Trans Liberation Quotes

“Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“I have heard an argument that transgender people oppress transsexual people because we are trying to tear down the categories of male and female. But isn't this the same reactionary argument used against transmen and transwomen by those who argue that any challenges to assigned birth sex threaten the categories of man and woman? Transgender people are not dismantling the categories of man and woman. We are opening up a world of possibilities in addition. Each of us has a right to our identities. To claim one group of downtrodden people is oppressing another by their self-identification is to swing your guns away from those who really do oppress us, and to aim them at those who are already under siege.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“I live proudly in a body of my own design. I defend my right to be complex.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“What is the bedrock on which all of our diverse trans populations can build solidarity? The commitment to be the best fighters against each other's oppression. As our activist network grows into marches and rallies of hundreds of thousands, we will hammer out language that demonstrates the sum total of our movement as well as its component communities.

Unity depends on respect for diversity, no matter what tools of language are ultimately used. This is a very early stage for trans peoples with such diverse histories and blends of cultures to form community. Perhaps we don't have to strive to be one community. In reality, there isn't one women's, or lesbian, gay, bi community. What is realistic is the goal to build a coalition between our many strong communities in order to form a movement capable of defending all our lives.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Trans liberation is not a threat to any lesbian woman or gay man or bisexual person. Yes, trans liberation is shaking up old patterns of thoughts or beliefs. Good! Because most of those thoughts and beliefs that we are challenging were imposed on us from above, were rotten to the core and were backed up by bigoted laws. But we're not taking away your identity. No one's sex reassignment or fluidity of gender threatens your right to self-identify and self-expression.

On the contrary, our struggle bolsters your right to your identity. My right to be me is tied with a thousand threads to your right to be you.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“I don't think the point is: Why are we different? Why have we refused to walk one of two narrow paths, but instead demanded the right to blaze our own? The question is not why we were unwilling to conform even when being beaten to the ground by ridicule and brutality.

The real burning question is: How did we ever find the courage? From what underground spring did we draw our pride? How did each of us make our way in life, without a single familiar star in the night sky to guide us, to this room where we have at last found others like ourselves? And after so much of ourselves has been injured, or left behind as expendable ballast, many of us worry "What do we have left to give each other? Upon what basis will we build something lasting between us?"

I think we have a whole world to give back to each other.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“The nature versus nurture debate has meaning for each of us here because we are constantly being asked in life: Why are you the way you are? When did you first know you were different? Do you think that while you were in the womb your tiny fist inadvertently clenched an essential gene too hard? Or was your mother domineering?

And my answer is: Who cares! As long as my right to explore the full measure of my own potential is being trampled by discriminatory laws, as long as I am being scapegoated for the crimes committed by this economic system, my right to exist needs no explanation or justification of any kind.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“To safeguard what we've won and to move forward requires securing, solidifying, and making more permanent alliances with others who are hurt by the same system. Consciousness plays an important role in cementing this coalition. Shared consciousness becomes a material force because what you're fighting for and what you are determined to win together has a big impact on how your foes react to you.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“The people who make a difference in history are those who fight for freedom - not because they're guaranteed to succeed - but because it's the right thing to do. And that's the kind of fighters that history demands today. Not those who worship the accomplished fact. Not those who can only believe in what is visible today. But instead, people of conscience who dedicate their lives to what needs to be won, and what can be won.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“History teaches us that when an economic crisis hits, the process of scapegoating becomes more intense and more violent. African-American, Latino, Asian, and Arab peoples, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals, feminists, trans people - and others who have been in the forefront of progress - will increasingly find themselves in the crosshairs. And the gains we made will all be under siege, as well.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“For revolutionaries, theory that is not a guide to action is a worthless intellectual exercise. Our analysis has to be as taut as a diving board that enables us to springboard into the fray, to be able to recognize allies and enemies, and put an end to economic inequality and social injustice altogether.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Theory is important to those of us who are struggling to transform society because it offers distilled experience so we don't have to repeat mistakes.

