Transgender Warriors

Transgender Warriors:
Making History from Joan of Arc to RuPaul

By Leslie Feinberg

1996, Beacon Press

212 Pages


From the Cover

In this fascinating personal journey through history, Leslie Feinberg - one of the most prominent transgender rights activists today - unearths a vast body of evidence that throughout history there have always been people who defy cultural boundaries of sex and gender.

During an embattled childhood and teenage years as a gender outlaw, Feinberg began a search for others struggling to assert an identity. What s/he found was a long tradition of individuals fighting back against injustice - from Joan of Arc to the Welsh peasants who cross-dressed to protest taxes, from the Black and Latina drag queens who led the Stonewall rebellion to transsexual parents fighting for custody today. Traditional society often exacted a terrible price from these transgender warriors, and Feinberg urges us now to receive them as hero/ines and visionaries.

Illustrated with many previously unpublished historical images and contemporary photographs, Transgender Warriors is an eye-opening excursion through the history of sex and gender expression and a powerful testament to the resilient and rebellious spirit.

Table of Contents

1. The Journey Begins
2. My Path to Consciousness
3. The Give Away
4. They Called Her "Hommasse"
5. Our Sacred Past
6. Why Bigotry Began
7. But They Had Slaves!
8. Natural Becomes "Unnatural"
9. "Holy War" against Trans People
10. Leading the Charge
11. Not Just Passing
12. From Germany to Stonewall
13. To Be or Not to Be
14. Sisterhood: Make It Real!
15. Making History

Portrait Gallery

Appendix A - International Gender Bill of Rights
Appendix B - Transgender Organizations
Appendix C - Transgender Publications