges." Page 57
"Everyone in this room is a leader. Each of us is needed as an organizer, as an activist in the decisive struggles that lie ahead. There's a wonderful Chinese proverb that advises "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."" Page 61
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." Page 61
"There are many "magpies" who are drawn to latch onto the bright, shiny aspects of Native culture, who misappropriate Native culture, customs, and artifacts in the belief that they are "honoring" Native people by imitating them without understanding them. It is better for non-Native people to follow our example by looking to their own ancestors and reclaiming their own transgendered spirituality." Page 66
"White people need to reclaim their own sacred people instead of appropriating ours." Page 66
"The process of reclamation is an extraordinarily difficult one in which the seeker must come face to face with the atrocities of the past, grieve for what has been lost, and carefully sift through the destruction to recover the little that remains. This is true whether the seeker is examining Native American or Euro-American history. History is not ancient and irrelevant; history is the reason why things are the way they are now." Page 66
"The United States is the richest country in the world, we are often told. So show us the money!" Page 86
"Yes, trans liberation is shaking up old patterns of thoughts or beliefs. Good! Because most of those thoughts and beliefs that we are challenging were imposed on us from above, were rotten to the core and were backed up by bigoted laws. But we're not taking away your identity. No one's sex reassignment or fluidity of gender threatens your right to self-identity and self-expression. On the contrary, our struggle bolsters your right to your identity. My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you." Page 101
"We can develop multi-issue coalitions with everyone who's struggling for social equality and economic justice. When people from different walks of life find themselves together in a collective protest, later they remember who stood tall with them when times were tough. That's how genuine solidarity is forged. An injury to one is an injury to all! When we allow ourselves to be split along lines of oppression, we always lose. But when we put forward a collective list of demands together, and fight to defend each other from attacks, we frequently win." Page 105
"The revise history to parrot one message over and over again: "The way things are now is the way they've always been." The meaning is clear and demoralizing: Don't even think about fighting for change." Page 119
"Until the lions come to power, the hunters write the history." Page 119
"If you ask me, the aim should not fall a yard short of genuine social and economic liberation for everyone. How to build a movement capable of achieving that objective, however, is the crux of the matter at hand." Page 135
"The truth is, you and I are the stuff that great leaders are made of. We don't have to wait for a distinguished white man on a horse or a politician wealthy enough to win office in a multimillion dollar campaign to usher in justice and equality. The ranks of rebellions and revolutions that have shaped human history have been made up of people like you and me. That history lesson has been purposefully kept from us." Page 141
"Defining myself is hard, being myself is easy." Page 145 (Deirdre Sinnot)
"I've never wanted to change myself to conform to bigots. My goal is to change the society so that there isn't oppression." Page 145 (Deirdre Sinnot)
When I looked up books about trans liberation, this book kept appearing, and now I know why. It is heartbreaking and very frustrating to me that we don't seem to learn much of value in schools but I am very thankful to be able to learn from books like this. It's beautiful to me how many of these very progressive books & collections of speeches encapsulate all aspects of the movement. Leslie Feinberg and Angela Davis seem to share the same vision for a better world, and the difference is just their lived experience and therefore the lens they frame the movement in.
I thought it was really wonderful how many other authors contributed to this book.
