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Leslie feinberg was a real person who existed and i’m posting about hir again because i deleted the last post i made on hir.
The first photo is Leslie Feinberg from some time in the 70’s, the second is her with her wife Minnie Bruce Pratt.
Feinberg identified both as a lesbian, and as transgender. he was a queer and workers rights activist and a Palestinian liberation activist. He fought for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who received the death penalty after an unfair trial regarding the shooting of a police officer. He believed that all communities, met with oppression, from the government, and on the social level, should come together for the sake of all of us being liberated.
Ze went by multiple sets of pronouns based on context, going by he/him, to honour his transgender identity, referring to zemself with ze/hir pronouns personally, and going by she/her to signify gender incongruence with her masculine appearance in certain spaces.
Ze wrote two novels about the queer experience, drag king dreams in 2006, and stone butch blues in 1993, which is considered a seminal text in the history of trans and lesbian writing.
Feinberg passed away in twenty-fourteen, hir last words were “Remember me as a revolutionary communist.”
Don’t forget about transmasc lesbians, they’ve been around for longer than you’d think. Their history shouldn’t be erased.
Here are the links to two interviews with Feinberg, hir website, a link to a website ze made to give free access to the 20th anniversary edition of stone butch blues, and a talk ze gave on Mumia Abu-Jamal:
(I might also make a follow up post on Andrea Dworkin, since a lot of her ideas regarding Androgyny get ignored. she as a lone activist was kind of like, a swansong to the power of being really fucking mad about misogyny, which is inspiring, but i think she gets pigeon holed a lot as just a feminist, and is left out of discussions on queerness, which was also relevant to her life and work. That’s not to say feminism doesn’t matter, but that it wasn’t all she wrote about.)
hey truscum the creator of the trans flag made a specific place for nonbinary people so…….
there are people on bluesky who proudly put on their profiles being "baeddel" like, that shit didn't work here in the 2010s tumblr (where it originated), so why the fuck are you trying to make it come back, lmao
actually i wouldn't be surprised if this-certain-group of trans ppl on bluesky are actually all baeddels but just not saying it out loud.
seeing them all still talking about "cissexual" privilege when refering to other TRANS ppl, the classic "you are trans but NOT REALLY trans like me", im just gonna say, be careful with this kind of thinking.
for context:
no, being "baeddel" is not good AT ALL. please, don't let anyone tell you otherwise bc, holy fuck, just read the whole thing and be wary. it's pretty much TERF rethoric, only trans version (also known as TIRF), lmao
i found out about this whole "baeddel" around the end of last year, and it was like "woah what the fuck??????" i had no idea this kind of shit happened. please, read it in full 😩😩
(edit: an updated version of this article is also here on tumblr!!)
As a trans man and as a Ukrainian Jew, I cannot stress how important it is for us to know our history.
LGBTQ representation in Slavic countries is almost nonexistent. The ubiquity of gender norms is so often baked into our culture and societies. The looming threat of violence if we don't comply is so omnipresent that it prevents us from forming a strong community. Our stories are shared privately, hushed, with bated breath from friend to friend.
Far too much, i've witnessed the loneliness and alienation of people like me, the paralysing fear in parents' eyes for the fates of their children. I still cannot share my transness with my closest friends or relatives. People I have known since I was a child, whom I've shared my whole life with.
Imagine how many of us are living in the exact same circumstances. But we can never appease them enough, no matter how much we bend and mold ourselves for a semblance of normalcy that never existed.
It does not have to stay this way. Through making our history known, we must stay alive and stand united now more than ever.
We have always existed, and we aren't going anywhere.
We only know about Berel-Beyle through Yeshaye Katovski’s letter to the Forward in 1936 about “the girl who became a man.” To summarize: Berel-Beyle was AFAB, grew up in Krivozer, Ukraine, left home for Odessa, transitioned to a man, went back to his hometown, was accepted by his community, and married an old girlfriend, Black Rachel.
To quote the letter, “In our shtetl, Berel-Beyle always had a good name as a fine, upstanding Jew.”
I wish we knew more about this trans ancestor, but I’m glad we know about him.
Learn more about Berel-Beyle here.
Queer Jews Project
In regards of the Trump government scraping all trans inclusion in its queer information portion of its websites I have made this thing. Spread the word. Don't let them pretend we never existed.
P.S: Don't like! Reblog! <3
I recently colorized this c. 1910 photo of Magnus Hirschfeld's 4th, 6th, and 7th patients. They were three of the first trans men to receive medical care/legal support in Germany. I can't help but appreciate their dapper sense of fashion.
I'd like to tell you all something today:
Your gender identity is valid, no matter what labels you use. You deserve to feel comfortable in your own skin. You deserved to be loved. Your more than whatever labels you use or whatever pronouns you're comfortable with it.
I'd also like to take a moment to remember and honor those we've lost as a community. Those murdered for their identities and their activism. Those who committed suicide due to a lack of acceptance. Those of our past who experienced the sad yet universal injustice of being trans. Rest in peace and power.