47 pages • 1 hour read
Leslie FeinbergTransgender Warriors
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Key Figures
Themes
Index of Terms
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaPart 5-Appendix AChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 5, Portrait Gallery Summary
The final chapter of Transgender Warriors is a photo gallery depicting gender diverse people, including people who are transgender, intersex, gender nonconforming, bigender (an identity that would now fall under the non-binary umbrella) and/or drag performers, along with brief biographies of each subject. Notable figures include Marsha P. Johnson and Brandon Teena. Marsha P. Johnson was a transgender activist and drag performer. She was a leader in the Stonewall Uprising and in the gay and transgender communities in the late 20th century. Her death in 1992 was ruled a suicide but was poorly investigated; police dismissed evidence suggesting she was murdered. Brandon Teena was a transgender man who was beaten, raped, and later murdered. This section also includes photos of Quentin Crisp, Craig Hackman, Petric Smith, Max Wolf Valerio, Louis Graydon Sullivan, Stormé DeLarverie, Kate Bornstein, and many other people who have fought for transgender rights and freedoms.
Afterword Summary
While Feinberg was writing Transgender Warriors, the basketball player Dennis Rodman “proudly came out as a cross-dresser” (165). Some people accused him of cross-dressing as a publicity stunt, though Rodman asserted that he had been dressing as a woman periodically since his childhood. Rodman’s coach, Phil Jackson, released a statement saying that Rodman was “like a heyoka,” a Lakota word that describes someone who is a “cross-dresser, a unique person” (166). Feinberg wanted to give Rodman and Jackson copies of Transgender Warriors so they could understand how the transgender community fought so that Rodman could have the space “to emerge as [he] truly [is]” (165). Some people agreed to help Feinberg get copies of the book to the two men. She does not know if either of them ever read her work.
Feinberg loves sharing experiences and stories with people she meets. She is honored to be trusted with stories of grief and struggle. She loves that she is able to take all she learns from the people she meets and transform it into writing and organizing. She sees “[her] writing as an extension of [her] activism” and believes that all the people she meets are part of the struggle for change (167). Feinberg hopes that this book has helped readers understand themselves better, contextualize transgender history and oppression, and understand that all liberation is interconnected. Upon finishing the manuscript for Transgender Warriors, Feinberg became ill with bacterial and viral infections that left her bedridden. As a visibly transgender person with no health insurance, recovery is especially difficult. Healthcare workers have refused her care because of her gender expression. Her experiences in hospitals reminds her of the poor treatment many of her friends received during the HIV/AIDS crisis. The trans community is fighting for affordable healthcare without discrimination. Feinberg does not know if she will ever recover from her illness, but hopes that her book will reach people who will carry on her work toward transgender liberation.
Appendix A Summary: “International Bill of Gender Rights”
Appendix A is a copy of the International Bill of Gender Rights, published in 1993 by the International Conference on Transgender Law and Employment Policy, Inc. (ICTLEP). The bill expands on the works of Jo Ann Roberts and Sharon Stuart, two transgender activists. It contains 10 proposed universal rights, including the right to the free expression of gender identity, the right to control and change one’s own body, the right to freedom from psychiatric diagnosis or treatment, and the right to form committed, loving relationships and enter into marital contracts. The bill has no legal body behind it, but it provides an aspirational blueprint for a better future. It is the hope of ICTLEP that legal frameworks enshrining gender rights will eventually become widespread, inspired by individuals who lead the fight for transgender rights and freedoms.
Part 5-Appendix A Analysis
The portrait gallery at the end of this book is an important look at Transgender Identities Throughout History. The photographs and captions show how the transgender community has evolved in recent decades. The emergence of a visible trans community marks a notable shift in modern history: It helps people understand that transgender people have always existed and that they are ordinary people with loving relationships. People who are not transgender benefit from living in a world with visible trans people for several reasons. Visibility can build empathy, helping cisgender people see trans people as complex individuals deserving of respect. It can also help dispel myths and stereotypes that contribute to anti-trans discrimination. Trans people certainly benefit from seeing each other; young trans people or people questioning their identities might feel less alone upon seeing portrait galleries like this one that show that trans people can live full, happy lives and share community.
Several of the people depicted in the portrait gallery are major figures in transgender history and in the contemporary LGBT community. Stormé DeLarverie (1920-2014) was an American butch lesbian and drag king who was instrumental in the Stonewall Uprising. Feinberg renders her surname as Delarverié; sources vary on the spelling. According to the caption on DeLarverie’s image, when asked whether she preferred to be referred to as “he” or “she,” she responded, “Use whatever makes you comfortable” (153). Kate Bornstein (b. 1948), also pictured in the portrait gallery, is an American performance artist and author who uses they/them and she/her pronouns. They knew they were not a man, but the only other option in a gender binary culture was to become a woman. Bornstein later found that she did not feel fully comfortable as a woman either, and so embraced a non-binary identity.
Bornstein and DeLarverie are great examples of the many options for Sex and Gender Self-Determination. As Feinberg has demonstrated throughout Transgender Warriors, many people have complex and unique relationships to their sex and gender. The ways people describe themselves are equally complex, and sometimes apparently inconsistent or confusing for those outside of the community. That is itself an important part of the trans experiences: There are lots of ways to exist, and lots of words to describe those ways of being that develop and change within communities. Finding new ways to express and describe gender diversity is a valuable process. When people who are already in the public eye push gender boundaries (like Dennis Rodman did), they can help start conversations about all kinds of gender nonconformity.
Visibility is one part of a much larger project of Political Solidarity and Action for transgender rights. When trans people are visible, they demonstrate great courage, normalize transgender expression, and help trans and gender-nonconforming people feel less alone. Feinberg also describes other important political goals like accessible healthcare. Like bodily autonomy rights, accessible healthcare is an aspect of transgender activism that has the potential to help everyone, regardless of their relationship to gender. Everyone can benefit from healthcare that is affordable and non-discriminatory. The ICTLEP’s bill of gender rights is another major part of trans activism: the practice of envisioning a better world. Although the rights that the ICTLEP proposes as universal are not yet accepted everywhere, those rights can provide a framework for future activism. They make it clear that a better world is possible if people are willing to fight for it.
