Living an authentic life: rabbis and transgender ~ Pride Torah IV

Introduction

At just under 14 million people worldwide, Jewish people make up 0.2% of the world’s population. The vast majority of Jews live in Israel (41%) or in the US (41%) with 10% of the world’s Jews in the EU, 3% in Canada, and 3% in all of Asia outside of Israel.

Trans and other gender-variant people in Western societies include a wide range of people who feel that the sexes and/or genders to which they were assigned at birth are not consistent with their own identities. Recent estimates of the incidence
of transgender people in Western urban locales are between 0.5% and 1% of the population.

In the simplest version, “sex” refers to the biological characteristics of a person, whereas gender refers to social characteristics. Transgender activist Virginia Prince is widely attributed with having quipped “Sex is between the legs. Gender is between the ears.”

Sexes and genders may be assigned to people at birth, may be identities that develop and change over time, and may be attributed by others on the basis of observed characteristics. Physical sex can be comprised of many variables, such as chromosomes, hormones, internal and external reproductive organs, and secondary sex characteristics, all of which may appear in a myriad of combinations. Furthermore, which characteristics are definitive of the sexes of individuals have been the subject of intense public, legal, legislative, medical and religious debates, with outcomes varying widely. The fact that such debates occur at all highlights that what counts as a person’s sex is ultimately the result of a set of contingent and socially negotiated agreements, rather than the inevitable results of physiological imperatives.

In addition to their assigned sexes, individuals also have sex identities, that is to say that people recognize themselves as being members of a sex category. For most people, their assigned sex is also the sex with which they identify, whereas among transgender people, this may not be the case. Other people also make assumptions and draw conclusions about the sexes of people they meet, most frequently on the basis of a cursory visual appraisal of the person’s outward appearance and without being privy to detailed physical information.

Genders refer to the constellation of ways that people in various societies are supposed to look, act, think, and feel on the basis of their originally assigned sexes. For most purposes, gender is treated as if it is synonymous with sex. The genders of men and women are commonly presumed to be natural and inevitable because of biological imperatives. Women and men are thought to look, think, feel, and act the way they do because they have physical sexes that cause them to do so. A minority opinion is that genders are entirely the result of the forces of socialization, whereas the dominant expert opinion is that genders are a result of a mixture of biological and social influences. Genders, like sexes, may be assigned, may be identities, or may be attributed.

Because normally the words sex and gender are used interchangeably to mean the same thing, when a sex is assigned at birth, the corresponding gender is, in effect, also assigned. Males are assigned as boys, later to become men; females are assigned as girls, later to become women. When people are accepting of their assigned sexes and genders as correctly representing their inner senses of themselves, the term cisgender may be used either as an identity or as an attribution.

When people feel that their originally-assigned sexes or genders are not appropriate to who they feel themselves to be, they may identify as transgender, trans, or a variety of other non-standard identities, some of which do not reinforce a binary notion of there being only two genders. Trans people may transform themselves so as to become completely and permanently recognized as another sex and gender, or they may feel that some more intermediate expression of their gender and sex identities is appropriate.

[Aaron H. Devor, Transgender People and Jewish Law

Read more: https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783110434392-022/html

Also: Poveda, Oriol - According to whose will - The entanglements of gender & religion in the lives of transgender Jews with an Orthodox background. https://www.academia.edu/31772094

Teshuvah #1

22:2 (1997)

"My question: I am dealing with this in the hospital. A baby was born, a year ago, and at birth it was not possible to determine for certain its gender. At a first look the baby seemed to be a girl, and received the name Yarona.

It is important to make a few details clear. At six months, the external organs looked like female, with labia and a small member that looked like a clitoris, but inside the labia there was a part that looked like a testes. The genetic tests indicated that the chromosomes were XY, yet a internal examination showed no internal reproductive organs, and the part that looked like testes is, indeed, testes. From a medical perspective, it is easier to do a small surgery and make the bay into a girl, even though she wouldn't be able to conceive, and also from a psychological perspective it would be easier to bring her up as a girl, since to try to make the baby into a boy would bring many more surgeries that would not accomplish full functioning manhood. This one surgery would take away this singular testes, and would prevent it from making the hormonal masculine changes, which would complicate the transformation into a female.

Is it permissible to change the gender of this child to female, overriding the genetic masculine makeup? Is it permissible to castrate this child, in this case, since from the outside the baby already looks like a female?

In my opinion, the type of being around which this question centers is not to be considered androgynous, since according to the Talmud the signs of an androgynous is that they have both masculine and feminine organs visible at all times, and this is also what we find in Maimonides: "a person who has a masculine member and a feminine member is called androgynous, and there is a doubt whether this person is male or female, and there are no clear signs of only masculinity or femininity ever." And other decisors say that it is possible that the signs of masculinity and femininity appear at certain times and disappear at certain times.

