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

Amidst all the sound and fury about transgendenderiam and identity politics in contemporary discourse, Feinberg's book is a welcome perspective. With so much emphasis placed on individual actions and consumerism as a mechanism to achieve 'assimilation,' a material analysis of the gender system is desperately needed.

Feinberg's autobiography in the introduction serves as an excellent ideological background to the historical analyses that are to follow. By becoming involved in class struggle [via the Workers World Party], she identified the binary gender system [hence transgender oppression] as superstructure to the material base for women's oppression: industrial capitalism. The subsequent historiographies thus reflect that dominant ideology on gender is inextricably bound to the nature of forms of production.

The book is not without its contradictions, though. Although Feinberg is indeed Marxist in her analysis of history, she lauds transgenderism in itself as a subversive entity. Furthermore, she places 'trans' as a sex variant outside of male and female. This analysis seems reminiscent of the ninteenth century 'third sex' concept for homosexuals. Nonetheless, her many meticulously researched examples demonstrate how polymorphic human expression really can be.

Leslie lays some important groundwork with this piece. However, it is important to know where she is coming from, so I suggest you read Stone Butch Blues before reading TG Warriors. The notion of gender becoming an issue when our society moved from matriarchal to patriarchal is most fascinating and explains much. This is a worthwhile read for the investigator, officienado, or TG