Quotes from Leslie Feinberg

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.

I could see the sadness in Jan's smile. "You've been through a lot. There's some age you can't count by years. You know how they cut a slice from a tree and count the rings? You got a lot of rings inside that trunk of yours. You know what? I think it's time I stopped calling you kid. You stopped being a kid a long time ago.

You were showing him your muscle?" I froze, wondering how much she had seen. She smiled. "Sometimes it's better to let boys think they're stronger," she told me.

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.

Strong to my enemies, tender to those I loved and respected. That's what I wanted to be. Soon I would have to put these abilities to the test. But for the moment, I was happy.

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.

We're too young to close the door to anything in our lives.

Maybe that was the lesson I tried to teach myself with each repetition—that power is something qualitatively more than strength. And that the world was wrong about me. I had a right to live.

Everyone was glaring at them. The pressure just popped those two women out the door like corks. I wanted to run out after them and beg them to take me with them. And all the while I was thinking, Oh shit, that's gonna be me." Angie shook her head. "It's tough when you see it coming, ain't it?" "Yeah," I said, "it's like driving on a single-lane highway and seeing an eighteen-wheeler heading right for you.

I wished there was someone, somewhere I could ask: What should I do? But no such person existed in my world. I was the only expert on living my own life, the only person I could turn to for answers.

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.

I went to the window and looked out over the mounds of snow, wishing I could do everything in my life once as practice and then go back and do it again.

I learned that strength, like height, is measured by who you're standing next to. I was considered a scrawny guy in the gym. [...] Yet sometimes when I stood in front of my own mirror at home, I saw a powerful me. I couldn't hold onto the image, though. It slipped like a globule of mercury from under my index finger.

Remember me as a revolutionary communist.

Are you a guy or a girl? I've heard the question all my life. The answer is not so simple, since there are no pronouns in the English language as complex as I am, and I do not want to simplify myself in order to neatly fit one or the other.

Remember when you held me and told me you would protect me, you wouldn't let anyone hurt me?" I winced. Milli put her hand reassuringly on my back. "What you said wasn't wrong, baby. That's what everyone wants to hear when they've been hurt. The only problem was, you believed it yourself. You can't protect me, sweetheart. I can't protect you. I think you're having trouble with that lately.

It is not the words in and of themselves that are important to me - it's our lives. The struggle of trans people over the centuries is not his-story or her-story. It is our-story.

I feel like a ghost, Edna. Like I've been buried alive. As far as the world's concerned, I was born the day I began to pass. I have no past, no loved ones, no memories, no me. No one really sees me or speaks to me or touches me.

When my mother discovered she was pregnant with me, she told my dad she didn't want to be tied down with a kid. My father insisted she'd be happy once she had the baby. Nature would see to that. My mother had me to prove him wrong.

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.

This is my world as a Jew, Heshie. Yiddishkeit. You like to think I've abandoned being Jewish. You think I've lost my identity. But we come from different traditions. You don't even see my Jewishness because it doesn't look like yours.

Strange to be exiled from your own sex to borders that will never be home

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 live proudly in a body of my own design. I defend my right to be complex