Transgender Warriors : Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman (Paperback)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: transsexual priestesses, transgender warriors, trans expression, Joan of Arc, United States, Spotted Eagle (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Leslie Feinberg has been a leader in the transgender rights movement as long as such a movement has existed. This book is both deeply personal and widely researched. Feinberg examines perceptions of the body, the status of clothing, and the structures of societies that welcome or are threatened by gender variance. The portrait gallery that closes the book contains photographs and capsule biographies of contemporary transgendered people. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Feinberg, a surgically and hormonally transgendered female-to-male and the author of the novel Stone Butch Blues, here effectively pummels several old saws about gender, such as that there were two or three centuries in ancient Greece that constituted the golden age of gayness ("How happy were the gay slaves?" she asks). She also shows the often frantic and neurotic ways Western society clings to rigid notions of gender, while at the same time she describes (though not fully enough) how these notions shift radically from age to age. But her historical perspective can be sketchy. Feinberg, for example, expends little effort in looking into why a notorious band of male Welsh revolutionaries calling themselves Rebecca and Her Daughters dressed as women to destroy tollbooths in the mid-19th century. Though she draws many conclusions from this and other examples of cross-dressing rebellion through the ages, she fails to consider that the readiest disguise for a married man is his wife's clothing. The book does offer an enlightening album of singular people: a female transvestite who is sexually attracted to gay men; a couple consisting of a female cross-dresser and a male-cross-dresser. But Feinberg ultimately leaves too many gaps, both in history and in reasoning, to make her theories about gender expression and gender oppression solid. Author tour. (May) FYI: Filming of Stone Butch Blues, which won both the ALA Award for Gay and Lesbian Literature and the Lambda Literary Award in 1993, is to begin this spring.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 218 pages
• Publisher: Beacon Press (June 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807079413
• ISBN-13: 978-0807079416
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #306,852 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in this category: (What's this?)

  #45 in

  Books > Gay & Lesbian > Nonfiction > Transgender

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Feinberg Dusts Off Our Transgendered Past, September 18, 1999

By A Customer

Those interested in transgenderism have long been teased by all-too-brief descriptions of its existence in times past. If mentioned at all in previous works, transgendered history has been soft-pedaled into vague meanderings on Native American "two-spirits".

Leslie Feinberg not only provides comprehensive documentation of the roles of transgendered people in ancient societies, but also interprets these traditions and their decline by deconstructing our current views of gender as the result of patriarchy. Feinberg also weaves into the interpretation elements of socialist theory and class oppression.

These theoretical passages are interspersed with personal vignettes from the Feinberg's life which flesh out the explanation. Even if one doesn't fully buy into Feinberg's views, the book takes you on a fabulous journey and forces you to re-examine your beliefs about gender.

Although not scholarly,the book serves the important purpose of contributing one volume that consolidates documentation of many of the instances of transgenderism that previously were splintered throughout the literature.

The book is a quick read, which is both refreshing and disappointing. Perhaps in the near future Feinberg or others will branch off this pioneering work and continue to re-discover the robbed tradition of transgenderism throughout the world.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A history of trans-ness written BY a trans person, February 3, 2003

By A Customer

Of course this book is personal. Of course it is passionate. It is an important attempt by a recognized trans author and amateur historian to catalyze a larger project of tracing authentic patterns of gender expression that don't conform to the binary that has been forced upon society since the rise of class divisions (i.e., since the collapse of "primitive" or "tribal" collectivism). And the book thereby contributes to efforts to demystify the notion that "two sexes" are a scientific fact and historical truth.

Hopefully others will pick up where Feinberg leaves off and apply other methodologies to uncover what has really been going on throughout human history where it comes to gender.

What the book lacks in traditional academic rigor it more than makes up for with its first-person self-consciousness, originality and plausibility in the interpretation of historical data. It is richly illustrated, literate, contemporary and very relevant to today's discourse.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Wide-Ranging Informative Work, March 3, 2004

By A Customer

Leslie Feinberg has created a fascinating compilation of transgender history.

This book "works" in that it engages the reader and stimulates thought, questioning and debate. Even the highly negative reviews that appear here reinforce this. The review authors are inflamed by a book of substance, one which presents a consistent theoretical underpinning as it provides a wealth of historical data.

A lot of political statements are made on all sides about the natural order of things. Look at the debate over same-sex marriage in which the debate is framed in terms of traditional values.

Feinberg, in this work, does the field of gender studies a great service in expanding our awareness of just how much diversity is historically encompassed in our common tradition.

Read this book, then reflect, then challenge both it and yourself.