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.
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Transgender Identities Throughout History
In Transgender Warriors, Leslie Feinberg sets out to provide a history of gender identities and expressions that go beyond the strict man/woman binary. Creating this history is important because many transgender, non-binary, and gender-nonconforming people are unaware of their place in a very long history. Feinberg claims that when humans were organized into small hunter-gatherer societies before the advent of settled agriculture, anti-trans biases did not exist and people accepted gender variance as a normal part of life. She gives many historical examples to back up this claim, including evidence of ancient transgender priestesses, societies that used to (or still do) recognize third-gender categories, and deities that are not easily defined as male or female. Once class differences became more pronounced, those in charge demonized transgender individuals to divide people and ensure their own control. Sometimes, people like Joan of Arc pushed back against this gender essentialism, with the support of the working-class populace.
The evidence that Feinberg presents does indeed demonstrate that transgender people (to use the term broadly) have always existed. It also demonstrates that various societies have had unique ways of understanding and codifying gender. Specific laws against transgender expression do seem to date back to the origins of agricultural societies. However, human prehistory is very long, and people in different cultures, different times, and different parts of the world did not live in the same ways. There is simply not enough surviving evidence to claim that gender variance was always seen as a universal good in all of these cultures. The existence of a third gender category in a culture, for instance, might suggest that all gender variance was accepted, but it also might suggest that people were required to align themselves with one of three genders, instead of one of two, regardless of their true feelings.
Although Feinberg’s discussion of gender across history lacks some academic rigor, the points she makes still hold significance. She demonstrates that anti-trans bias is something that is learned, not something inherent to human beings. Feinberg’s work provides the opportunity for transgender readers to learn that they have a place in history and that they are not alone. In recent decades, thanks in part to the tireless work of activists like Feinberg, the transgender community is more visible than it has been for a long time. There is greater recognition of transgender figures from history, third gender categories, and the political power of gender nonconformity and transgender solidarity.
Sex and Gender Self-Determination
In many contemporary societies, sex and gender are socially constructed to fit a male/female, man/woman binary. Babies are assigned male or female depending on their genitalia, and they are then raised with the expectation that they will fit into the corresponding gender role. People who feel that their inner sense of their gender aligns with the sex and gender they were assigned might not even notice that this binary is constructed; they may feel that it is a neutral, natural, and unchanging expression of how human beings are. People who do not fit into their assigned category will instead experience this system of sex and gender assignment as oppressive or even dangerous. Many people are forced into sex and gender categories that do not fit them: Intersex babies are often subjected to medically unnecessary surgical intervention shortly after birth. Transgender and non-binary people often face serious consequences for their gender expression, including social ostracism, violence, employment discrimination, and more.
Feinberg proposes a better system of classifying people, which is self-determination of sex and gender. She argues that government IDs like driver’s licenses and passports should not include sex or gender markers. While that might seem like a radical change, Feinberg points out that race was once included on these documents, too. Instead of being classified as either men or women, people should get the chance to explore their gender expression for themselves before deciding how they would like to dress and how they want others to refer to them. For Feinberg and for many other trans people, self-determination is a matter of safety and freedom. Her gender expression is a major part of who she is.
There are many benefits to sex and gender self-determination. It can help people deconstruct their assumptions about gender and sex, which can in turn dismantle patriarchal notions that men are superior to women. Self-determination ensures that anyone who wants to participate in the women’s liberation movement can do so. It decrees that all individuals are experts in their own lives and experiences: Each person gets to decide who they are instead of having that decision imposed on them. People determining their own sex and pursuing medical interventions to change their sex characteristics can be seen as a win for bodily autonomy. Consequently, the freedom to choose what happens to one’s body may benefit cisgender people as well as transgender people.
Political Solidarity and Action
Feinberg connects transgender identities to the importance of political solidarity and action. Coming from a working-class background, Feinberg learned early on about the importance of solidarity movements, such as unions, in protecting workers’ rights and freedoms. As she became more exposed to communist ideas, her understanding of solidarity evolved and meshed more clearly with her gender identity, especially when she came to understand how oppression functions as a tool of the ruling class. Class, nationality, religion, race, even sexuality and gender are used to pit people against one another and prevent them from collectively organizing against capitalism and the ruling class. Feinberg argues that all forms of oppression stem from this one source. In order to fight back, she says, people must break through these divides and form movements of solidarity with one another. Indeed, the very existence of transgender oppression, Feinberg argues, arose in history because of manufactured class divides and the capitalist system.
Feinberg links freedom of transgender expression to a time in history with no class divides or systematic oppression, particularly within matriarchal societies. Though there are historical questions as to whether or not these societies functioned in exactly the way Feinberg claims, they are nevertheless useful as ideals of what modern societies can strive for. If people were united as a collective, without stratified divisions, individuals would be free to express their gender however they see fit; there would be no policing of gender expression because it would not serve a political or financial purpose.
Solidarity is not just beneficial to transgender freedoms, and the LGBT movement is a prime example of this. While it started as the gay and lesbian rights movement, it expanded to include bisexual and transgender people. Each group has unique struggles, but their fight for liberation is stronger when they stand in solidarity with one another. Feinberg’s great hope is that the words of activists like her will carry solidarity movements forward to a new generation of people who work together to build “a society in which no class stands to benefit from fomenting hatred and prejudice, [and] where laws restricting sex and gender and human love will be unthinkable” (128).
