Transgender Jews Seek Place at Table

[Shana A]

Transgender Jews Seek Place at Table
Conference Aims To Break Communal Silence on Issue

By Chanan Tigay
Published November 14, 2012, issue of November 16, 2012.

http://forward.com/articles/165708/transgender-jews-seek-place-at-table/?p=all

Berkeley, Calif. — Shortly before Emily Aviva Kapor began the transition from male to female, she sat down to discuss the process with her mother.

"I told her I was going on hormones, and she said the most Jewish thing to me," 27-year-old Kapor recalled . "She said, 'Well, at least you're not getting a tattoo.'"

It's a funny line that anyone with a Jewish mother can appreciate. But as it turns out, the most Jewish thing to say on the subject of gender identity probably would have been nothing at all.

For many years, those knowledgeable on the subject say, Jews and Jewish organizations largely met their transgender co-religionists with silence. Slowly, that is beginning to change. From November 2 to November 4, Kapor and nearly 30 other transgender, transsexual, queer, intersex and gender-nonconforming Jews from across North America sought to expand this opening-up process at a gathering here, billed as the first-ever retreat for such Jews.