On the one hand, I think it’s…extraordinarly courageous for a trans woman to transition in place. The prospect of transitioning in place, when that place is the frum world, would scares the life out of me. As soon as I began a voyage of self-discovery, I began to discover just how much I couldn’t be frum anymore.

At first, I didn’t know exactly why it was a problem for me. Eventually I figured out that if I’m going to do something so…”in your face” as to transition, and tell my frum friends about it, *and* expect them to accept me in a religious context, I’d be making myself “the issue”. That’s almost guaranteed to fail in an Orthodox Jewish context or community.

One could go against the grain, invoke a minority opinion that says that a post-op trans women is female by halachic standards, but that’s logical. If people have a visceral reaction to the issue, their emotions will take over, and they’ll fight the logic. And they have good weapons with which to fight—the majority opinions that say no-no-no. The majority opinions, coupled with their emotional response to the issue, will make their actions/reactions toward the trans woman even more negative.

People have come to accept me individually, but probably couldn’t feel comfortable doing so in the context of their synagogue /frum community.

When I was in the 4th grade, in a co-ed Jewish Day School, I was in a class with a rather athletic girl who beat up the boys who picked on me. I was a bit of a “swish” in grade school, and she did what she could to make sure I wasn’t harmed just for being who I was. I am forever grateful to her for that.

She is still a friend. She married a relatively liberal Black Hat guy. He is sweet, but he has no idea what the hell to do with me—how to “categorize” me in his mind. In his Black Hat life, there is black, and white..and maybe gray socks on occasion, but not much gray other than that ..

If I were to stay at their house for Shabbos, going to shul, and sitting on the women’s side of the mechitza would probably bother him, and, by extension, make his wife upset. Even if she wished to advocate for me, I’d be causing some variety of discord between them by having them argue about this issue they really didn’t need in their lives. It would all have come about because I wanted to do something outside the bounds of what they ever expected to deal with.

In Judaism, we’re often taught to sacrifice personal needs in this world, so that we may be rewarded in the Next World. Making oneself the issue is precisely what Orthodoxy says one’s not supposed to do. Making oneself the issue, and saying that a frum community must face this “new” (well, new to them, anyway) phenomenon so that I can go to shul and feel comfortable, is wrong (in my eyes).

But I also believe that halacha has been politicized, and that rabbis who might ordinarily have a hint of a chance of advocating for a trans woman, won’t do so for fear of repercussions…Maybe if the rabbi came out and said “you must accept this person for who she is”, it’d be a bit easier for the trans woman. But, even the rabbis who believe that a trans woman should be able to live in her proper gender within the frum community, won’t say so publicly, and would probably deny it publicly if they said it privately, and the word got out.

I believe that some will say what’s comfortable rather than than what they feel..not just about this issue, but about many issues. I’m not blaming them. I’m sure there are circumstances under which I’d do something similar.

I recently spoke to a yeshiva boy who was born with a vagina, AND to a family that wasn’t frum….

He’s got a double transition going on. For a while, he was learning in, and dorming at a black hat yeshiva. He was living on the fringe there to begin with. They suspected him of being gay, because of his slight build. At one point, he ran out of money. He couldn’t afford his “Vitamin T” as the boys call it (Testosterone), and was afraid he was going to start menstruating again IN YESHIVA. I advised him to get the hell out of yeshiva.

If, while considering the boy’s admission to yeshiva, they had any idea what his situation was, the yeshiva would NOT have admitted him, and would have shown him the door, maybe offering to have him meet the rebbitzen, so she could get him out of those men’s clothes, and maybe find a nice boy for him.

Nonetheless, he didn’t make disclosure, and he got in, and learned. If the yeshiva boys had found out about him, they’d probably have felt that the integrity of their institution had been compromised. The trans boy hasn’t written to me or called me in a while. I don’t know what became of him. I hope he left yeshiva.

This is but one small illustration of the frustration one must deal with if one attempts to maintain respect for the institutions, laws, and traditions of Orthodox Judaism while being “out” as a tranny.

So, I applaud anyone who wants to do so, but fear for their safety. I will do what I can to support you. If you ever need a place to stay in New York, I’ll be happy to put you up. I have references

Dana

More than minority view I tend to feel that for social reasons the teshuvos of the Tzitz Eliezer on this topic have not been taken as halachah, since I’m not aware of any serious teshuvah that paskens to the contrary. Most teshuvos should certainly be good enough to be a limud zchus on people, and these are no exception…

“Advising a transsexual that they are obligated to attend synagogue dressed in their pre-transition gender’s clothes and to sit in their pre-transition gender’s section does not address the reality of the condition, the psychological anguish, harm and the embarrassment that an attempt to do this would cause,”

I don’t think that any serious posek would regard the obligation of tefillah betzibur to be that pressing.

“Finally, the demonstrably false attitude and belief that transsexuality (and a host of other things deemed “unpleasant”) just does not and cannot happen within the Orthodox community is often harmful. This attitude forces people into denial as a defense mechanism and/or prevents them from acknowledging the condition and getting the help that they need.”

A few years back I remember reading an article in The Jewish Observer that talks about how psychological conditions are still stigmatized in the frum community to the point of people not having a culture of treating them or even acknowledging they exist. Perhaps when the culture of treating psychological conditions develops in the frum community to the point where they are on a par with physiological conditions transsexuality will also be treated with compassion and understanding.