My Jewish Journey

[Imaginary Spiders]

Hi!

I am transgendered and Jewish. I never thought I would say those words. I would like to share some of my story. First I'll start with my Jewish story. So I was born to a non-Jewish father and a Jewish mother. I was raised in a nonreligious household. My family was always very much so against religion and especially ignorant about being Jewish. As a child I prayed to God every night until I was 11. I tried to pray for altruist things such as for the wellbeing of my family, but I always prayed for the same thing. I prayed for him to make me a girl. Every night until I was probably in my late teens I wished I could fall asleep and then wake up the next morning as a girl. It never happened. To be honest I still wish for this.

Anyway from age four I knew I was suppose to be female. I stopped believing in God when I was 11. I was told that God always answered your prayers because he was all powerful, but I would always awake each morning as a boy and soon become aware of that thing between my legs that I felt wasn't suppose to be there. So I lived my life as an atheist who despised everything about religion until I began my first semester at university at age 23. I thought as an atheist I wasn't allowed to have anything to do with religion. I always wanted Judaism to be a part of my life, but I thought it would be wrong.

After my first semester I began to experiment with Judaism and absolutely loved it. Soon I gained three things I never really had before Hope, optimism and faith. These three things began to change my life. I learned how to pray in Hebrew and keep the Shabbat and so forth. I found it all uplifting. I soon made Jewish friends and developed relationships with rabbis. This was the first time I ever really felt accepted by anyone. As a result of this I began to learn how to accept myself.

After a few months of exploring my heritage I found that some Jewish communities are very acceptant of LGBT people. I found that interesting. So as a Jew I felt the need the advocate for LGBT people. A few months ago I began to wonder why it was so important to me. And then Caitlin Jenner came out as a trans lesbian, which is what I am. As a result of that the world began to make a huge deal out of trans people. I got curious and felt that it was time for me to closely examine my gender Identity and then one night it came to me. I'm transgendered. Judaism helped me to accept myself as trans. I never expected this. I still don't really believe in God, but there are many things to learn from Judaism. It has given me the hope I need to deal with being trans and has provided me with a support group of other Jews.

I have a two messages. My first is for trans Jews. There is a place for you in the Jewish community. There are Jewish extremists that aren't very nice to trans people, but a lot of Jews will accept you. My second message is that no matter what religion you are someone will accept you as trans be you Jewish, Christian or whatever. What is most important is searching and finding the tools to accept yourself. I hope this helps someone.

[Carolyn Marie]

Very informative and positive post, Laura. I'm glad you've found a good place within your faith and cultural heritage, regardless of how you feel about God. I tend to think the same way, although my father was much more religious and conservative than your parents.

I've met several Reform Rabbis locally who are very supportive, and have heard of many more throughout the U.S. Conservative and Orthodox Rabbis tend to be less accepting and supportive, but I suppose there are exceptions.

HUGS

Carolyn Marie

[gennee]

A beautiful story, Laura. I'm happy that you religion helped to accept yourself. The Hebrew scriptures helped to understand that God does not discriminate. I discovered this while working on a project.

[Imaginary Spiders]

Thanks. I tend to approach Judaism in a very liberal way. When I was really starting to learn about Judaism, I found it really interesting how the reform movement for example was encouraging LGBTQ people to attend their synagogues with the same privileges as everyone else. That was a moment which really opened my eyes. At that moment I thought maybe it was okay to be transgendered after all after so many years as keeping as my darkest secret. Soon after that I began to see that there was really nothing dark about my secret that it was really quite beautiful and should not be hidden.