Transgender Warriors

Feinberg does more research and learns about a group of Welsh peasant rebels called “Rebecca and her daughters.” These were male peasant farmers who dressed as women and destroyed toll roads that had been imposed upon their land by the English in the 1800s. Feinberg points out that these people were not simply wearing women’s clothing; they were exhibiting cross-gender behavior by “assuming the names, identities, and familial relationships of another sex” (75). Often, this cross-gender behavior did not only occur during uprisings, but throughout an individual’s life. They often participated in the Abbey of Misrule, a festival organized by unmarried men to mock the ruling powers. These events were approved by the church or crown, but were known to transform into real rebellions if political satire became too overt. Some historians are quick to dismiss the cross-dressing of rebels like Rebecca and her daughters, stating that they were merely wearing costumes. Feinberg rejects this interpretation, arguing that women's clothes are not easy to fight in, nor are they effective disguises.

There are many examples of transgender expression among rebellion leaders, especially in anti-colonial struggles in Ireland. Transgender expression, especially in the peasant class, was not always hated and was often used as a tool in the fight for liberation. Despite countless bans on cross-dressing, events like Halloween, Mardi Gras, and Mummer’s parades persist, all of which involve elements of transgender expression. The Rebeccas and others like them most likely would not have thought of themselves “in the same way as modern-day drag queens or transsexuals or heterosexual crossdressers do,” but they (81), like Feinberg, were oppressed and outlawed for their actions. Feinberg looks to them as examples of trans leadership in history that she wishes she had grown up knowing about.

There are many examples of people throughout history who, like Feinberg, have passed as another sex or gender. Some people assume that Feinberg passes as a man to escape misogyny, as though her gender expression would cease to exist in a more equitable world. People make similar arguments about the jazz musician Billy Tipton, who, upon his death in 1989, was discovered to have been born female. Many argue that he lived as a man in order to pursue a career as a musician, which he could not easily do as a woman, or to escape oppression for his sexuality. 

Feinberg argues that any woman can wear men’s clothes and pass as a man for a while, but to pass for decades or an entire lifetime requires an intrinsic masculine gender expression, not just a desire to escape misogyny. Furthermore, if the goal of passing as a man was to escape gender-based oppression, then there would be no examples of men passing as women, which there are. English men who dressed as women (who might today be considered trans women) risked being “dragged in an open cart through streets filled with a hostile mob to be publicly hanged” in the 1700s (87), but nevertheless, groups of such people, called “mollies,” persisted and organized underground societies where they could be themselves. They were frequently raided by the police but fought back. Similar transgender societies and gatherings existed across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The existence of female-to-male and male-to-female gender expression is evidence that these people were not merely wearing the clothes of the opposite sex to escape oppression. Transgender people have always existed and have risked persecution and hatred to live their lives. Feinberg imagines a world in which people do not have to hide their transgender expression, but are able to live openly and proudly, with the same rights as all other people. Feinberg does not see herself as the product of oppression. Rather, the act of passing, “having to hide [her] identity in fear, in order to live” is the product of oppression (89).