GITTEL'S DAUGHTER: The child of an Orthodox transwoman

 NB. The author of this interview is not related to the author of the previous post. It is purely coincidental that they are appearing around the same time.

M: My birth father is a lesbian. Her name is Gittel (names have been changed to protect the privacy of all of the individuals in this interview). I don’t see myself telling just anyone this story.  Usually people have a harder time hearing I am not religious than that my birth father is transgender. They’ve heard of Off-The-Derech but they haven’t heard of transgender. But I should start the story at the beginning.

I grew up Orthodox in a large city in the United States. I have an awesome family. I’m nineteen and the oldest of seven. Even though my step-dad is not my biological father, he feels like my father. My mom remarried when I was three years old and I had a very normal childhood. I didn’t think there was anything different about me. I went to religious school and youth group and I was very social.

 Growing up, we always referred to my birth father as “Daddy”. My brother and I never asked where Daddy was, but in 5^th grade, I wanted to send my daddy a letter. I showed my mother that I had a letter but my mother said she had to discuss it with a psychologist first. Afterwards, I never brought it up anymore. It wasn’t an issue. That year was hard for my parents. I used to yell at my dad, “You’re not my real dad.”

Later, in 10^th grade, I had an advisor, because I had a tough time in school. There were a lot of talks with my parents. My dad was really pushing me to go to classes, and at some point, the advisor said, “You don’t have to listen to him. He’s not your real father,” and I responded, “YES HE IS.”  He treats me like his daughter, no questions asked. I was three when my mother married him, and they had another five kids together. He treats me the same as the other kids.

When I was younger, and also when I was in high school, my mom always said my birth-father wasn’t ready to be a father. I honestly thought he was mentally ill. I thought he was locked up somewhere. So I didn’t think too much about him. When I was about fourteen, or maybe fifteen, I found pictures of my dad, because my mom had cut up pictures of me and him (baby pictures) and removed them from the album. I put these pictures in my purse and carried them around with me. I don’t know why. I wasn’t missing anything. I was always told that I looked like my daddy, so there was that. I would prefer not to look so similar. I would prefer that there wasn’t such an obvious relationship. It’s funny, because my brother was told that he looked a lot like my step-father. But he’s also Gittel’s son.

 Not long after I opened my first Facebook account when I was sixteen, I got a message from someone saying, “I know your birth father. I know he hurts.” A whole lot of stuff, giving me information that I clearly didn’t want to know! I showed it to my mom, and I asked her if I should read it or delete it, and she said she would prefer that I delete it. I messaged this lady saying please don’t message me again. But then she messaged me again with even more details that I didn’t read.  Who does that to a sixteen year old? It’s not something you message someone about on Facebook! I thought, for a little bit, that maybe it was my birth father, using a fake account, trying to get to me.  Then I figured out it wasn’t.

Just before I turned seventeen, when I had gone out with my friends, my parents called and said they wanted to talk with me. I was freaking out. I thought I did something wrong!  Then, when I came home, they told me that my grandfather wants to fly me to the Belgium to spend a month with him. I said, “You scared me! I thought something serious happened! You called me to come home!?” But then they told me they wanted to tell me why my original parents got divorced.

 My parents were worried that when I traveled to Belgium, my birth father would find out that I was in Europe and try to contact me and they wanted to be the ones who told me the story. Until then, all my life, my mom always told my brother and me that the reason she got divorced was because my birth father wasn’t fit or ready to be a father.

That night, when she started talking, first she brought up an article about Joy Ladin, an Orthodox transgender woman, that we’d read a year or so earlier. I don’t remember exactly what my mom said when she began to tell me about my birth father, though I know she never said anything negative to me. That was difficult, too! My mom hates keeping secrets. We are extremely open and talk about everything so I am sure it was even harder. Afterwards, my parents told me that if I had any questions I could ask, but I didn’t have any. My mom wanted to know how I felt. How should I feel? She just told me that my birth father is now a transgender woman and a lesbian!

 When they told my younger brother [who is the son of my birth father], the only thing he wanted to know was “What happened to the tallis and tefillin?” I love him.

