Transgender Warriors

Content Warning: This section discusses anti-trans and anti-gay violence (including murder), death by suicide, and racism.

Leslie Feinberg (1949-2014) provides a lot of autobiographical context in Transgender Warriors. She describes her experiences growing up as a masculine girl and as one of the only Jewish kids in her neighborhood. She also discusses her factory jobs in her adolescence and the process of starting to pass as a man. Passing is central to Feinberg’s life experiences. When a transgender person “passes,” they present as the sex that does not align with their assigned sex in such a way that few people, if any, notice that they are transgender. Because most people read her as a man, at least at first glance, passing has always been relatively easy (though not without risk) for Feinberg, which allowed her to access employment she would not otherwise have been eligible. Not all trans people want to, choose to, or are able to pass in their daily lives. For Feinberg, passing was possible and often preferable because she already had a masculine gender expression. Feinberg did not identify as a man but as a transgender butch lesbian. The apparent contradiction between her assigned sex/gender and her gender expression and appearance was itself a key part of her identity.