Deva Torah Haftorah Shofteem:
You Afflicted and Drunk Without Wine
by shalimar
This Torah and Haphtarah is significant to me for a number of reasons. Shofteem occurs on my father’s birthday according to the Hebrew Calendar, his mother’s yortsite, the approximate date of my other grandparents’ wedding anniversary and was the Haphtarah my ex and I read the day before our wedding. As a former folk dancer, both international and Israeli I recognize in it Mona Vu, an Israeli folk dance. I have used Shofteem as the title of one of my short stories. It also has significance to me as a transgendered individual containing the phrase: You (are) afflicted (and) drunk without wine.
That sums up not only my experience, but also almost all transgender experiences. We start out early being ostracized by the other kids because they know we are different. If our brain is female the boys don’t want to hang around a sissy and the girls don’t want to be with an icky boy. If we have a male brain and a female body the girls don’t want to be with a pushy boy and the boys see just a girl. Occasionally there may be a girl who sees the girl in us, or a boy who sees the boy in us and becomes our friend.
As time goes by we get verbally and physically abused. This abuse comes from
“friends,” peers, siblings and parents. It may occur from total strangers and often goes a far as rape and murder.
We question ourselves with “What’s wrong with me?”, knowing, but still not accepting the unthinkable cruelty of being in the “wrong body.” We are alone thinking that we are the only person alive who has this kind of feelings.
We pray and ask G_d or another deity to change us or we try to use magic so what is between our legs finally matches our mind. Disappointed and frustrated, we are still in the wrong body.
We also get that “What’s wrong with you?” “discussion” that is really a speech, resulting in being coerced into playing football and learning how to fight because dad wants to “make a man” out of us or mom makes us learn how to cook, sew, clean house and other feminine things so we will become good housewives. Sometimes trying to fit in, we do it to ourselves, usually without success. But that doesn’t mean we can fight our way out of a paper bag or boil water without burning it.
Then our bodies betray us. We become that big hairy clod instead of the pretty petite girl we see in our mind’s eye. For a male in a female body we are still 5’ 2”, 98 lbs. soaking wet after bodybuilding.
Many of us learn to hide our true selves by pretending to be the sex our body says we are. Often we marry and have children. But we are not honest. We are false witnesses. Internally, the male and female parts of our bodies and minds are constantly fighting so we never get that inner peace called contentment.
Some of us suppress our need so strongly that we tell the world that we are not transgendered. Yet, we feel a need to crossdress. Some of us may need to have someone else tell us, or even force us to crossdress.
We hide in other ways, too. Some hide with death. I am proud of those who have kept their promise to me not to commit suicide. One recently asked me to release her from that promise. I had to tell her only if she had a medical condition that warrants “Do Not Resuscitate.” We might also do self harm, a “minor” form of suicide. I have heard of some of us that cut off their testicles, or tried to. Some of us hide by having unsafe sex resulting in gonorrhea, syphilis, or AIDS. In other words: a slow form of suicide.
Or we hide behind drugs. Hopefully those of us that go that route end up in Alcoholics Anonymous, Synanon or other treatment centers before we either end up in jail or die.
We often develop various forms of mental illness, as a product of the extreme shame or bewilderment we have. We are admitted to psychiatric treatment centers or at least, being driven by guilt or unable to accept the unacceptable, we talk to psychologists or psychiatrists. Many of us are depressed and end up on anti depressants.
We also don’t know how to relate to others. We are alone so we don’t pick up the interrelationship clues that other teens learn because they are with friends. As adults we don’t know how to deal with people so find ourselves alone or, because we are afraid of people gravitate towards rural areas because there are less people to deal with or major urban areas because there everyone is anonymous.
Many of us are “read” and caught out partially because we are fearful of being read and caught out. We also might be read because there are few genetic 6’ 2” women. Even after transition we may be mentally looking over our shoulders to see if anyone is outing us, either maliciously or unintentionally. Either way we could be hurt and humiliated if it happens.