Hearing this story resolved some mysteries for me. When I was about twelve years old, I guess, I found an old cassette tape that my mom had recorded ten years earlier, to send to a friend. On it, she mentioned that she had seen my birth father walking around London with lipstick and she thought she might have to get a divorce. When I heard that, I thought my birth father must be a gay man, so I never talked about finding the tape or hearing what it said with anyone. And then, when my mother told me about Gittel, my birth-father, it clicked in my mind.

 That night when I learned about Gittel, I needed to get out of the house, to talk and share with my friends. My mom told me not to tell my younger siblings. She told me I could talk about it with a friend, so I went out in my friend’s car, running errands. It was already night, and I told her, “My birth father, he’s a woman.” She said, “You don’t tell me that when I’m driving, M! What’s wrong with you?!” 

In general, things don’t bother me. Things flow over me. It took me a long time to tell most of my friends. I had thoughts about what it meant about me, about the way they would view me, but part of my reluctance was sheltering them, for sure. One of my closest friends still doesn’t know because I know she wouldn’t be able to deal with it.

Apparently, there had been a court order that Gittel couldn’t contact me until I was eighteen. My mom didn’t think the court order was a good choice. But for me, I do feel like it was the right choice. Where I grew up, the schools I went to, the friends I had…my life would have been very different if I had known about my birth father being a transgender woman. If I knew when I was younger, I would have dealt with it, but I feel it was very healthy finding out when I was older and had an open mind. As a younger person, I went to a very religious school and I am sure a transgender parent wouldn’t have been accepted.

When I turned eighteen, Gittel [not her actual name] messaged me on Facebook. When she messaged me first, she had opened up a fake Facebook account in her previous name that was obviously not real because it had no pictures or messages or friends or anything. I think after that first contact, she just friended me with her real Facebook, but there was no conversation. No chat. Still, that was the beginning. Just after that, Gittel and Zahava (her partner) invited me to their son’s bar mitzvah on Facebook, though the event was a year away. I didn’t think I would go, but I was trying to figure out if I wanted to go or not. If it’s something I would be interested in being at. So I didn’t respond right away. I just left it.

 Then, a few months before the bar mitzvah, they contacted me again, asking if I wanted to come to the simcha (happy event), so all of a sudden it was real. They offered to fly me in to Belgium! I thought a lot about it, for such a long time, discussing it with my mom and my friends, and then I decided that it’s important for me to go and get to know them and decide if I want a relationship with them or not.  And I decided to come to Europe, but it was clear to me that if I was coming to the Europe, I would have to go see my grandfather, because he wasn’t doing so well at that point. And also, I didn’t want to spend too much time with my birth-father’s family. I wanted it to be short. I wanted it to be manageable. I had a lot of people telling me, you can come stay with me, take all these telephone numbers, find somewhere else. People were surprised that I would stay at their house. Zahava (Gittel’s partner) actually offered for me to stay elsewhere but it seemed silly to me.

When I was planning the trip, everyone asked me, “What does your mom think?” But she didn’t speak. At some point, I confronted my mother and she told me, “I have two worries. 1. You might become not religious. 2. That you might stay there and not come home.” That was never in my plans. I know myself. I knew I wouldn’t stay in Europe. I don't even speak French! My mom still has very positive feelings towards Gittel’s family. She had a relationship with them. My mom tried never to say anything negative to me about Gittel or about them. My mom is awesome. She’s really cool.

I can’t put my finger on what ended up turning me off to religion. I never really connected with it.  Then, about a year and a half ago, I came to terms with not being religious. It is still very difficult for my mom though, since she doesn’t like the influence I have on my siblings. We fought. But at one point, she asked me if I no longer keep shabbos and kosher, and I said I don’t. Then the fights calmed down, after it was all out there. It’s good to get everything out in the open and not keep secrets.

Anyway, since I had been friends with Gittel on Facebook for almost a year, I knew what to expect when I finally met her. It was a good ease into it. I had no expectations for anything so I wasn’t surprised. I think I try to avoid expectations, I don’t know if it comes from a healthy place or not. I know Gittel was very surprised to see me in pants, not because she told me. She’s frum and the pants bothered her.