"This movement will give you more room to breathe - to be yourself. To discover on a deeper level what it means to be your self." Page 6
"To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught. When I walk through the anthology of the world, I see individuals express their gender in exquisitely comlex and ever-changing ways, despite the laws of pentameter." Page 10
"I never describe anyone's gender expression as exaggerated. Since i don't accept negative judgements about my own gender articulation, I avoid judgements about others. People of all sexes have the right to explore femininity, masculinity - and the infinite variations between - without criticism or ridicule." Page 25
"But what a ride! Even at gunpoint, I would not choose a different path in life. My determination to remain a person who I can be proud of has made all of my views and insights and consciousness possible. It has made me see more clearly how many other lives in society are being limited through forms of discrimination and injustice. It has illuminated my relatinoship to them as an ally, and steeled my resolve to spend my life actively working for a world in which economic and social equality, and freedom of self-expression, are the birthrights of every person." Page 29
"I actually feel that on my own loom, weaving my internal weft against the warp of external pressure, I have created a tapestry far more intricate and complex." Page 33
"No matter where you place yourself on the sex and gender continua, the degradation, depisal, and unequal treatment of all who are "not male" is on obstacle to solidarity." Page 47
“None of us can ever be free while others are still in chains. That’s the truth underlying the need for solidarity. Trans liberation is inextricably linked to other movements for equality and justice.” Page 48
"But just because an individual is drawn into the vortex of a movement, it doesn't mean that person will automatically be enlightened on every aspect of other peoples' oppressions - particularly that which they do not directly experience. Each individual still needs to overcome the bigotry that has been instilled in us from an early age." Page 51
"And so if we really want that friendship and that understanding, we have to build it. All of us in this society are wounded. But we don't always know where each other's injuries are located. That means we may thoughtlessly hurt each other. Everyone who has ever been treated unjustly or been disrespected in this society is full of justified anger. I believe wed need to take care not to unleash that rage on each other." Page 55
"It's one thing for transwomen to discuss issues of socialization as an internal discussion in transsexual space. But it's a prejudiced and dangerous formulation for non-transsexuals to make. It's a fast and slippery slide from the rigidity of biological determinism to an equally narrow position of social determinism." Page 56
"All of us came into movements with rough edges." Page 57
"Everyone in this room is a leader. Each of us is needed as an organizer, as an activist in the decisive struggles that lie ahead. There's a wonderful Chinese proverb that advises "The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it."" Page 61
"The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person doing it." Page 61
"There are many "magpies" who are drawn to latch onto the bright, shiny aspects of Native culture, who misappropriate Native culture, customs, and artifacts in the belief that they are "honoring" Native people by imitating them without understanding them. It is better for non-Native people to follow our example by looking to their own ancestors and reclaiming their own transgendered spirituality." Page 66
"White people need to reclaim their own sacred people instead of appropriating ours." Page 66
"The process of reclamation is an extraordinarily difficult one in which the seeker must come face to face with the atrocities of the past, grieve for what has been lost, and carefully sift through the destruction to recover the little that remains. This is true whether the seeker is examining Native American or Euro-American history. History is not ancient and irrelevant; history is the reason why things are the way they are now." Page 66
"The United States is the richest country in the world, we are often told. So show us the money!" Page 86
"Yes, trans liberation is shaking up old patterns of thoughts or beliefs. Good! Because most of those thoughts and beliefs that we are challenging were imposed on us from above, were rotten to the core and were backed up by bigoted laws. But we're not taking away your identity. No one's sex reassignment or fluidity of gender threatens your right to self-identity and self-expression. On the contrary, our struggle bolsters your right to your identity. My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you." Page 101
"We can develop multi-issue coalitions with everyone who's struggling for social equality and economic justice. When people from different walks of life find themselves together in a collective protest, later they remember who stood tall with them when times were tough. That's how genuine solidarity is forged. An injury to one is an injury to all! When we allow ourselves to be split along lines of oppression, we always lose. But when we put forward a collective list of demands together, and fight to defend each other from attacks, we frequently win." Page 105
"The revise history to parrot one message over and over again: "The way things are now is the way they've always been." The meaning is clear and demoralizing: Don't even think about fighting for change." Page 119
"Until the lions come to power, the hunters write the history." Page 119
"If you ask me, the aim should not fall a yard short of genuine social and economic liberation for everyone. How to build a movement capable of achieving that objective, however, is the crux of the matter at hand." Page 135
"The truth is, you and I are the stuff that great leaders are made of. We don't have to wait for a distinguished white man on a horse or a politician wealthy enough to win office in a multimillion dollar campaign to usher in justice and equality. The ranks of rebellions and revolutions that have shaped human history have been made up of people like you and me. That history lesson has been purposefully kept from us." Page 141
"Defining myself is hard, being myself is easy." Page 145 (Deirdre Sinnot)
"I've never wanted to change myself to conform to bigots. My goal is to change the society so that there isn't oppression." Page 145 (Deirdre Sinnot)
July 1, 2017
one of the shortest things i have ever read, but definitely sticks in my heart
October 26, 2018
I'm rereading Leslie's work, which seems more timely than ever. I can't tell you how much I miss this person's voice.
March 23, 2025
Accidently deleted from goodreads??? So pt. 2
man the ending wrecked me.
crying. such a powerful message. thankful for our queer, POC, trans-cestors who have come before me to fight not only for their lives but for mine as well.
let me sit and cry on this a little longer.
------------------------------------------------------------
This will be the second Leslie Feinberg book I've had the honor of engaging with. Each time, I'm left with my heart feeling tender, my senses raw, and my mind awake.
Trans Liberation, is a collection of essays and speeches from Leslie hir-self and other trans persons' experiences. The common theme circulating the language of this book is mobilization in movement by solidarity and awareness of the interconnection throughout marginalized identities. Getting to hear from Leslie and countless other gender-bending individuals was a powerful testimony to their courage, strength, and integrity while being subjected to the most disgusting forms of hate.