In addition to being gender dysphoric we may also have age dysphoria. I have seen the tears in the eyes of one physically adult “little girl” I call daughter when we are in the company that includes real children. It is then that I wish a miracle would happen so I can hug her, dry her eyes and tell her to go play. It tugs at my heart that it will never happen.
We are also more likely to have heart attacks and other diseases caused by stress due to the never ending battle between the male and female within us. This stress, beginning in early age, can result in poor education that leads to low paying jobs with low or no medical coverage. This leads to our inability to get proper medical care, even for medical issues not connected to transgender or age dysphoria, creating still more stress. Our desperation to transition is so great and our finances so small we may resort to self medication, sometimes through the internet. Yet, the use of these drugs needs to be monitored or we run the risk of hurting ourselves or dying.
In the end some of us decide to transition, trying to make our bodies match our minds, even though it is like building a house starting on the second floor. Others decide not to. That is O. K., too. As noted before many of us cannot afford the many expensive procedures that are necessary to truly transition. We often transition with great difficulty. The woman trapped in a male body has to somehow hide her beard. A female to male still has breasts to deal with.
Yet at this time we begin to choose life, and most of us gain that inner peace because we can be our true selves. It is strange that this is the time others tell us we are going to Hell when, in reality, we have just gotten out of it. The hate they give us is sometimes greater than the contempt that should be reserved for murderers. But they forget that “we have not come into being to hate and destroy, (but instead) to praise, to labor and to love.” The hate goes so far that some religious institutions have barred us from even entering their houses of worship or require us to wear “gender neutral” clothing.
Sometimes there is the issue of how we are addressed. For example, some of us have been asked, “What does your son or daughter call you?” One child of a male to female woman stated that she is his father. Both are proud of that statement. The daughter of another referred to her now female father as mom and both were happy with the reference. The pronoun used by the child, parent or sibling may give pride, as in these examples, or it may hurt the transgendered individual.
In public the male or female reference to us may be at times different. To the same individual sometimes the “sir” or “madam” may not be important other times it is. It could even hurt, especially when it comes from “friends” and family.
Many of us have lost family and friends and have been ostracized by some that never took the time to get to know us. As a result we often band together to form our own family. Personally, I am one of those who created a group called the Evil Witch Family consisting of mothers, daughters, sisters, cousins, nieces and grandchildren. Some of my family and some outside our family have a goal to create a transgender shelter and information center. If we can, then there would be a safe environment so a person could safely transition if needing to. Then to paraphrase that same Haphtarah: we would have taken out of their hands “the cup of trembling, even the dregs of the cup of fury.” They would “never drink it again.”
I’m not saying that my pain is greater or less than yours. I AM asking you to follow the words that are almost in the center of the Torah: to love your neighbor as you love yourself. It is a hallmark of the Western religions and many of the others. The rest is just commentary.
Notes: References:
Biblical quotes paragraphing and references:
Haphtarah reading: Isaiah: 51:12-52:12, specifically: 51:21-22 and Mona Vu 52:7
Others: Exodus 20:13 Leviticus 19:18 Numbers 6:25 Deuteronomy 30: 15-19
“The rest is just commentary”
is from a quote in the Talmud from Hillel the Great who lived about 2300 years ago. A man went to Hillel as challenged, “If you can tell me the whole of the Torah while standing on one foot I will become a Jew.” Hillel responded, “What is hateful to thee do not do to another. That is the whole of the torah. The rest is just commentary. Now go study.”
“To hate and destroy …”
is a slightly rephrasing of part of the prayer for peace by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov as told by Rabbi Nathan.
“Building a house …”
a comment by Kaitlin Thompson, an author of transgender fiction and a member of the “Family”
True Selves:
is a book by Mildred L Brown and Chloe Ann Rounsley. I have been told it is one of the best of many books on the transgendered condition. I have not read it.
Accepting the unacceptable/Enduring the unendurable:
is part of and paraphrasing a quote by Hirohito in his message of surrender ending WWII: “We have resolved to endure the unendurable and suffer what is insufferable.”
