Transgender Activist Leslie Feinberg Dies at 65
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
Transgender activist Leslie Feinberg died November 15 at age 65, at her home in Syracuse, New York. According to the website Advocate.com, Feinberg died of “complications from multiple tick-borne co-infections, including Lyme disease, babeisiosis, and protomyxzoa rheumatica.”
Feinberg was known for her 1993 novel “Stone Butch Blues,” which won the Lambda Literary Award and is considered a seminal work addressing queer and transgender issues. She also wrote works of non-fiction, including “Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue” and “Transgender Warriors: Making History.” She was a member of the Workers World Party and an editor of Workers World newspaper.
Feinberg was born in Kansas City, Missouri, and raised in Buffalo, New York, where she started supporting herself at age 14. Her longtime partner was Minnie Bruce Pratt, a professor at Syracuse University, whom she married in 2011.
According to Advocate.com, Feinberg identified as “an anti-racist white, working-class, secular Jewish, transgender, lesbian, female, revolutionary communist.” Her last words were, “Remember me as a revolutionary communist.”
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