Transgender author featured at Alliance JCC presentation

PROVIDENCE – On Thursday, November 7, Dr. Joy Ladin, the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox institution, discussed her newest book, “Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders,” a National Jewish Book Award finalist, with more than thirty people who had come to hear the presentation at the Alliance JCC.

Marty Cooper, of the Jewish Alliance Community Relations Council, began introducing Dr. Ladin to the audience, but when Cooper had trouble reading his notes, the guest of honor suggested, to laughter, “You can just make stuff up.” From that moment, it became apparent that, even though important information was going to be presented, it would be complemented by Ladin’s sense of humor and willingness to poke fun at herself.

The presentation was open and welcoming. When technical difficulties with the microphone occurred, Ladin began using a substitute mic, accidentally dropping the one that was not working. As soon as the broken mic fell, it became functional, screeching into the air. Ladin remarked to general amusement, “Now it’s on!”

Ladin’s presentation was the first public program in our community addressing the transgender issue. She was thankful for the opportunity to speak, saying that it’s very brave for a Jewish organization to host an event of this nature and to be willing to talk about differences, which are just being recognized and for which there is not yet language. She said that, as a child, she couldn’t imagine an occurrence of the sort because she didn’t know there were people like her.

Growing up with a fundamental and unusual distinction, the boy (Ladin) tried to relate to other boys and unsuccessfully hide his awkwardness within the milieu of toy cars and swords. Identifying with girls, the boy was met with further reproach when he tried socializing with them – they would giggle and run away, thinking he was trying to kiss them. Because of the way Ladin looked, the girls were uncomfortable around little Jay, as Ladin was then called.

Ladin explains that we make intimate assumptions about people’s bodies based on gender cues. By the age of six, Jay still didn’t think there was anybody else like him. Feeling that he was this other being – not a human one – the boy instinctively knew that being female was dangerous because people would be horrified by the cognitive dissonance. Ladin was caught in a Catch-22 – Jay couldn’t be true to himself because of the adverse reaction he’d receive, and he couldn’t please others by staying silent because of the anguish he felt while in hiding. In an essay titled, “What Was a Nice Jewish Girl Like Me Doing in a Man’s Body?” Ladin writes, “When I was for myself alone, what was I? A wish, a longing, a perversion. To become myself, I needed to be for, with, among others.” Sadly, Ladin didn’t reach this understanding until her adult years.

During Jay’s childhood in the 1960s, doctors thought that transsexuals could be cured by shock therapy. While desperate to unburden himself by revealing his true identity, the boy forced himself to suppress his difference. Besides fearing ostracism, Jay felt an obligation to his family to conceal the truth. On top of all these intricacies, the boy was grappling with the constant nagging that his feeling, however powerful, might be an illusion.

Cut off from people because of the belief that he was one of a kind and that, if discovered, he would no longer be loved, Jay found solace in Judaism. After all, being Jewish meant being connected to people like him. Attending temple offered Jay a way to avoid feeling cut off from the world. The boy was thrilled that this 3,000-year-old religion was even weirder than he was and became enamored with it.

Growing up with a socialist Brooklyn unionist father who conducted Seders with a tilted kippah and a Maxwell House haggadah, Ladin said, “It [being religious] was a way of being different from my family they couldn’t criticize me for.”

Little Jay treasured his conversations with God, whose presence was apparent to the boy: “I was pretty sure that I didn’t exist but God did.” Participating in congregation and reading the Torah, Jay was hooked despite being the only young person in the shul. Joking, Ladin explained Jay’s appeal to the older temple members, “I was the next generation. I was the next seven generations.” The boy identified with the writings because he felt the book was “about someone who has terrible social problems because of not having a body.” Since he too lacked a body (i.e., he was neither male nor female), the boy felt invisible. Jay liked the fact that Jews understand God by accepting that He’s not human; Ladin said with a smile, “To me, the Torah was all about trans people.”