I thank Holly Hart, Allysson de Merel, Nori Herras, Angela Rasch, Donna Riley and Heather Rose Brown for their comments, suggestions, editing and proofing.
Comments
thank you
Thank you for this little essay. It hits very close to home on a lot of issues, and i'm ever more thankful i was lucky enough to start my own transition at the relatively young age of 26.
It was actually a piece like this that made me start my transition. It was like reading a checklist of things to do, i was halfway and didn't much care for the "to do's" that were left on the list. If that was to be my future I'd rather walk the other path.
Thank you again,
Amber
:)
A beautiful Essay, touching, thought provoking, and close to my own views i might add.
I wish my factual essays for university were as readable!
Kol tuv
Alyssa
On Crossdressers
The point you make about some people suppressing their transsexuality and only expressing it in occasional crossdressing, may well be valid. After all, humanity comprises myriad individuals, and you can find examples of almost anything in their number.
But, in our national culture here in the U.S., if anything the stigma on male to female crossdressers is even stronger than on transsexuals. Public understanding of transsexuality has come a huge distance. Granted, it started from deep in a well of hostility, so even a large improvement is only a beginning, but it's a good beginning. I would bet if you took a national poll, a sizable portion (although perhaps less than a majority) would agree with the statement that mtf transsexuals are women who were born into men's bodies, and would express some degree of sympathy with the desire to correct that.
Crossdressers, on the other hand, would not fare as well. A large majority of people see ordinary mtf crossdressers (as opposed to drag queens, female impersonators, comedians and other performers) as perverts, and there has been no change in that attitude in decades. Even some members of the Trans community reject crossdressers as half-*ssed wannabes-in-denial and others see only paraphilias.
Women can cross-dress as male with relative impunity. There is some stigma from being butch, but there is also power there. Fashion cooperates, too. Women can pretty much wear anything.
Our world comes crashing down on men who want to crossdress in public as female, however. Why should this be? What hot-buttons does this press? A whole ton of them, apparently.
The fact is, the majority of men who crossdress are not transsexuals. They are male-identified heterosexuals, in about the same proportion as the general population, they are secure and content being male, but for whatever reason, they wish to express their feminine side sometimes. Or even revel in it.
This is not a stepping stone. There is no domino theory here. Adult crossdressers, by and large, are not transsexuals. They don't hate their bodies, they function fine as males. If anything, they hate and fear the stigma of being crossdressers.
It's the stigma that has to change. It's the last area of gender diversity with a barrier to acceptance. Think about it. Gays and Lesbians, fine. Transsexuals, fine. Butch women wearing male clothing, fine. Feminine women wearing articles of male clothing for fashion or drama, fine. Men dressed like women, PANIC! It's not fair, is it?
Acceptance has to start somewhere. We have to start by accepting ourselves. This Trans community has to start accepting us for who we are, too.
You may be interested...
... in the Jewish Mosaic website here:
http://www.jewishmosaic.org/
Please pardon me if you're already aware of it.
There's an excellent commentary on:
Parshiyot Tazria-Metzora
Created by the Hand of Heaven: A Jewish Approach to Intersexuality
by Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla and Reuben Zellman on Saturday April 21, 2007
3 Iyyar 5767
Leviticus 12:1 - 15:33, which discusses the various requirements of a binary world view, sorting out what one should do in the case of a male birth as opposed to a female birth.
In it, they argue that the Talmudic approach to intersexuals, called by the Rabbis "androgynos," who declared that they are "in some ways like men, and in some ways like women, and in some ways like both men and women, and in some ways like neither men nor women,†(Mishnah Bikkurim 4: 1) should be applied to the entirety of human sexuality, "opening up space for every body" and rejecting the modern insistence on dualism and rigidity, going back to the Mishnah, which allows for infinite possibility: "Rabbi Yosi makes the radical statement: 'androgynos bria bifnei atzma hu / the androgynos he is a created being of her own.' This Hebrew phrase blends male and female pronouns to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’ identity. The term bri’a b’ifnei atzmah is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary categories."