She says a lot. She says she feels like I was raised well. And that I lucked out not to grow up with her. I know that she tried to follow us as much as possible online to find out about us. But there aren’t any pictures of me or my brother around the house. I was always told that it’s painful for her not to be part of my life and that she would like to have a relationship with me and my brother. I was in touch with Gittel’s cousins, and her family used to tell me that “my father” loves me, or that “there’s someone out there that’s in pain and would like to have more of a relationship with you.” But the fact is, there aren’t any pictures of us in Gittel’s house. We aren’t Zahavah’s kids. I wish (there is a long pause while M cries) she kept one picture of us from when we were little kids on her desk, something.

Gittel doesn’t exactly feel like a parent to me. But if people ask me about “my mother”, I don’t correct them. I’m nineteen, though, and I don’t feel like I need a new parent. I already have two parents. Gittel is a relative of mine who I know cares about me. I do care about her too, but I don’t have words to describe what kind of relation she is to me.

I think that the frum community, where they live, people mostly accept them. I don’t see how they could live in New York or Israel or in some of the other really frum places. I wish it were different. Here, where they live, there is more acceptance than in other places. The hardest thing for me is actually that Gittel and Zahava and their children are frum, more so than any other thing. I don’t know why.

I’ve said this and I believe it: Gittel made a choice that affected her relationship with us [her children], but I’m happy about the choice she made. It’s better than growing up with a miserable father. It enabled me to have a normal childhood. I did luck out.

I wouldn’t change my life. I am happy with who I am and what I am, even though there is this corner of my life that doesn’t fit into my world. If I could erase this part of my life, I would. Not Gittel but the challenge of her. But really, I am at peace with everything I have gone through in my life.

Now, I relate to Gittel as Gittel. I have a mother and a father and a Gittel. To someone who doesn’t know, I refer to her as my biological father or my birth father. But I, myself, I don’t know how to refer to her. She’s just Gittel to me.

THE GOOD RAV: A Chassidic Talmud Chacham and Rabbi speaks:

                                                   Generic photo of a rabbi. NOT the speaker

This is a transcription from a speech given by a chassidic rabbi, a paskening rov, who does not identify as gay but who has been very supportive of LGBT people. This was not a private answer, but something that was said in front of an extremely large audience. Any mistakes are mine and not the rabbi's. 

I’d like to start with my personal journey regarding Judaism and homosexuality. It goes back over twelve years. It was late Thursday night. I came back after a long meeting and my wife said to me “Why are you crying?” I told her I’m sad for a young Jewish man, an Orthodox young man in his mid-thirties, who’d been to yeshiva for a number of years. He had come around after making an appointment and cancelling it, and then making another appointment and cancelling that one too, and then again, until he actually took courage to come around. 

He presented me with three questions:

1) I have never been attracted to women. I have always been attracted to men. I know there is a commandment in the Torah to be fruitful and multiply. Pru urvu. I have to have children. Is it indeed incumbent on me to get married and have children?

2) To the extent that I am a homosexual in orientation, meaning that I am only attracted to men and not to women, how would you behave towards me if I came to your shul? Would you allow me to daven before the amud? Would you allow me to get an aliyah? Would you allow me to be part of the community? What would happen if you knew I wasn’t just a homosexual in orientation but I was actually active, and engaged in a relationship with another man? Would that make a difference to you?

3) If it’s true that the Torah in the Book of Leviticus makes it clear, unequivocal, that it’s forbidden to engage in male homosexual liaison, I have to ask the question; G-d made me this way or He allowed me to develop like this, nature, nurture, but at the end of the day, I never chose it. From a very young age, this is what I recall. This is who I am. But G-d says, “Don’t engage in male-to-male intercourse”, so that means that I am obliged and presumed to remain celibate for my whole life. I won’t ask you why would G-d should do such a thing, to allow a [gay] person to develop through nature, nurture, providence, biology - and at the same time, constrain him in such a way as to give him a commandment that means that he has to remain lonely, to live a loveless life, craving for closeness, intimacy, physical intimacy included in sexuality, nevertheless deprived, frustrated, living a life of misery.