While at peace with Judaism, Ladin takes issue with the Orthodox rabbis who are only beginning to acknowledge transgender people. They range between rabbis who say that Ladin is like them and only thinks that she’s different, and those who claim that, if she is different, she’s not part of them. Ladin experienced such treatment firsthand when Yeshiva University placed her on involuntary leave, not allowing her on campus of the institution, which had recently given her tenure. Ladin’s students complained to the dean about the discrimination – after all, for Orthodox people to disrespect a human this way is akin to desecrating the religion. The school agreed to let Ladin return to teaching after she sent a letter demanding to be allowed back. While her struggle ended in victory, Ladin knows that many trans people suffer in fear. She usually suggests to transgender Orthodox youths who are living in hiding to go to a Chabad House, which has a “no-Jew-left-behind policy.” Careful to avoid generalizations, Ladin brought up Rabbi Steve Greenberg as an example of someone who is gay and Orhodox. She stated that he provides a powerful statement in his open lifestyle.

Because she prefers to talk to the source, Ladin made a covenant with God, promising Him, “I will see you as real if you see me as real.” She thinks that acceptance has to happen at the level of families and communities. There is no one-size-fits-all approach – we must figure out how to accommodate a wide range of gender identity issues. Ladin said that while she now fits into the category of trans people who are physically capable of not being recognized as born males, other cases are challenging Jewish communities that have elaborate social systems based on gender differences. Ladin brought up homeless shelters as an example – they’re divided by gender, thus making it impossible for transgender homeless children to stay in them. She believes that, to make a safe haven for everyone, much hard work, mutual respect and trial and error need to come into play.

Ladin feels that shame is a great enemy to progress with regards to education about the trans lifestyle, a subject that is “on the bleeding edge of social change.” She elaborated that gender is born when we adapt ourselves to the terms culture provides for us. Ladin experienced an epiphany when she realized that trans identity is not complicated for Jews since Jewish identity is not fixed or stable. Instead, it’s a journey through a number of different possibilities. She clarified that, while brand-new and confusing, trans identity is also just another category. When Ladin outgrew her childhood wish to become female, she discovered that she could be something greater – a human.

Ladin’s transformation cost her dearly. In the process of transitioning, she temporarily lost her job as an English professor, her marriage fell apart and she experienced tremendous amounts of physical pain, a feeling new to her since she was accustomed to numbing herself. However, despite the sacrifices, Ladin sees her decision as a matter of life and death – she shared that she even took out a life insurance policy, but later discovered it had a two-year waiting clause for suicide.

Unfortunately, Ladin’s ex-wife couldn’t understand that the transition was not a whim like buying a red dress instead of a red sports car. In her book, “Sex Changes: A Memoir of Marriage, Gender, and Moving On,” Christine Benvenuto writes that her ex-husband “never called his midlife crisis a midlife crisis. He represented it as a kind of gender sneeze, an involuntary explosion in reaction to the mounting irritation of inhabiting an identity that didn’t feel like his. In other words, a midlife crisis. It erupted in the middle of our lives. It was a crisis.”

While counting down the days to kill herself, Ladin had a conversation with a friend who suggested she see a therapist. After Ladin met with the therapist, who ultimately saved her life, she understood that her children would be better off with a transgender parent than they would with a dead one; the therapist didn’t mince words, “Your children need you to stay alive so that they can reject you.” When, after the transition, Ladin complained to the therapist about mundane troubles with her employer and with her girlfriend, the therapist said, “This is what you didn’t kill yourself to do.”

However pedestrian these everyday issues are, Ladin feels that her decision was the right one. She said, “It is not possible to feel comfortable in a body that doesn’t reflect your gender identity.” Acknowledging that Torah prohibits cross-dressing and that halakhah forbids body mutilation, Ladin continues to communicate with God, working through her unease by writing poetry. A transgender people’s Garcia Lorca, Ladin addresses God in “Psalms,” “You remember your wish/ To understand/ How the creatures you love so much/ Could ever wonder where you are/ When you are all around us.”