Quotes from Leslie Feinberg

Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.

It's a beauty one isn't born with, but must fight to construct at great sacrifice.

Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught.

Who was I now—woman or man? That question could never be answered as long as those were the only choices; it could never be answered if it had to be asked.

If I'm not with a butch everyone just assumes I'm straight. It's like I'm passing too, against my will. I'm sick of the world thinking I'm straight. I've worked hard to be discriminated against as a lesbian.

Nature held me close and seemed to find no fault with me.

You're more than just neither, honey. There's other ways to be than either-or. It's not so simple. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who don't fit.

I remembered what it was like to walk a gauntlet of strangers who stare—their eyes angry, confused, intrigued. Woman or man: they are outraged that I confuse them. The punishment will follow. The only recognition I can find in their eyes is that I am "other." I am different. I will always be different. I will never be able to nestle my skin against the comfort of sameness.

More exists among human beings than can be answered by the simplistic question I'm hit with every day of my life: Are you a man or a woman?

I felt as though I was rushing into a burning building to discover the ideas I needed for my own life.

I began to feel the pleasure of the weightless state between here and there.

Everybody's scared, but if you don't let your fears stop you, that's bravery.

I'm not saying we'll live to see some sort of paradise. But just fighting for change makes you stronger. Not hoping for anything will kill you for sure. Take a chance, Jess. You're already wondering if the world could change. Try imagining a world worth living in, and then ask yourself if that isn't worth fighting for. You've come too far to give up on hope, Jess.

But very quickly I discovered that passing didn't just mean slipping below the surface, it meant being buried alive. I was still me on the inside, trapped in there with all my wounds and fears. But I was no longer me on the outside.

I know the difference between what I can't do and what I refuse to do.

Surrendering is unimaginably more dangerous than struggling for survival.

Never underestimate the power of fiction to tell the truth.

The sky was black and strewn with stars. I felt alone on the planet. I was so scared I could hardly breathe. I didn't know where I was headed. I didn't know what to do with my life. I strained to look into my future, trying to picture the road ahead of me, searching for a glimpse of who I would become. All I could see was the night sky and the stars above me.

We have not always been forced to pass, to go underground, in order to work and live. We have a right to live openly and proudly...when our lives are suppressed, everyone is denied an understanding of the rich diversity of sex and gender expression and experience that exist in human society.

The loneliness became more and more unbearable. I ached to be touched. I feared I was disappearing and I'd cease to exist if someone didn't touch me.

Strength, like height, is measured by who you're standing next to.

I've been going to the library, looking up our history. There's a ton of it in anthropology books, a ton of it, Ruth. We haven't always been hated. Why didn't we grow up knowing that?

This is what courage is. It's not just living through the nightmare, it's doing something with it afterward. It's being brave enough to talk about it to other people. It's trying to organize to change things.

When my alarm jangled in the morning, I awoke feeling small and terrified. I couldn't find myself in my own life—there was no memory of me that I could grasp. There was no place outside of me where I belonged. So every morning I willed myself back into existence.