... And in this case, as described in the letter, the outside organs look like female, and externally there is no male sign. It was only an internal examination that showed a masculine body. In my opinion we are dealing with a female, since the external organs are the determining factor regarding gender. (And by the way, I heard from a doctor that the hormones are similar in males and females, and what changes are the percentages of each, and therefore it is clear that the external organs are the defining factor of gender in practical terms.)

...And it is possible to cut away the one testes left, and there is not transgression regarding castration of males.

... However, in the issue of a tumtum, as their body changes so their mitzvot changes, and so we need a clear picture whether these changes through surgery will make this child a obvious female, particularly because the surgery will be carried out before puberty... Notwithstanding all this, it is permitted to change the gender of this child that from a genetic perspective is male, to female.

22:2 (1997)

Regarding what was asked from outside of the land of Israel, about a man who became a woman completely, what are the laws? And I told the questioner that I recalled that such a question was asked of Rabbi Yosef Pelaggi, ... in his book Yosef Et Achiv.

And there the case is that a woman changes to become a man, and does not revert back. And it is possible to learn from that case...

And here is its text, in Yosef Et Achiv 3:2 - "a question arrived regarding, if in a situation like this, one needs a Get according to the laws of Moshe and Israel. And the situation is that Reuven married a certain woman, virgin, as one of the daughters of Israel, and he was with her as a man is with a woman, and after many years something happened to her that she transformed from female to male in all aspects [bakol mikol kol]. What is the law regarding her, that was female and a married woman, and became a male, and [Reuven] needs to marry and take another wife, does Reuven need to give a Get, so as to divorce her according to the laws of Moshe and Israel, since she once was a woman and married to him? There are those who say that he does not need to give a Get at all, since she is not a woman but a man now. And do not be astounded by such a question, since everything is possible and there is nothing new under the sun, as you will see in the book Yad Neeman in Likutim 62b, there were a few incidents like this, and he writes about this one virgin that as she was brought under the chupah she transformed into a male, as it is written there."

Answer: As it comes from this question, the Yad Neeman z"l wrote there in the name of the works of a certain holy sage in Jerusalem, from the sages of Israel, that wonders if such a woman needs brit mila, or not. And it is obvious that she does not, since the scripture says "an uncircumcised male" (Genesis 17:14), a male from the outset is obligated to brit mila, but not a female from the outset, who then becomes a male. See there. And regarding our question it is clear that there is no need for a Get, since now he is a male. And behold, in the text of the Get is that the man gives a Get to his wofe, and it is written "you, my woman", and there is no woman in front of us at all, but rather a man, a male. And it is also written "you are free to go and marry any male" and it is not seen that to free this male to another male. And it is also written in the Get "you are permitted [fem. verb] to to other men" and this language, "permitted" simply does not apply, since this is not a woman, how can he be permitted [fem.]? And maybe the name "Ploni ben Ploni" is a lie, since he was not a "son"."

a) From here on the book wonders about how this could have happen naturally. And it continues: "Even though it seems to my humble opinion that Reuven does not need to give a Get to his wife that became a man, completely, and I say this based on what the Rabbi Tosfot Yom Tov wrote regarding the fourth chapter of Gittin Mishnah 4:8, in the question of a man who finds out that his wife is an aylonit, etc. and he brings the words of the Ra"N - "and he wrote a Get to her, even though we know that an aylonit does not need a Get, as taught in Yevamot ... and this is because he thought she was an aylonit, but she showed no signs of being clearly one. And after, she married another man, and hd children from him, and wanted her ketubah from the previous husband, see there, and I would say that if she had clear signs then she does not receive her ketubah, and she needs no Get - all the more so this case, in which everyone can see this is a man, and truly one. And so this person, that was a woman in the beginning and became a man, it seems to me that he does not say 'that did not make me a woman' but 'that transformed me into a man'"...

b) It is appropriate to add the words of the Korban Netanael on the R"osh at the end of the 8th chapter of Yevamot: "And I found in the Book Ma'ase Tuvia, in the Ma'amar Olam Katan, 5th chapter, that he wrote in the name of several doctors that they attested that an androgynous who had children with his wife, and then married a man, and had children from that man, just like a full fledged woman." And in the Halachot Berurot of the R"it Algazi, 6:58: "and the researchers wrote that there were androgynous people who married men, and gave birth to sons and daughters, and afterwards they married women, and the women gave birth to sons and daughters. And the same is written in Maaseh Tuvia Olam Katan chapter 5 see there".

3) And it seems to my humble opinion that in this particular case we are talking about someone who is androgynous, or tumtum. And the laws regarding those cases were specified in Tzitz Eliezer third volume, Siman 13, and whether this is a completely new creation or there is doubt about this, see there.