I'm not on the list can I be included?

I found it to be a very powerful. The part near the beginning about the doctor was shocking (but not surprising, if that makes sense). Being disabled and chronically ill, I related to it heavily. I've experienced a lot of bigotry and dismissal from doctors and other medical professionals in my life.

There was another section around the middle expounding on the history of liberation movements, how their tendency to scapegoat a certain group to make themselves more easily accepted by the cishet patriarchal order ultimately ends up harming them. The women's liberation movement excluding lesbian women, the gay/lesbian liberation movement excluding trans / GNC people, etc. This was very compelling and succinctly illustrated the problem that plagues our movements today and fundamentally harms us all.

The sections where various kinds of people told their stories were also powerful and I think they would probably be the most convincing part for cis readers.

I also learned quite a bit, which I didn't really expect to given that I am nonbinary myself and have dealt with a lot of what the book handles. For example, I was unaware of bi- and tri-genderism. In hindsight, I'm surprised that I didn't know about them but I'm certainly glad that I know now.

Overall, it's a good, fairly easy read that I think has educational value for just about anyone. Even boneheaded cishet men that refuse to learn on their own. I think you'd have to be deliberately and actively obtuse to not derive some kind of new understanding from the book. 10/10

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I'm gonna try the audiobook when I feel like I am in a good spot to REALLY pay attention to it not just use it as background noise. Glad you're still around to yell at us.

honestly i glazed over my memories on half of it because im not a "wow cool speech!" type.

for me it blended into a single motif of frustration, nothing has changed. this book was made in the 90's, let this set in. "relevent and still topical my ass", there's already multiple generations of trans people that came out to theirself after this book was published.

anyways.... wow gays can marry now and the hrc can harass you for money so the bougie hedonists that run can the place can spend money on alcohol for the boys, and hire a trans intern to tell us how good we have it instead of doing anything.

it reminds me of mark fisher's slow cancellation of the future. existing outside of the binary itself is such a threat to capitalist order that queer people have to carve their own space under society.

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Let me finish my homework and then I'll come back to this thread and type some stuff. :transshork-sad: (procrastinating ftl)

I've read this before, and was planning to wait for a break from school to read it, but I just requested it again from the library, and will update once it comes in and I take an evening to read it over again.

What I remember of it from previously reading it is the importance of understanding that gender equality must necessarily be inclusive, and that these are issues that should be used to unite working class orgs, as opposed to being treated as idpol. But this was years ago, and I am realizing that I remember fewer details about Feinberg's work than I thought I did. So it's ver much time for another read, and some good note taking.

Turns out I'm a dum-dum and I'm still partway, so I'll just drop some things that still stood out to me, in no particular order.

Just as an open question, has a lot of the language and terminology evolved alongside the movement as a whole in the 20-odd years since this was published? I was genuinely curious about the disconnect in meaning between Leslie's use of the terms "transsexual" and "transgender", and it was interesting to note the differentiation between the two denoted in Chapter 3. I was under the impression, perhaps falsely, that "transsexual" fell out of favor. I had to re-read this poignant paragraph about eight times before the cluster of five neurons held together with Elmer's glue I call my brain understood it:

In turn, the ways transsexual women and men characterize our movement can help build a wider basis for unity. I have heard the formulation that “transmen are half of the transgender community.” But that’s not true. Transmen are half of the transsexual community. Saying that transsexual men are half of the trans population, and transsexual women are the other half, considerably narrows the scope of our movement. It leaves out everyone who is not transsexual.

A lot of what infuriates me about trans acceptance is, as Leslie points out several times, a massive load of bureaucratic and legal hurdles that exist for seemingly no clear reason, that can, should, and ultimately must be removed; what importance does one's sex/gender/genitalia matter in ID documents? You've got names, DOBs, addresses, a fucking photo, fingerprints and biometric data, but nooooo, it's important that feasibly, any inspecting officer be allowed to take your clothes off and check what's in the nether regions to ensure this last and final detail matches before you can prove you're you. Naturally, all these details are decided on the spot, on a whim, by a third party, usually decades in the past, and can often times never be changed ever again. I'll say it again, there's literally no point or benefit to this, to anyone, ever.