[The young man] posed those three questions that night and I hope to answer those three questions here now…

With regard to marriage, I said to him what I thought then was the obvious answer. I still think it is and I am surprised that there are others who disagree. If anyone, man or woman, draws another person into a marital relationship knowing that the other person is heterosexual, if a gay person draws another person into a relationship knowing that the other person craves a normal marriage and they are gay and they don’t inform their spouse of their orientation, this is an ethical crime of the highest order. 

Even if they do achieve what might be called informed consent, such a marriage is, “generally speaking” (there are always exceptions to every rule) an unconceived marriage for a number of obvious reasons. Even though, halachically, a man is obliged to get married and have children, there are circumstances when a person is not emotionally or physically equipped to have children. If a person is not attracted to women, then this would mean he would be exempt from fulfilling the positive commandment “Be fruitful and multiply.”  Halachically, I explained that there is a category *, there is only a certain extent that a person must push themselves or expend his resources in order to fulfill any given commandment, including this primary commandment of getting married. If a person’s psychological infrastructure was such that it didn’t attract him to women, he is not obliged to steel himself and live in a marital relationship in order to have children.

Subsequently, even recently, I have realized how important it is that this message gets across. Firstly, because I myself have seen many cases where people have been encouraged by spiritual leaders, psychological counselors, lay leaders, to get married and very often these [gay] people have gotten married with the best intentions and subsequently, they’ve suffered the consequences. They, their spouses, their children. In the aftermath of an acrimonious divorce, things become extremely messy, extremely painful for them.

The other reason is, because only recently in a kiruv journal that’s published in Flatbush, it was suggested that people who go through therapy, even though they are going to have relapses, even though it’s almost inevitable that there will be relapses into homosexual conduct, should get married. I find this to be mind-boggling! I feel it is important that people should be aware that getting married is not just a privilege, it’s a responsibility and a duty, and if a [gay] person doesn’t have the ability to remain committed and is unlikely to be able to suppress his inclination in all ways and at all times, then it’s better that he doesn’t get married. On the contrary, to give up the dream of marriage and having children and bringing grandchildren to ones own parents is an extremely difficult thing, and those people who do that, knowing that they are not able to honour the marital vows, are in actuality doing an act of altruism, in depriving themselves of blessings that they themselves may crave, the blessings of family life and children.

With regard to the second question, I said to him, paraphrasing what my friend Rabbi M said, the Torah prohibition is not about orientation, it’s about actions. Clearly, whatever a person is, no matter what his orientation is, he should be welcome in shul. He should be a full-fledged member of the synagogue, and there should not be ostracizing and then, he’d never be disenfranchised. We should accept any member, man or woman, regardless of their orientation. 

There are, however, two types of communities. There are those communities that only allow people who observe the entire Torah to be part of their community. If you do even one sin, then you are out. Clearly, such a community would not allow an active homosexual Jew to be a part of their community. But the vast majority of Jewish communities today do allow all sorts of people, many of whom don’t keep a whole host of laws, to be part of the shul membership. And it must be added, people who are dishonest in business are allowed to be members of those shuls. Dishonesty in business is an infringement of a law against ones fellow man, an interpersonal crime, whereas homosexual relations are actually only a crime between man and G-d. There is no human victim here. It’s not in an exploitative context. 

Rambam, Maimonides, writes in a number of places, in his magnum opus, the Mishneh Torah, that forbidden sexual relationships come under the category of Bein Adam Lemakom, between man and  G-d. Therefore, in a community that makes room for people who don’t fully observe the shabbos or the rules of niddah, Taharas Hamishpacha, family purity and so on, there is no reason they should not  allow even practicing homosexuals to be part of their community, provided they [the homosexuals] are respectful to the ethos of the synagogue. But that’s true with regard to ALL people. We allow heterosexuals to be part of our community, sometimes we have shabbatonim for young boys and girls on Friday night, we don’t check up on them when they go home, and provided they are respectful to the shul,  they behave in accordance with the ethos of the shul, then of course they can be fully participant in the shul.

I believe that most people are not compelled to do things all of the time. There may be exceptions to the rule. In terms of assessing the severity or the lack of severity of a particular crime, you have to take into consideration the context. Today, even if people know something is forbidden, and they know that’s what the Torah says and that’s what the rabbi preaches from the pulpit. Even if they know that’s what they are supposed to do, they were raised in a society that disregarded these prohibitions. Generally speaking, they are classified in halachic literature as a tinok shenisba, a child taken into captivity. 

