LEWISTON – A pioneer of transgender activism and culture, Leslie Feinberg, will give a talk about gender identity and expression at 8 p.m., Friday, Oct. 1, in Chase Hall Lounge, Campus Avenue, Bates College.

Sponsored by OUTfront, the Bates campus organization “for people of all genders and sexualities,” and co-sponsored by the departments of anthropology, art and visual culture, education, psychology and sociology, and the program in women and gender studies, the talk is open to the public free of charge.

Feinberg wrote the widely acclaimed novel “Stone Butch Blues,” whose main character, Jess, born into a working class Jewish family and identified as a female at birth, struggles with gender and sexual identity from the 1950s through the 1980s within difficult economic and political contexts. The book received the 1994 Stonewall Book Award for Literature and the 1994 Lambda Literary Award (Small Press Book).

Feinberg is also the author of “Trans Liberation: Beyond Pink or Blue” and “Transgender Warriors: Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman.”