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Transgender people and religion


The relationship between transgender people and religion varies widely around the world. Religions range from condemning any gender variance to honoring transgender people as religious leaders. Views within a single religion can vary considerably.

Abrahamic religions have creation stories in which God creates people, "male and female". This is sometimes interpreted as a divine mandate against gender variance. The Torah contains specific prohibitions on cross-dressing and damaged genitals.

The term saris, generally translated to English as "eunuch" or "chamberlain", appears 45 times in the Tanakh. It frequently refers to a trusted but gender variant person who was delegated authority by a powerful person. It is unclear whether most were in fact castrated. In Isaiah 56 God promises eunuchs who keep the Sabbath and hold fast to his covenant that he will build an especially good monument in heaven for them, to make up for their childlessness.

Orthodox Judaism asserts that sex/gender is an innate and eternal category based on verses in the Book of Genesis about Adam and Eve and the creation of maleness and femaleness. Sex-change operations involving the removal of genital organs are forbidden on the basis of the prohibition against “anything which is mauled, crushed, torn or cut” (Lev. 22:24). A further prohibition in Deut. 22:5, proscribes not only cross-dressing but any action uniquely identified with the opposite sex, and this would also apply to an operation to transform sexual characteristics. There are, nevertheless, Orthodox authorities who recognize the efficacy of sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in changing halachic sex designation. In 2007 Joy Ladin became the first openly transgender professor at an Orthodox institution (Stern College for Women in Manhattan).

Hasidic Judaism as of now, has no place for trans people as everything in the community is determined by gender roles. Most Hasidic Jews are barely aware of trans people, and the topic is never discussed altogether. The first person to come out as trans in a Hasidic community was trans activist and writer Abby Stein, who is also a straight descendant of Hasidic Judaism's founder the Baal Shem Tov. When Stein came out she was shunned by her family, and got a lot of hate from the Hasidic community.


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