As condescending as the term may sound, Maimonides, in his Laws of Rebels, Hilchot Mamrim, chapter 3, section 3, used this term to describe second generation Karaites, who although they knew all their Jewish obligations and were quite familiar with the rabbinical tradition, and knew what they were supposed to do, nevertheless, since they were brought up in a society that disregards these rules and did not consider them to be binding , they weren’t held responsible to the same degree type as someone who had received an education right from a young age in keeping the laws of the oral rabbinic tradition. The same thing applies here. In western society where many people are brought up under the influence of the  Zeitgeist, according to which the sexual morality of the day doesn’t necessarily honour the Torah’s view, such people, where the cap fits, can also be deserving of the title tinok shenisba.

If I say nothing else but this, dayeinu. When G-d judges people, he does not judge them according to the objective category of the crime. He judges them according to their subjective circumstances.  Now, any heterosexual, myself included, who thinks about their own challenges, knows that he often slips and falls, even when he could have done better. Think about the plight of homosexuals, such as the young man I was speaking to on that night, who was constrained in a homosexual orientation such that he was not able to have any other outlet. How many of us would actually be ready to commit ourselves to a life of celibacy and avoid all transgressions at all times? I think if we look at ourselves honestly in the mirror and if we put our hands on our hearts, we will acknowledge that this would be a very difficult achievement. 

Therefore, understanding the circumstances and the context in which a homosexual finds himself is most important. If G-d judges people according to their circumstances, we too, should do so as well. While that does not mean in any way shape or form that we want to rewrite the halacha, the law, the Torah states explicitly that which it states, nevertheless, it does make a huge difference in the way we approach an individual who is confronted with a special set of challenges, circumstances which are most difficult.

I finally come to the last question I was confronted with that night:

Lamah asah H-shem kacha? Why did G-d make me this way? This question has been so powerful that some rabbis have felt compelled to assume that there must be some magical cure, or way of transforming homosexuals, making them into heterosexuals. Recently, some rabbis issued a Torah Declaration that said that reorientation must be possible for all people because G-d, who is merciful, would not create people to have them locked in an unfulfilling life, lonely and loveless, and that the only way they could get out of this [isolation] would be through a prohibition.

This argument, in my opinion, is theologically flawed, because we find that G-d actually has put lots of people in these circumstances.  We can find many people who, whether by providence or from biology, are in circumstances where the only way to escape misery would be through violating halacha. There are people who, because of physiological, biological, emotional or even halachic conditions, can’t get married, and such people have to live a celibate life. And the only way they are able to find intimacy and physical love would be if they were to violate the halacha.

There have been, in the past, many people who were constrained and unable to have children because of premature ovulation, and the laws of niddah affected their ability to have the blessing of children. That’s an example of people committed to keep the halacha who have even suffering childlessness their whole lives, in order not to transgress the halacha. There are people in around the world who have to give up a lot, to live in destitution, even die of poverty, in order not to break shabbos. The idea that despite the nisyonos that G-d gives people, we can somehow straightjacket G-d and insist, and say G-d would never do that, is not correct and not reflective of reality. Therefore I don’t think that is a statement that can be supported. I don’t accept that as the answer to the theological question [of why did G-d make me like thus].

How then do I deal with the theological question? The answer is very simple. I don’t. I don’t have an answer. The question is an important question but it doesn’t have anything to do with homosexuality or heterosexuality or anything to do with sexuality. It has to do with all of these and many more. It has to do with the general question in theology of why do great people suffer from infertility? Why can’t great people find love and spouses? Why do great people suffer from many tragedies, and great, small, or medium-sized difficulties in their lives? We have no ability to answer that.  Therefore, it’s important to place this question in the right context. It’s not unique to the sexual portion of Leviticus. It is something about the human condition and the way G-d created us.

In my own meetings with homosexuals, I have four goals that I do believe can be achieved, I strive to achieve them and to a large extent, I have achieved them:

1.     Someone who is homosexual should not lose his life from depression, from feelings of impotence, through drugs, through ephemeral relationships and promiscuity.

