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

History is not only for historians but if one is not a historian one's understanding of events and individuals within their context will be limited. Even then, few historians are capable of mastering the entirety of human history. It is clear that Feinberg has done a lot of reading but it is also clear that her readings has been filtered through two lens.

The first is Marxism. Given her working class background and where/when Feinberg grew up and lived prior to this book, it makes perfect sense this would be one of the lens she views history through. Marxism is still a valid if debated theory of historical interpretation but it is rarely sufficient to explain everything.

Feinberg's second lens is her own natural desire to find others like herself, others who do not neatly fit into the social defined gender categories. While this desire is natural it should never be can excuse to misinterpret evidence or to view other cultures with your own biases. But let's be honest, many well-trained historians do this.

Therefore I cannot fault a layperson too much for historical interpretations I may have issue with but instead I should look at where such information is gleaned. The fact is that the vast majority of Feinberg's statements are drawn from published students by scholars and wouldbe scholars.

What I like about this book is that she attempts to pull together a wide range of information and couple it with the political, social, and economic struggles of transgendered people today. The stories are powerful and pulled from a variety of times and places though I noticed a very large amount of Native American information.

This book came out 12 years ago so I would urge Feinberg to reflect on this and revise it to include more evidence and interpretations as well as an update on civil rights for those who cannot or refuse to live nicely in a gender box.

Love or hate hir, Feinberg, like Joan Baez, raises the flag with the broadest possible coloring. Since when was subtlety required of agitprop? Sure, the Lady Skimmington citation is utopian; on the other hand, Feinberg (unlike almost every feminist) actually gets Engels, so right on. Streamlined, overdetermined? All the better, I say. Hey, Baez's greatest artistic moment was announcing (on the Johnny Carson Show!) her withholding of taxes to protest Vietnam; her LPs were secondary. That's the spirit in which I took this book. In the Top 5 of TG texts.

Although the sections of this book dealing with contemporary issues are reasonably accurate, many historians have pointed out that the history section desperately needed to have been vetted by someone who studies the subject.
Among the numerous errors, the section on Joan of Arc contains more than the usual quota:
1) The author was unaware of a number of basic points concerning the cross-dressing issue. Eyewitness accounts contain quotations from Joan herself stating that she continued wearing a specific type of soldiers' clothing in prison because its securely-fastened pants and tunic offered the only protection she had against attempted rape - the Condemnation transcript itself admits that this clothing was secured with dozens of cords attaching both layers of pants to the tunic. Her motive was necessity, as many of the tribunal members later confirmed. These men also confirmed that she was induced into a "relapse" by a regimen of increased rape attempts followed by the simple expedient of leaving her nothing else to wear but the male outfit. These are basic points which were overlooked by this book, whose version has little in common with history.
2) She was not a pagan. Eyewitness accounts prove this, as do extant letters which Joan dictated to scribes during her military campaigns: these contain phrases such as "King Jesus, King of Heaven and of all the world, my rightful and sovereign Lord". The names "Jesus, Mary" generally serve as the heading. One letter, dated 23 March 1430, orders a group called the Hussites to "return to the Catholic faith" or else she will lead a crusading army against them. Her trial, as we know from English government records and the later statements of the tribunal members, was deliberately rigged by the English in order to convict her for the purposes of revenge, rather than from a sincere belief that she held heretical views.
3) The Marxist and Feminist issues are anachronisms which additionally involve some ironies. Her stated and accomplished goal, after all, was to place her king on his throne, not to overthrow either the aristocracy nor the patriarchy. None of her many recorded statements imply feminist beliefs, nor anything equivalent to Marxism.

There are other books which document genuine cases of transgenderism in history. This is not one of them, and this portion of the book regrettably does a disservice to a field which has far too often been harmed by invalid or poor scholarship.

This book was refreshingly factual and frank. I was blown away by what I read about the history of the trans person - especially Joan of Arc! I am a big fan of this book because it has provided me with enough valuable backup material for my thesis. I have searched high and low for supporting quotes such as those found in Feinberg's writing. BUY THIS BOOK - it will end up like mine, with notes written all over every page and lots of folded pages, kept next to the bed for reading regularly.

This is a manifesto of transgender liberation. It will be remembered and read for many years to come. As a LGBT person, it really touched me. Some societies have honored us and some have murdered us. It is time for us to rise up and say enough. I will re-read this book.