change in gendered power relations unless that represents justice; and the new the multiple perspectives and insights that and natural images that are part of many emerge out of women’s and ex- feminist liturgies. I also want to include the periences are recognized and valued. Still, I metaphoric shifts in the way the people of Is- understand — including the sense rael are imagined in Jewish texts — most that it reflects one’s inner self — to be partly often as a male community but sometimes as a creation of social institutions and practices. a feminized community (to maintain a het- Therefore, to my mind, your goals of creat- erosexual position in relation to the deity). ing space within and between — The entry of women and of transgender peo- goals I affirm — press toward the dissolution ple into Jewish leadership roles multiples the of gender. I want to see a society in which metaphoric potentialities for envisioning the gender is simply one of numerous facets of relationship between God and Israel and identity and is far less salient than it is in ours. So for me, there is a fruitful tension be- The image of God as transgender is an tween the idea of multiplying and dissolving attempt to capture the tension between genders. The image of God as transgender is an multiplying and dissolving genders. attempt to capture this tension. The sources within Judaism that might be used to develop thus the nature of God. There’s an analogy this image are largely the sources that femi- between undermining the by nists have been talking about for the last 40 multiplying social genders and exploding years: the existence of female images, such as the notion of a male God by multiplying Shekhinah, that have been overlooked and left metaphors for God and our relationship with out of the liturgy; the natural images that sug- God. We can think of God as masculine, fem- gest that God is beyond gender; the gender- inine, female, male, both, neither, in various crossing imagery in which a “male” God has combinations, and in terms that have noth- the so-called feminine qualities of feeding ing to do with gender, so that through multi- and nurturance as well as the feminine divine plying, we dissolve. — Judith Changing Sex, Changing Gender Noach Dzmura small number of people change sex. tional statements concerning sex-change, AMany more change gender. “Transgen- none concern gender-change. The law passes der” refers to gender-change with (or with- over like the angel of death out) sex-change. Gender-change is to identity passed over Jewish households in Egypt; per- what sex-change is to a body. Identity haps with the same salubrious effects. We live changes are easier to acquire and (often) among you, daven with you, but we are in harder to recognize. In some states a judge exile. To survive, we must be visible in rela- may order gender-change when no sex- tion to the binary. While law passes over gen- change has been performed. This means that der difference, custom is unable to change; it a female body dressed in male clothing can must. If there are no roles for those of us who be, by order of the court, as much a as are transgender to play as transgender Avraham Avinu or God Himself. So, while the who may or may not also be men or women, community struggles for same-sex mar- the Jewishness of our lives will be lost. riage, two same-sex bodies may legally marry The fundamental binary — what is a if one of them is transgender. In addition, man or a — is crumbling under be- when one partner in a heterosexual marriage nign neglect, and we fail to notice. One can changes sex, the couple may remain together only wonder at this gray area in the law and — in a legal, same-sex marriage. its disconnection from the heteronormative December 2007 There is a similar blindness to “trans- ethic. “Transgender” challenges Judaism Tevet 5768 gender” in Jewish law and society. While more profoundly than feminism or homo- To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA there are halakhic responsa and denomina- sexuality. Feminists and homosexuals argue www.shma.com 5 for separate-but-equal status; transgender half cannot be exempted, so must, for this persons argue that sex and gender are no moment, be equivalent to a man. The rabbis longer “real enough” categories to classify have opened a door. If half a body can humans. Everything a person does to be change gender without having the requisite Jewish is based on categories, then, that genitals, perhaps it is no great stretch to don’t work. change the gender (and not the sex) of a Androgynos is a rabbinic text ad- whole body. For the , gender dressing the exceptional case of a hermaph- is a “both, and” proposition. The hermaph- rodite human (a person with two complete rodite has a fuzzy dual gender that wobbles sets of genitals, one male and one female). around an always dual sex (continuous state) Androgynos prescribes a legal alternative to and at the same time a series of single-gen- the one-sex-one-gender binary system. In this ders within each narrow legal context (dis- alternative, an individual regularly appears in crete state). Today, wherein a gender binary the garb of one gender even though only half is competing with newer non-binary forms of of the individual’s body maps to that gender’s gender identification, a “two-state solution” norms. The hermaphrodite, then, is directly to gender seems like a responsible — and enabled by the community to function as a achievable — strategy. unique member. A similar adaptation might The deeper question raised by “trans- be useful in communities working to include gender” is this: Since a dual-to-many rela- transgender Jews. tionship has precedent, why base our The hermaphrodite’s gender is always interactions on a one-to-one relation be- ambiguous. S/he appears male but possesses tween sex and gender? Even Jews not bound a female “half” and sometimes performs fem- to the law recognize the effects law has on inine obligations. Rather than reacting to a tradition and custom. If sex and gender are Noach Dzmura, a 2007 “man” performing female obligations as a not stable, why base obligations — or cus- graduate of the Richard transgression, community members must toms — on them at all? Since male and fe- S. Dinner Center for Jew- recognize the hermaphrodite’s duality as male genitals emerge from identical tissue, ish Studies of the Gradu- both man and woman. Though the her- why not obligate from the point of similarity ate Theological Union in maphrodite in other instances is said to have rather than the point of variation? Since gen- Berkeley, is a community a single gender, legal discussion concerning der is negotiated between us rather than con- educator. The recipient of circumcision suggests that the hermaphro- tained inside, why not negotiate obligations the 2006–07 Haas– dite has two distinct masculine genders. In between members, “fixing” an obligation Koshland Award, he was , a hermaphrodite is “certainly male” only when it fits a specific community’s privileged to teach about and must be circumcised. In another pas- need? In such an environment, a heterosex- Gender Variance in Mishnah during last sage, a hermaphrodite is a “doubtful male” ual — or gay — couple might marry as year’s World Pride Cele- whose circumcision may not violate the Sab- equals, and a transgender woman may be vis- bration in Jerusalem. bath. S/he is “doubtful” because the female ible as formerly male and currently female He can be reached at half diminishes his/her masculinity. When a without shame. The Androgynos offers [email protected]. hermaphrodite is circumcised, the female precedent for such moves. Jews Studying Talmud Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert, Associate Pro- of the androgynos, a person with both sets of fessor of Religious Studies at Stanford University genitalia: “He conveys ritual impurity by his ,and her PhD student, Max Kayla Strassfeld, dis- white or by his red genital emission.” cuss studying the talmudic text, Androgynos. ( 2:3–7) Charlotte Fonrobert: I “discovered” What a bizarre and yet wildly interesting the androgynos many years ago when I stud- text, full of tensions and indeterminacies in ied a variety of talmudic texts that touched matters of gender. The androgynos and tum- upon gender questions. Looking for texts tum, two figures that roughly cohere with December 2007 Tevet 5768 having to do with women’s bodies, I stum- what today is called “,” show up all To subscribe: 877-568-SHMA bled across a long list of laws the rabbis com- over the rabbinic corpus, in a vast variety of www.shma.com piled to circumscribe the legal phenomenon different settings. Coming from a heterosex- 6