Wherever oppression has existed, trans (and all others under this umbrella) identities have always been at the forefront of struggles. They have always been fighting for us because they have always understood that one cannot be liberated without the liberation of the other. The fight for trans liberation is the fight for ALL of us, whether you're cis-gender or not. You may feel at home in the categories within the binary of man or woman, or perhaps this strict gender code cannot encapsulate all of who you are.
Well, guess what? Trans liberation defends you both.
Trans individuals are fighting for all of us to be complex human beings, without experiencing oppression and harm based on how we decide to live this truth out.
This book was not just insightful intellectually, but a litmus test of my thoughts, values, and beliefs. I found myself asking myself what are my preconceived notions of what a "woman," should be like or a "man." Where did those things come from? Where do I fit, or not fit in cis-gendered boxes? How am I benefitting and contributing to the harm of others who cannot fit into those categories? Where am I placing strict boxed-in binaries in my life, and not allowing the fluidity of movement?
This definitely won't be my last book by Leslie Feinburg.
Now I leave you with this...
"Imagine how during the nineteenth century in the United States it must have seemed as though slavery could last forever. There was no mass movement. They didn't have millions of followers. But they fought anyway. In doing so they became a catalyst to the movement to abolish slavery.
The people who make a difference in history are those who fight for freedom...not because they're guaranteed to succeed...but because it's the right thing to do."
man the ending wrecked me.
crying. such a powerful message. thankful for our queer, POC, trans-cestors who have come before me to fight not only for their lives but for mine as well.
let me sit and cry on this a little longer.
------------------------------------------------------------
This will be the second Leslie Feinberg book I've had the honor of engaging with. Each time, I'm left with my heart feeling tender, my senses raw, and my mind awake.
Trans Liberation, is a collection of essays and speeches from Leslie hir-self and other trans persons' experiences. The common theme circulating the language of this book is mobilization in movement by solidarity and awareness of the interconnection throughout marginalized identities. Getting to hear from Leslie and countless other gender-bending individuals was a powerful testimony to their courage, strength, and integrity while being subjected to the most disgusting forms of hate.
Wherever oppression has existed, trans (and all others under this umbrella) identities have always been at the forefront of struggles. They have always been fighting for us because they have always understood that one cannot be liberated without the liberation of the other. The fight for trans liberation is the fight for ALL of us, whether you're cis-gender or not. You may feel at home in the categories within the binary of man or woman, or perhaps this strict gender code cannot encapsulate all of who you are.
Well, guess what? Trans liberation defends you both.
Trans individuals are fighting for all of us to be complex human beings, without experiencing oppression and harm based on how we decide to live this truth out.
This book was not just insightful intellectually, but a litmus test of my thoughts, values, and beliefs. I found myself asking myself what are my preconceived notions of what a "woman," should be like or a "man." Where did those things come from? Where do I fit, or not fit in cis-gendered boxes? How am I benefitting and contributing to the harm of others who cannot fit into those categories? Where am I placing strict boxed-in binaries in my life, and not allowing the fluidity of movement?
This definitely won't be my last book by Leslie Feinburg.
Now I leave you with this...
"Imagine how during the nineteenth century in the United States it must have seemed as though slavery could last forever. There was no mass movement. They didn't have millions of followers. But they fought anyway. In doing so they became a catalyst to the movement to abolish slavery.
The people who make a difference in history are those who fight for freedom...not because they're guaranteed to succeed...but because it's the right thing to do."
April 8, 2023
especially applicable now based on based on recent legislative attacks against trans existence, but truly an essential read for everyone. eternally thankful for and inspired by leslie feinberg’s leadership and legacy, and for that of every individual that has led the fight for total economic and social liberation.
December 3, 2020
This book contains edited versions of talks done in the early 90s. It also contains pretty heavy talk about hospitals that is really shattering. It’s truly heavy content but very necessary to learn history of our lbgtqa+ siblings. I love Leslie and you should too!
October 23, 2020
extremely powerful, loving, incisive, persuasive, invigorating speech and writing. I'm so glad I took the time to sit down and read this text and let it all wash over me
August 25, 2022
I read this 17 years ago, and again this week. And I feel the same spark of hope I did the first time as I read it.
August 2, 2023
Really appreciated this book.
October 28, 2023
Everyone should read this book. In a time like we are living in now, it feels like this book was written yesterday. So accessible and Feinberg speaks to everyone when s/he writes this text. Another one of the best books I’ve ever read from an author who is one of my favorites. I can’t wait to read Transgender Warriors.
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