Book Review

Reviewed by Bentbastard

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Transgender Warriors

by Leslie Feinberg
Published by Beacon Press, June 30 1997 I.S.B.N. 978-0807079416

Leslie Feinberg is a female-to-male transgender warrior. As part of the (not-so-new) Transgender Liberation movement, like many in Transgender Warriors. Making of History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman, Feinberg seeks the liberation of oppression for all who transgress gender. Many in the Transgender Liberation movement are not wanting merely to settle into the "traditional" lifestyle of the person of their chosen sex, but activating themselves, exposing the strengths that transgender people possess collectively to fight the continued oppression of transgender people in western cultures.

Feinberg presents in Transgender Warriors an analysis of the state of being of people who transgress gender expression in human societies, this is more than an expression of pride in the existence of transgenderism and transgender people (although it is that too), Transgender Warriors wishes to expose the hidden histories of people who transgress gender in Western history. Namely the fact that Western development through the past few millennia has not only seen the transition from communal living to the nation state, but the increasingly ominous development of social oppression, especially in regards to transgender expression.

According to the history Feinberg reveals trans gender expression has had a strong place within western cultures: reverence in Pagan rituals, Joan Of Arc's leadership, and rebels against feudal overlords dressed in "women's" clothing to fight against road tolls to name just a few examples retold herein. We thus witness that indeed such expression has not always been stigmatised or illegitimate, but indeed celebrated, mostly (though not solely) among the "masses". From this perspective Feinberg follows the historical climb of capitalism, and in doing so challenges the infrastructure of capitalism and its relationship with the "masses" (i.e. the working classes).

If transgression of gender was once ritualised, spiritualised and admired in communal living western cultures, how has the "development" of economics over the millennia had such a fatal affect on the transgender population of western cultures? Feinberg suggests that the orchestrated effort of capitalists to turn working class peoples against one another was to prevent the working class from organising together against capitalism. By creating "oppression", "suspicion" and xenophobic, homophobic, and associated misanthropic feelings capitalists ensured the survival of a system that maintained the status quo. If as Marx suggested religion is the opium of the masses, then this style of social oppression is how the capitalists' maintain their hold over the "masses".

Feinberg by no means paints us a picture whereby people who transgress gender were hapless souls lost in the tide of capitalism. People who transgress gender have persisted to exist against this plight, as too all "oppressed" peoples. Transgender people have maintained a strong and very much a rebellious presence in history. Transgender warriors challenged the oppressive forces in many important epochs of the last few millennia, these individuals risked death instead of denying themselves an expression of a gender they chose for themselves.

As a Communist in the seventies Leslie Feinberg "came out" to Communist colleagues about being a transgendered female-to-male person. It is from this background that Feinberg analysed capitalism, its oppression of the working classes, while simultaneously discovering that a very long, proud and revered transgender history had been hidden from us, further, Feinberg analysed the part that economic reformations over the past three millennium has played in the omission and oppression of trans gender expression in modern western societies.

By exploring the hidden histories of transgressions of gender in western culture over the last few millennia Feinberg not only exposes the transphobia of modern western culture, Feinberg also witnesses the ease with which our culture condones the oppression of people's differences, and denies a history that makes us feel uncomfortable today. This distortion of historical truth not only deflects true representations of western history (conveniently), it contributes to the way that people who transgress gender today feel about themselves.

Feinberg personalises this oppression: if only young trans people could hear these stories their self-esteem could be greatly improved. And it is here that Transgender Warriors gets its power, from the realisation that the oppression of people who transgress gender in western cultures is socially dependent and is not universal or natural. More significantly Transgender Warriors is potentially inspirational for many young, and not so young, transgender people for whom there has been no mention of like-minded people, let alone a full history of trans gender expression. Transgender Warriors can only add to the quality of people's lived experiences and to the self-esteem of many.

Transgender Warriors is a call to arms, almost literally, it is a reclamation of a long lost past, a past denied, hidden. Feinberg not only draws attention to the ways in which the machinations of capitalism oppress the working class.

Feinberg doesn't just provide a "motive" for the oppression that working class people inflict upon one another, Feinberg articulates that transgression of gender has always existed, and still exists in forms, in all human societies, despite the oppression, despite the fear of death, people want to choose for themselves where on the gender expression continuum they wish to exist. By reflecting on the "truth" as presented here, we not only reclaim a past, but we offer a more positive future for those of us who presently transgress gender and suffer, fear or die at the hands of a gender rigid society.

The Transgender Liberation movement takes its power not from the anger of individuals, not from the fear of death, but from the hope of a better future within western cultures. Transgender Warriors has lent itself to this hope, and revealed that life in western cultures has not always been this way. Societies are fluid. Societies change. Western cultures are no exemption, ironically much like those individuals it presently oppresses.

People who transgress gender have not always been oppressed, ridiculed and killed. They were once revered as spiritual entities, and honoured from birth. However liberation is not won overnight, transgender liberation will be long journey, a long battle to reclaim the history of the transgender warriors that have proceeded us, to inspire the transgender warriors that will follow us, and to release the transgender warriors within each and every one of us.

Polare is published in Australia by The Gender Centre Inc. which is funded by the Department of Community Services under the S.A.A.P. Program and supported by the N.S.W. Health Department through the AIDS and Infectious Diseases Branch. Polare provides a forum for discussion and debate on gender issues. Advertisers are advised that all advertising is their responsibility under the Trade Practices Act. Unsolicited contributions are welcome, though no guarantee is made by the Editor that they will be published, nor any discussion entered into. The editor reserves the right to edit such contributions without notification. Any submission which appears in Polare may be published on our internet site. Opinions expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Editor, The Gender Centre Inc.I, the Department of Community Services or the N.S.W. Department of Health.