Transgender Warriors

Feinberg was born in 1949. Despite being assigned female at birth, she grew up as “an extremely masculine girl” (3), which was a terrifying experience that put her in danger of harassment and violence, in addition to the antisemitism she also faced as a Jewish person. She stuck out because she was more comfortable wearing jeans and T-shirts, which were considered “boy” clothes at the time. People could not tell if she was a boy or a girl, and she was often harassed and bullied for her gender expression. She learned about Christine Jorgensen, an American trans woman and singer who traveled to Sweden to get gender-confirmation surgery. Jorgensen was the subject of cruel and hateful jokes; Feinberg had a babysitter who referred to Jorgensen as not a man or a woman but a “freak.” It was comforting for Feinberg to realize that she was not the only person who did not fit perfectly into the category of “boy” or “girl.” Jorgensen’s ability to thrive despite the hate she received inspired Feinberg. 

By the 1960s, Feinberg had been drawn to the Civil Rights Movement and anti-Vietnam war protests. She found community and belonging in gay bars, where she met butch and femme lesbians and drag queens, and became part of the early gay rights movement. During this time, she and others like her were targeted by the police for breaking so-called sumptuary laws, according to which it was illegal to wear clothes that did not match a person’s assigned sex. Feinberg was required by law to wear at least three articles of “women’s” clothing, while drag queens were supposed to wear “men’s” clothing. By refusing to do so, they broke the law and were often arrested. They faced police violence for their gender expression. However, Halloween was the one night of the year when people could wear whatever they wanted, prompting Feinberg to wonder where laws against “cross-dressing” came from and if people like her had always existed.

Feinberg struggled with history class at school, always feeling that she could not “find [herself] in history” (11). Instead, she found answers when she became involved in political movements rallying for justice. Feinberg worked in factories as a teenager, where she learned about institutionalized racism and the divide-and-conquer tactics that factory foremen used to squash strike actions. Later, when work at the factories dried up, she was unable to get a job, as she was too masculine for jobs usually given to women. When she tried out a more feminine gender presentation, people assumed she was a man in a dress. She applied for a job as a man, wearing borrowed stick-on sideburns and was hired as a security guard. During this time, Feinberg took male hormones and received a breast reduction surgery in order to pass more convincingly as a man. While working as a security guard, Feinberg met many entitled rich people and realized that, despite the privileges she gained from passing as a man, her social class still put her at a disadvantage in society. Her class consciousness further developed when she learned about socialism and communism; she became opposed to American global intervention and Zionism. 

Feinberg became involved in communist movements that fought back against the oppression of people around the world, including the Workers World Party (WWP) and the Youth Against War and Fascism (YAWF). Many of these movements supported gay and lesbian rights, but Feinberg was still passing as a man and told nobody about her identity. She was afraid to lose the sense of belonging that she had found in these movements if she told her comrades that she was transgender. When she finally got up the courage to tell Jeanette Merill, one of the founders of the Buffalo chapter of the WWP, Feinberg was met with an unexpected welcome and started attending the women’s caucus meetings of the WWP. Jeanette’s husband, Eddy, introduced Feinberg to the writings of communists like Che Guevara, Nkrumah, Mao Zedong, Ho Chi Minh, and Rosa Luxemburg. She learned that people lived in matrilineal, communal societies for thousands of years. Feinberg returned to her original question about the existence of transgender people in history.

In 1973, Feinberg moved to New York. In 1974, she visited a museum and learned about Indigenous people who dressed and performed tasks usually attributed to the opposite sex. As she researched further, she found many examples of “male-to-female” or “female-to-male expression” in Indigenous groups across North and South America (22). The term Two-Spirit is often used to describe these people, though there are more specific terms used by specific nations. Two-Spirit people were (and still are) honored within their societies as people who possess both a feminine and masculine spirit. European colonists were disgusted by gender variance in Indigenous communities and murdered many gender-variant individuals. 

The Indigenous fight against colonization has long included the fight to recognize Two-Spirit people as they would have been in their pre-colonial societies. Feinberg eventually met Two-Spirit people in 1989 at a gathering in Manitoba, Canada. She learned that not all Two-Spirit people fit into English language concepts like transgender, gay, or lesbian and that each Indigenous group has a slightly different understanding of what it means to be Two-Spirit. Feinberg realized that European concepts of sex and gender are not universal. For example, Wesley Thomas, a Navajo Two-Spirit, has “identified four categories of sex: female/woman, male/man, female/man, and male/woman” (27). 

Feinberg describes the experiences of Spotted Eagle, a White Mountain Apache who, like Feinberg, was a “masculine girl” (28). Spotted Eagle describes belonging to a matriarchal community where women do not have more power than others; their societal structure is simply more balanced, and she is honored both as a woman and as Two-Spirit. She suggests that colonization is responsible for the rigid gender system in modern-day America. Two-Spirit people still exist because they have fought back against colonial oppression. Feinberg is left to wonder why European colonists were so against gender variance and whether there were ever any gender identities similar to Two-Spirit in European societies.

Feinberg learns more about Joan of Arc, who was burned at the stake at the age of 19 by the Catholic Church. In her research, Feinberg learns that Joan of Arc was an illiterate French peasant girl born during the 15th century who claimed to have visions from God telling her to dress as a man and lead an army of French peasants to drive the English out of France. Joan of Arc was successful in her goals and ended up defeating the English at Orleans and liberating French villagers. Her peasant followers considered her holy and believed that she was sent by God. However, she was later captured by the Burgundians, who still held allegiance with England. The Burgundians called Joan of Arc “hommasse,” a slur meaning “manwoman,” or “masculine woman” (33). 

The Catholic Inquisition eventually prosecuted Joan of Arc, condemning her to be burned at the stake for the crime of wearing men’s clothing. However, Feinberg points out that it was not just Joan of Arc’s dress that condemned her but also the fact that she was a peasant girl who had seized power; she challenged the class biases of the time. The church argued that by dressing as a man, she blasphemed against God. Joan of Arc refused to resume dressing as a woman and was burned at the stake on May 30, 1431. Feinberg wishes that she had known more about Joan of Arc when she was a teenager. She is intrigued by the way that the ruling noble class abhorred Joan of Arc’s cross-dressing, while the peasant class considered her sacred and believed that she had the power to heal the sick. She wants to know why cross-dressing was venerated by the peasant class and if there are any other historical examples of gender variance among the peasantry of Europe.