 |
|
|
|
Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman by Leslie Feinberg
Reviewed by TammyJo Eckhart
Part personal history, part layman’s understanding of history, and part call to self-empowerment, Leslie Feinberg’s “Transgender Warriors” holds great promise to several audiences. However, attempting to be so many different books at once can open the door to many criticisms. Does “Transgender Warriors” manage do to all three proud?
Written in 1996, by the time I’m reviewing this in 2008, “Transgender Warrior” has become historiography as we see what lay historians had to say about the topics of gender, sex, sexuality and variety within humanity before these were widely discussed. While there have been many other books on these topics since 1996, this book of 15 chapters and a photo gallery may still be worth a look.
Chapters 1 and 2 are Feinberg’s personal history, though that thread continues throughout the book. We learn how family, community and the greater society treated someone whose body and personality didn’t neatly fit into the feminine gender role. Her own family history and the period of her youth, the 1950s and 60s, allowed her to have moderate success but also offered her opportunities to learn about others who, like her, could not confine themselves to the narrow gender identities offered.
Through her work with labor movements she found resources and information about history previously ignored in her general education. Chapter 3 looks at her initial understanding of how native Americans embraced more than two genders. This was an eye-opener for her and resulted in her continuing search for transgendered people in history.
This led her to Joan of Arc, chapter 4, probably one of the best known crossdressers in history. Was she transgendered, however? Feinberg comes down firmly on the side of “yes,” while most professionally trained historians will say “no.” This is one of my biggest criticisms of Feinberg. While I tell my students they must analyze evidence and come to their own conclusions, Feinberg’s bibliography suggests a very biased list of sources and little examination of primary materials. Without a solid training in how to analyze evidence and sort through bias, many of her conclusions are debatable. As I’ve said repeatedly in reviews: False history provides nothing positive for anyone.
Chapter 5 looks at the concept of gender in religion, though often without a full understanding of the cultures whose religions Feinberg finds positive transgender role models to be an active part of. Being a Marxist in her approach to interpretation, accepted given her background in the labor movement, chapter 5 places the blame for rigid gender roles with the development of private property. Evidence for this basic tenet is lost in pre-history and a matter of modern political agenda, not a solid working of historical methods.
Chapters 7 and 8 look at the ancient Greeks and Romans, my territory as a historian, and thus I could go on and on about the misunderstandings here. Yes, there were some roles for folks who did not neatly fit into a gender box, but they were not nearly as respected as Feinberg leads her reader to believe. Likewise, chapter 9 on the Middle Ages of Europe has several misunderstandings of how societies functioned and changed over that millennium.
Chapters 10 and 11 look at the early modern period of Western culture. While Feinberg is correct to point to all the cross-dressing that shows up in rebellions, political speech, and festivals, she makes a huge jump to assume these people were transgendered. In fact, her transgender definition is so wide that it provides little usefulness, I think, to people who are sincerely and consistently not neatly fitting into what society labels masculine or feminine.
Chapter 12 is more solid in that I think the layperson can more readily understand the motivations of those closer to them in time. Feinberg looks at the 20th century’s problems with gender and how society has tried to define and limit it.
Chapters 13-15 return more strongly to Feinberg’s own personal history and combine that with a call for others to increase their self-awareness and demand equal treatment in society and under the law. These chapters are the most emotional and the most powerful, because they do not rely on biased sources but her own experiences primarily.
As a personal history, Feinberg shares great courage and clarity. We get a real feel for how she has been challenged by society and has found ways to step up to those challenges. As a call for others who do not neatly fit into a gender box, her words will be powerful and I suspect encouraging. As history, though, it is lacking, but then this is not for the academic audience, and as long as readers do not take everything she writes as fact, they can see a decent glimpse of how gender was manipulated and controlled in the past. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
