( CNN ) Before Ellen DeGeneres was out and proud and dancing every day on her talk show , when heterosexual male actors would n't dare to play gay , and violence against gay people was the talking point of the day for LGBT activists , there was transgender activist Leslie Feinberg . It 's hard to find Feinberg 's 1993 classic novel , `` Stone Butch Blues , '' today . The novel 's protagonist starts out as a girl and moves through the identities of being lesbian , butch and a man in the 1960s and 1970s . `` You 're more than just neither , honey , '' Feinberg wrote in `` Stone Butch Blues . '' `` There 's other ways to be than either-or . It 's not so simple . Otherwise there would n't be so many people who do n't fit . '' Like the customers who had enough of police brutality and rioted at New York 's Stonewall Inn in 1969 and energized a movement , there was no closet big enough to hold Feinberg , who passed away November 15 at age 65 . Feinberg died at home in Syracuse , New York , from complications from several infections , her spouse of 22 years , Minnie Bruce Pratt , told The Advocate . She was working on the 20th anniversary edition of `` Stone Butch Blues '' when she died . When I first read her book , the landscape for LGBT rights was very different . For a 20-something like me coming out in the early 1990s , there was nothing trendy or cool about being out . It was dangerous territory . Forget ever getting married : There was no law that protected me from being fired or attacked because of my identity . I did n't `` look '' gay so I could hide , as I had through my teen years and most of my undergraduate education . I could quietly enjoy the benefits of the work done by Feinberg and other transgender activists , butch women , gay men and drag queens who could not or would not fade into the shadows . Feinberg and the other people who would not be silent taught me that was not a way to live , to truly live , standing on the backs of others without lifting any of the load myself . Always a writer and journalist , I came out during my last year in college , stayed out in graduate school , and have been out at every job I 've ever held ; I did service work in my profession to bridge the gaps between journalists of different racial , ethnic , LGBT and other identities . I know other members of the LGBT community feel the same way about Feinberg . `` Reading 'Stone Butch Blues ' in '93 and later 'Transgender Warriors , ' I was able to recognize and name my own gender queerness , '' activist Candace Gingrich wrote me . `` Feinberg 's quote 'Gender is the poetry each of us makes out of the language we are taught ' is a truth that trans and genderqueer people live every day , and I 'm grateful for the wordsmith ( Feinberg ) helped me become . '' We never met , but I suspect Feinberg and I would have disagreed on Cuba and other parts of her political life . But that she had a larger and diverse political agenda was one of her many strengths . She fought for workers ' rights , marched against racism , protested against the Klan and fought for abortion rights in upstate New York . Gay rights , transgender rights , workers ' rights , any rights : They did not exist in a vacuum to Feinberg . There was no parachuting into a town to get everyone rising up for gay rights but forgetting when those allies needed help on race or gender or other issues . Feinberg linked them all together , organized and protested in the streets and fought for all of us . That 's what stands out to my friend Ina Fried , an openly transgendered journalist and senior editor at Re/code . `` It was the real-life struggle for justice , particularly economic justice that was Feinberg 's life work and passion , '' Fried wrote to me . `` With Feinberg 's death we each have more work to do to make this a fairer and more just world . '' For all the progress that 's been made , I can still get fired for my identity in the state in which I live , and I still ca n't get married ( or divorced ) here . But I have n't been afraid for a very long time . That was Feinberg 's gift to me , and to you .
Leslie Feinberg fought for justice across all lines . Her novel , `` Stone Butch Blues , '' inspired a generation . She created space for many people to come out .