While the Rabbis saw and discussed only "visible" differences, modern science has given us a glimpse into the hidden world of the brain, where Mishnaic practicality in relation to the androgynos might also colour our thinking, but more importantly our actions, in regard to persons who are invisibly intersexual. Far too many Christians, and quite a few too many Jews, seem to have forgotten that the Talmud was *necessary* because the world is more complex than can be condensed into a scroll or two, and that liberation is a core Jewish virtue.
"We were slaves in Egypt" is a phrase that every Jew, and every Christian, ought to take to heart, because it's also a demand for personal emancipation.
We are *all* of us created in the image of G-d, and the fact that some of us have trouble seeing the divine spark in the androgynos, the transsexual, the transgendered, the cross-dresser, and all the rich variety of Creation as Holy is the fault of our hazy eyes and limited brains, not G-d's Creation.
Life itself is a gift from G-d, and to question one's own right to live as one was created, or that of another to live *as* he, she, or somewhere in between, was created, is to reject the will of G-d and to usurp his Judgment with one's own folly.
We are all of us free "created beings of our own," not slavish copies of a general category, and we all of us deserve to walk free from bondage.
Selah.
Puddin'
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Barukh atah Adonai Eloheinu melekh ha‑olam, ha‑gomel lahayavim tovot sheg'malani kol tov.
Blessed are You, LORD, our G-d, King of the Universe, who bestows good things on the unworthy, and has bestowed on me every goodness.
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
For students of irony...
The Ha-Gomel, the blessing with which I concluded my little essay, is one of the few "transgendered" blessings in the Jewish repertoire. It's meant to be said in a congregational setting because it's a public statement of thanksgiving, but (in the Orthodox tradition at least) congregations are divided between those -- men -- who can make up a minyan, a Jewish quorum required to qualify a gathering as a communal, rather than a private, activity, and those who do not count towards that quorum -- women -- for complex reasons based on whether one has an *obligation* to say a particular prayer. We'll pass over my own thoughts about this quaint notion without untoward comment.
Most Orthodox authorities agree that women have the obligation to say this prayer, since it's not time-dependent (one of those complex reasons) and has a certain similarity to Temple sacrifices which women *were* obligated to make, so for the purpose of this prayer alone, women can be included and counted in a minyan for the purpose of saying the Ha-Gomel -- which expresses thanksgiving that one has survived illness, danger, or childbirth -- which has a prescribed congregational response directed specifically to the individual offering the blessing: Amen. Mi sheg'malkha (for a woman: sheg'malayikh) kol tov hu yigmalkha (yigmalayikh) kol tov. Selah. / Amen. He Who has bestowed on you every goodness, may He continue to bestow on you every goodness. Selah."
Selah is a peculiar word whose exact meaning is lost to us, but seems to be a verbal recognition that there's something important going on which requires serious thought, and perhaps later action, and is meant to give one pause.
The Ha-Gomel refers to a peculiar period in which the rigid binary world falls away, in which the distinction between women and men is blurred to invisibility, because we are all equal when we are frightened and in peril. No one thinks to himself, or herself, "how should a man, or woman, respond to this mortal danger" when faced with the imminent possibility of death. No one thinks to himself, or herself, "this is a woman in extremis," or "this is a man who might die," because our deepest impulse is to help any human being in danger, and it's our humanity which responds to a human in peril, not any interaction of male or female. It's quite proper that we pause to "pull ourselves together" after such a moment, realigning ourselves with our public role, or roles, and adjusting our vision of the other, formerly only human, individual to include his or her gendered self, before continuing with our daily lives. This subtlety is lost in the English translation, and in the formulaic recitation of the Hebrew.
Selah,
Puddin'
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Selah
It also has the connotation of meaning.. THE END... enough said... es iz ginnick... emmet So Mote it BE !!!
Adina Nechama
Nora-Adrienne
What You Say Is Valid
In general. But as you know, "in general" is not always. You and I know of one person who with conversations with and about "him" made me realize that he is deeply surpressing "his" transgender needs. It was for "him" and those like "him" that I added the potential of crossdressing being a "symptom" of a supressed transgendered individual. "He" also finally explained the catagory of "forced feminization."
