Leslie Feinberg
| Leslie Feinberg | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 1, 1949 Kansas City, Missouri |
| Occupation | Activist, speaker, author |
| Literary movement | transgender liberation |
| Partner(s) | Minnie Bruce Pratt |
|
transgenderwarrior.org |
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Leslie Feinberg (born September 1, 1949, in Kansas City, Missouri) is a transgender communist activist, speaker, and author. Feinberg's first novel Stone Butch Blues is widely considered a groundbreaking work about gender.[1][2][3]
Contents |
Career [edit]
Feinberg's 1993 first novel Stone Butch Blues, won the Lambda Literary Award and the 1994 American Library Association Gay & Lesbian Book Award. Despite the power of first-person narrative in fiction, the work is not an autobiography. This book is frequently taught at colleges, universities and some high schools.[1][2][3]
Feinberg has also authored two non-fiction books, Transliberation: Beyond Pink or Blue and Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Rupaul, the novel Drag King Dreams, and Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba, a compilation of 25 journalistic articles. Feinberg is also a high-ranking member of the Workers World Party and a managing editor of Workers World newspaper.[4][5]
Feinberg's writings on LGBT history, "Lavender & Red," frequently appear in the Workers World newspaper. Feinberg has also been involved in Camp Trans and has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Starr King School for the Ministry for transgender and social justice work.[6]
Feinberg began taking photographs in late 2008 after illness and resulting disability made writing difficult.[7]
Personal life and health [edit]
Leslie Feinberg identifies as a white, working class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female revolutionary. For more about Feinberg and pronouns, read "We are all works in progress" in Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Feinberg personally uses she or ze to describe her/hirself. [8] Feinberg explains: "I was born in Kansas City, Missouri--not Buffalo, N.Y.--into a blue-collar, factory-working family."
Feinberg's partner is the prominent lesbian poet-activist Minnie Bruce Pratt.[9][10]
Feinberg has carried legal documents for 40 years that state clearly who is, and is not, part of Feinberg's family.
Feinberg web posted: "The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) defines 'family' as: 'The person(s) who plays a significant role in the individual’s [patient’s] life.' My living biological relatives—Irving David Feinberg, Betty Vance Hyde, and Catherine Ryan Hyde—are not my family. They do not speak for me." [11]
Feinberg states: "Minnie Bruce and I have been family to each other for more than 20 years [2012]. Yet authorities routinely grant biological relatives--even if they are virtual strangers and/or hostile--the right to make critical decisions about the lives, and deaths, of relatives who are LGBTQ/+. So in order to help legally protect each other, Minnie Bruce Pratt and I married each other in two states."
Feinberg has been battling the effects of Lyme Disease, Babesiosis, Bartonella and other co-infections caught from a tick bite in the 1970s.[12]
Books by Leslie Feinberg [edit]
- Transgender Liberation: A Movement Whose Time Has Come, World View Forum, 1992. ISBN 0-89567-105-0
- Stone Butch Blues, San Francisco: Firebrand Books, 1993. ISBN 1-55583-853-7
- Träume in den erwachenden Morgen: Stone Butch Blues, Berlin: Verlag Krug & Schadenberg, 2008. ISBN 978-3-930041-35-0
- Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. ISBN 0-8070-7941-3
- Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue. Beacon Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8070-7951-0
- Drag King Dreams. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006. ISBN 0-7867-1763-7
- Rainbow Solidarity in Defense of Cuba. New York: World View Forum. ISBN 0-89567-150-6
References [edit]
- ^ a b Violence and the body: race, gender, and the state Arturo J. Aldama; Indiana University Press, 2003; ISBN 978-0-253-34171-6.
- ^ a b Omnigender: A trans-religious approach Virginia R. Mollenkott, Pilgrim Press, 2001; ISBN 978-0-8298-1422-4.
- ^ a b Gay & lesbian literature, Volume 2 Sharon Malinowski, Tom Pendergast, Sara Pendergast; St. James Press, 1998; ISBN 978-1-55862-350-7.
- ^ Leslie Feinberg: New book, birthday celebrated LeiLani Dowell, September 9, 2009.
- ^ Leftist transgender activist defies university censorship Larry Hales, LeiLani Dowell; Ft. Collins, Colo.; April 27, 2005.
- ^ News and Events
- ^ Read ["When and why I took these photographs"][1] in Feinberg's flickr profile.
- ^ "Challenging Gender Order. Two New Books on the Boundary", Buffalo News, 22 January 1993
- ^ "Annual Philip J. Traci Memorial Reading Feb. 6". 3 February 2005.
- ^ Winterton, Bradley (16 December 2003). "A transgender warrior spreads the word to Taiwan". Taipei Times.
- ^ http://leslie-feinberg.tumblr.com/day/2011/01/14
- ^ "Transgender Warrior" (Leslie Feinberg Official Website). Retrieved 13 December 2010.
External links [edit]
- Leslie Feinberg's homepage
- Lavender & Red, Feinberg's columns in Worker's World
- Feinberg's photostream
- Partial Academic Bibliography by M.R. Cook
- Partial curriculum vitae
- [2]
|
- 1949 births
- American activists
- 20th-century American novelists
- American political writers
- Genderqueer people
- Jewish American writers
- Jewish activists
- Jewish socialists
- Lambda Literary Award winners
- Lesbian writers
- LGBT Jews
- LGBT rights activists from the United States
- LGBT writers from the United States
- Living people
- People from Kansas City
- Secular Jews
- Transgender and transsexual writers
- Workers World Party politicians