2.     Someone who is homosexual should not lose their family, through them alienating their parents and siblings, or through their parents or siblings alienating them.

3.      Homosexuals should not lose their rabbis, their communities, their place in their shul, either through their shul alienating them or them alienating their shul, or through identifying themselves completely by their orientation and going off somewhere else.

4.     Homosexuals should not lose their G-d, They shouldn’t feel that just because they have such a tremendous challenge and just because they haven’t always been able to meet the requirements of this challenge according to the Torah, therefore, it’s all or nothing. Strangely, no heterosexuals seem to feel that their failings make them that way [excluded from the frum community]. For some reason, this is a mistake that’s happened; that people feel it’s either all or nothing. We have to somehow make sure that people should recognize that G-d loves all Jewish people, and the Jewish community should make room in their home for every Jew. 

      As I said before, we should do everything in our power so that homosexual Jews should not lose their lives, not lose their families, not lose their communities and not lose their G-d.

 

FRIEND OF FRUM GAYS #1

 Today, Frum Gay Girl is interviewing M, a young man who is openly supportive of his frum gay friends. Even though M seems, from the outside, to be "one of the boys", and though M doesn't speak about it in his interview, Frum Gay Girl knows that M has stood up for the rights of gay Jews on multiple occasions. M is a serious and genuine person, and he is concerned with how the orthodox community treats its own.

Hello M. Can you tell us something about yourself?

M: I’m a 22 year old guy and I grew up in the Midwest. When I get older I plan to be more observant than I am now. I went to private Jewish Day Schools my whole life. Growing up, we were religious. My parents were Chabad, and my brothers all went to a Yiddish cheder.

What do you most admire in a person?

M: Loyalty, straight-forwardness

How did you come to know about gay people within the Orthodox world?

M: Growing up, I didn’t have any friends that were openly gay, until high school, and even then it was rare. But I’ve become more open to that, because people I grew up with, best friends, turned out to be gay, and that always blows your mind. I was never upset, but just surprised. One guy I knew was always with so many girls, but it turns out he’s gay, and that’s something I would never have guessed in a million years. I didn’t mind and it didn’t affect our relationship at all.

How do you think the frum world reacts to the idea of frum gay people?

M: They have a terrible, negative reaction. There’s no live and let live concept. The belief is that “You are wrong.” There’s no “You’re still part of this community”, it’s just “You don’t deserve to be part of this community.” A friend of mine got very upset because she received a lot of hate mail. She was told that gay is the kind of stuff that makes our community look bad and this is something you have to keep under wraps.

What do you think about that?

M: I won’t swear but it’s messed up. It’s disgusting. Those two things can go hand in hand, and yet, they are treated like they can’t. The Jewish community does as much as it can to avoid letting people see that it’s possible to integrate the two identities, and that makes it hard for the people in the community who are gay. The Chabad world has never been penetrated with these kind of discussions. It’s all pent up and no one talks about it. They try to convince you that you’re not gay and that really you want to have a shidduch etc. It’s not addressed at all.

Do you know anyone who is openly frum and gay?

M: Yes. It’s a challenge, from what I see. You want to do right by God. You want to be respected like any other Jew should be respected. You’re serving G-d, making kiddush, praying, fasting, more so than a lot of people, and yet there’s no respect. You’re disqualified. Not only are you not religious enough, you’re not even counted as Jewish.

                                          G-d made me Jewish and only G-d can make me un-Jewish!

How many gay Jews do you know?

M: About a minyan. Being gay is pretty common, but people don’t talk about it, and they’re afraid to come out.

What’s the best thing about frum gay people?

M: The openness. You feel bonding, a sense of family when you see a Jew on the street. But for a FGP (frum gay person) to see another FGP, there’s this instant bond, both from the pain and from the joy, an instant bond. This sense of family and connection. They’ve both been through similar experiences so they can relate to each other.

If you could ask the frum community for one thing on behalf of frum gay Jews what would it be?

M: Please let them in. Let them be respected. They want the same thing you want.

Thank you so much, M. We certainly wish we had more supporters and allies like you in the frum community.