Shelly
Do as you would be done by,
Do as you would be done by is spot on and an easy rule to follow. The trouble is most individuals have neither the strength of character nor the intellectual clarity to identify, follow and secure that perspective.
Sadly, most individuals are intellectually 'lazy' and thus end up heeding 'the commentary'. Unfortunately it's in the commentary that the hate and destruction is to be found.
I've said this before on BC but it's still true and always will be.
'He that hath a gospel whereby heaven is won,
Cameleer or carpenter or magyar's dreaming son,
Many swords shall wound him, mingling blood with gall,
But his own disciples will wound him most of all. ... Kipling'
I would therefore heed only the first part of Hillel's reply namely the advice to 'Do as you would be done by.
The next part of Hillel's advice to 'go and study' is superfluous, redundant, pointless.
The only subject left for the student to study is commentary and that amounts to the scriptures, sadly those scriptures encourage the student to enter a destructive xenophobic, homophobic, and transphobic 'dead-end'
Bevs.
Who needs scriptures? Do as you would done by; it's simple!!!
Shalimar,
I have always seen you as a woman.
May Your Light Forever Shine
Jewish thought has dealt with transgender issues for millenia
Often in a humane and compassionate manner.
Read the discussion of the "androgyne" and the "tumtum" in the Talmud.
Transgender Jews May be Nothing New
Male and Female Created He Them
"va-yivra' 'elohim 'et ha-adam be-tzalmo, be-tzelem 'elohim bara' 'oto, zakhar u-neqevah bara' 'otam"
…and God created the man in his image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them.
The fuzzy logic that turns "him" to "them" is mirrored in the Hebrew, and was seen by the Rabbis to be very significant, to wit: it was postulated by many that the first "man" was an androgyne, a single being possessed of both masculine and feminine characteristics. At some point, this single being was cleft in twain, with the distinction between male and female being made *after* creation. There was ample proof of this in the real world, since both androgynes (beings with the characteristics of both sexes) and "tumtums" (beings without any clear indication of sex at all) are fairly common in both the animal and human worlds. There is some evidence that at least some Rabbis thought that these categories applied to other forms of gender variance as well, although they weren't sure what to do about it.
The Gemara advises one to put on dark clothing and travel to a strange place if one has an overwhelming desire to do anything which might be considered sinful, but the overall approach to "sin" is that it doesn't really count unless one has the advice of a Torah scholar at the time. Obviously, when going about in disguise in a strange town, one is very unlikely to run into Torah scholars with an overwhelming need to advise one.
There exists, in fact, a lively debate on this recorded in the Talmud, with various Rabbis taking one position or another, but in regard to human beings, the primary concern was which set of mitzvot (male or female) the androgynes and tumtums should follow, the male version (more strict) or the female (more lenient).
Not surprisingly, this ancient discussion is now being applied to other forms of transgenderism, with mixed results, one has to admit. In the more modern schools of thought, leniency is very popular, so one finds, in fact, entire congregations (such as Sha'ar Zahav in San Francisco, a Reform congregation) in which persons of all sexual identities are welcomed.
Siddur Sha’ar Zahav
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Were the Hardy Boys Jewish?
In line with the above discussion, we note that the Hardy Boys were dedicated to investigating and telling people about scandalous situations, something that is considered sinful in Jewish circles, but in The Clue of the Screeching Owl we see them setting out for an evening of skulduggery and their friend Chet Morton reminds them:
Just wondering....
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Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Kal-El
No! The Hardy Boys are definitely not Jewish. White Bread and Butter, not Bagels, Cream Chees and Lox, for crying out loud. Now Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, as boys were probably required to read the Hardy Boys in school or from the library. Their reaction to so much white bread was not to eat more bagels but to create Kol-El, (the voice of G-D), which became Kal-El a/k/a Superman. But then Clark Kent was from Smallville and I doubt there was a synagogue there. Oh well!
Rami
RAMI