What's more is that these legal reforms literally cost nothing to do. In fact, by removing these barriers, I suspect documentiation would become less complex; in an age of DNA tests, retinal scans, fingerprints, and so on, that we still rely on on such a useless metric is baffling. And it's interesting that, because they cost nothing, reactionaries and liberal politicians alike weaponize them against one another into big-ticket issues rather than treating them like the bare minimum of human rights that they are. Conservatives would sooner kill anyone not 100% heteronormative, but liberals enjoy the perverse dangling of these rights as a reward for vote loyalty in front of the community like it's a big deal (it is, but not in the way they like to present it) since they cost nothing to them.

A lot of what people as a whole, both in, around, and out of the movemenet want is the simple ability to self-identify without being excluded; labels are all well and good, but more often than not it's always a gatekeeping third party that seems to be keen on determining who fits into what box rather than letting the individual decide what they want to be, or not at all.

That's all I got so far, I'm not sure if I'm on the right track, and I always err on the side of merely knowing that I know nothing. Counter-feedback and crit is welcome.

Are you beginning to understand how trans issues are inexplicably tied to cis people as well as trans people?

ashamed to admit I haven't cracked the book yet, but I appreciate this set of questions and this one in particular--in its more generalized sense it's the inspiration for my username and what really radicalized me

I'll post again w/ responses to these prompts once I've done my reading. Tyvm for the work you're doing here TC69

I feel bullied and I like it.

(I don't actually feel bullied, but I'm glad you gave me the push to read this book. Maybe now I'll actually read theory.)

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You're right that this is a quick, accessible read.

The first thing that comes to mind is that the endocarditis story sounds familiar, and reading later that sie lived in Buffalo, I wonder if I actually had a chance to see hir perform at a drag show I went to while I happened to be visiting 15 or 20 years ago. Either way it's a stark reminder that our trans comrades' lives and health and livelihoods are constantly threated, that the fight isn't about some mild inconveniences or hurt feelings. "Bigotry exacts its toll in flesh and blood."

"That is why I do not hold the view that gender is simply a social construct — one of two languages that we learn by rote from early age. To me, gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught." I mentioned this in the last thread, but this line resonates with me.

"The word outlaw is not hyperbolic. I have been locked up in jail by cops because I was wearing a suit and tie. Was my clothing really a crime? Is it a 'man’s' suit if I am wearing it? At what point — from field to rack — is fiber assigned a sex?" And this is a good illustration of the levels of horrifying absurdity that can be reached under the current system.

It was really lovely reading about the Phillipses.

That's about as far as I've gotten.

Edit 1: Sie really hammers the point that transgender liberation necessarily precedes a real scientific understanding of gender and sexuality. That any interpretations of whatever observations can even be made are going to be heavily skewed because of the oppressive structures that surround the very thing they purport to be trying to understand. And that fears that any search for "causes" of gender expressions and sexuality that don't conform to those oppressive structures could lead to efforts to eradicate non-conformity are entirely justified.

Those are all points that I needed driven home, and something I need to keep in mind going forward.

I really enjoyed it and I’m very glad to have been introduced to comrade Feinberg. If I don’t read more I will be buying more of their books for people in my life. I already recommend this work to some of the queer libs in my family. I had mentioned it before but it was nice to read alongside another book I’m currently reading. It’s the best book I’ve found to help resolve the dialectic that we are all more than our bodies and deserve to be treated as human beings no matter what body you are born into or how you present yourself. I think Feinbergs choice to use the stories of other trans people was wise and helped bring a kaleidoscope of perspectives to the book that culminated in a voice that was absolutely speaking to a broader human struggle felt by even cis people. Perhaps to a lesser degrees, but in ways that are acutely misunderstood, and to the detriment of women in particular. That said I liked the writings of comrade Feinberg the most because I think they were very compassionate and insightful in their unpacking of what’s troubled about masculinity even as it presents in people who are born female and have to deal with what that means too. Definitely a revolutionary text and helpful for finding revolutionary comrades. I also was really touched by the sections written by Dragon Xcalibur and Sylvia Rivera. If any comrades don’t know about Stonewall definitely educate yourself on it. I hate thinking about how much more poorly armed the cops were back then lol. Thanks for the rec TC69, you rock. also the Leslie Feinberg Emote rocks.

Thoughts shared

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