Leslie Feinberg, Judith Butler, Kate Bornstein, and Riki Wilchins are all Jewish nonbinary people who have paved the way for trans and intersex rights and transfeminist action in the United States over the last several decades and you should know their names and what they've done.
There is a reason why there is a more modern antisemitic caricature of "the college educated coastal elite trying to erode at western masculinity and femininity" and it's literally, in part, because of Jewish led transfeminist action. It is a caricature that exists in dialogue with longer standing antisemitic stereotypes, but we're talking specifically about the modern iteration of it.
It's because of Leslie Feinberg's action, mobilization, and writing in the late 70's through the early 00's as a vocally Jewish transgender feminist. It's because of Judith Butler's essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution" and their book Gender Trouble in the 90's. It's because of Bornstein's books Gender Outlaws and Gender Outlaws: The Next Generation, the second of which was worked on in collaboration with Jewish trans man S. Bear Bergman. It's because Riki Wilchins has been an active part of trans and intersex feminist action for decades despite you probably not knowing hir name.
Wilchins co-founded Camp Trans with Feinberg. S/he co-founded Transsexual Menace with Denise Norris. Wilchins coined the term "genderqueer" and s/he also helped lead to the foundation of Intersex Awareness Day thanks to hir work with intersex activist Cheryl Chase and the Hermaphrodites With Attitude! protest group. Wilchins has been a backbone of trans and intersex activism since the 90's.
All Jewish nonbinary people from different assigned gender backgrounds working towards trans liberation and solidarity. For decades.
If you ever question why my own politics are aimed so pointedly towards liberation and solidarity, particularly across the lines of sex and gender, it's because it is a legacy that I'm very proud to follow in the footsteps of as a nonbinary Jewish person.