A scientific materialist view of theory and history gives working and oppressed peoples a roadmap to find the path toward liberation.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“But no one can deny that rigid gender education begins early on in life—from pink and blue color-coding of infant outfits to genderlabeling toys and games. And those who overstep these arbitrary borders are punished. Severely. When the steel handcuffs tighten, it is human bones that crack.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Where is the great social movement in the streets that will help support and strengthen our demand for trans liberation? Will we see it in our lifetime? No crystal ball exists to predict mass awakening. But laws of motion and development do exist: Repression breeds resistance. That's the lesson of Stonewall.
And remember what Sylvia Rivera said about that rebellion? 'I always believed that we would have a fight back. I just didn't know it would be that night.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Too many of us as trans people have experienced something similar to the 'Miss or Mrs.' query - except it feels much more demeaning. It's the address I call 'Mamsir.' You know what I mean: 'Here's your change, ma'am, I mean sir, I mean ma'am, I mean sir.' It's debasing and embarrasses both people and anyone else who is listening. I despise the class subordination that resides in those once-mandatory forms of address, as well.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“History, in the hands of those who have the most to gain from change, is a formidable weapon. That's why colonizers and imperialists always burned and destroyed the historical accounts of those they conquered. They revise history to parrot one message over and over again, "the way things are now is the way they've always been". The meaning is clear and demoralizing: Don't even think about fighting for change.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Struggle informs theory, and theory in turn counsels action. That's why those at the summits of power do everything that can to ridicule and condemn and censor these ideas.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“Take theory, for example. Most working people think theory, in general, doesn't have much to do with real life. With some theories, that's true. Theory that strays too far from experience becomes abstract - an idealist argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Theory has to be tested against reality.
While carefully studying questions of sex and gender oppression, or the oppression of same-sex or omni-sexual love, we have to be careful not to produce theoretical hothouse flowers that are removed from the social and economic soil in which they are rooted.
And since theory is the generalization of experience, we have to ask: Whose experience is it? From whose point of view?
The dominant theories in any society reflect the economic interests of those who dominate the society. How can it be otherwise? Who pays an army of spin-doctors and public relations experts to try to mold popular opinion? Who determines educational curricula? Who owns and controls the monopolized television, publishing, and media? The cacophony of theorists hired to defend the status quo is meat to drown out the voices of those who are fighting for change.
That's why we must ask everyone who puts forward theory: Which side are you on?”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“This hatred of everything that is feminine is the distilled essence of anti-woman attitudes.
The women's movement is right - females are socialized very differently and unequally. But the trans movement reveals a more layered and complex socialization process. Does a masculine girl absorb social education about what it means to be a 'girl' in the same way as a feminine girl? Does a feminine boy grow up identifying with, or fearing, the masculine boys learning to swagger and take up space? How does a transsexual child or adult absorb the messages of how a 'real' man or woman is supposed to act and relate?”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“I watched as masculine girl children like myself - referred to as tomboys - and feminine boys - branded as sissies and pansies - were shamed, threatened, beaten, and terrorized into conforming to a pinker or bluer tint of gender. Many of the accommodations they adapted as teenagers - longer or shorter hair, a practiced swagger or sway, or an exaggerated public exhibition of heterosexuality - did little to conceal their forbidden gender expression, but instead twisted their whole beings into a countenance of self-loathing and defeat.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“I view science as the priceless legacy of humanity's search for understanding of the material world. But in an unequal economic system, science cannot avoid being stained by prevailing prejudices and bigotry - not only social sciences, like anthropology, but the so-called hard sciences like biology.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue

“My own life and consciousness straddles the trans communities and the lesbian, gay, and bi communities. I can feel the muscle we could flex if we could fight back together against all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and bashing. And I wanted each person in this room - cross-dresser and partner alike - to feel the potential strength of that coalition.
And so as I began to speak, unity was the most important issue on my mind. The room grew quiet. Food service workers slipped out of the kitchen to listen. No ice clinked in glasses; no forks clanked on plates. As I talked about the connections between our lives, virtually the only sound was of soft sobs as some partners cried quietly into their napkins or on each other's shoulders.”
― Leslie Feinberg, Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue