University of Wisconsin professor Anne Enke summed up the question on everyone’s mind Tuesday night as she introduced the speaker for the semester premiere of the Distinguished Lecture Series: “What pronoun do I use?”

That may sound like an odd question, but activist Leslie Feinberg blurs, or bridges, the boundaries of sex assigned at birth.

Instead, Enke said we should ask, “What constitutes the mark of a male or female? Should it be customary to ask and respect the answer?”

For Feinberg, the answer isn’t simple.

“I’m not a single-issue human being. I’m a card-carrying union member, a Jew, a lesbian, an activist, and I’m polygender,” he/she said.

“It’s been made out to be scary,” Feinberg said. “Those signs on the bathroom doors are supposed to be so simple.”

Feinberg blamed the medical society for perpetuating the taboo on transsexuality by insisting on classifying newborn babies into two set groups.

“They have birth caps that are either blue or pink. They’ve been color-coded in advance. Maybe it’d be better to have them all wear rainbow caps.

“Who gets to decide when a penis is too small or a clitoris is too large? Some stranger?” he/she asked.

“How often would we watch the Weather Channel if they only classified the weather as the concepts hot and cold?” Feinberg said. “How would you dress?”

The lobby of the Memorial Union Theater was filled with groups grappling with the same issues as Feinberg, testifying to the speaker’s popularity on campus. Represented, among others, were the Campus Women’s Center, Sex Out Loud and Women Happily Advocating Masturbation. The groups worked to inform people of their upcoming events and recruit new members prior to the speech.

“Community builds improvement,” Feinberg said. “Community can provide an education, too. Ours are social problems, not an individual one.”

However, Feinberg’s speech was not limited just to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. His/her speech also touched on rights for women and right-wing media figures. “We live in a country where normal is defined by Rush Limbaugh, Trent Lott and Jesse Helms. If that’s normal, let me state unequivocally just how queer I am,” Feinberg said.

Feinberg also told of his/her past adventures in activism.

For instance, when the Army of God commandoes who drummed up local sentiment for their anti-gay cause menaced gays in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1992, Feinberg’s efforts were enough to make them leave. In 1999,when the commandoes returned under the lead of the Rev. Fred Phelps, Feinberg helped to organize a group called the Rainbow Peace Keepers to again drive them from the city.

Feinberg also noted an event called the Stonewall Rebellion, in which an angry crowd held police in New York hostage after they tried to arrest transgenders.

“It proved that a stiletto heel in the hands of an enraged transsexual is an effective tool against police transgression,” Feinberg said.

Closing with the words of poet June Jordan, Feinberg said, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”