Transgender? Judaism's got a blessing for youORLI SANTO, September 25, 2013, 12:59 am
This is an era of gender revolutions, and the Jewish community is racing to keep up. Enter Yuval Topper. Topper, who comes from an Orthodox family, was born female, underwent a sex reassignment surgery to become male, discovered that he's gay, married a gay man, and in 2011 became the first Israeli transgender man to conceive and give birth to a baby.
Last week, following nearly two years of struggles, Israel's Interior Ministry begrudgingly recognized both men as the child's biological parents — another big first.
Granted, it's a lot to take in. But Rabbi Elliot Kukla, a leading Jewish educator on LGBT rights, says this is nothing new.
"There's a growing number of trans-male Jews who are getting pregnant and having babies. Finding ways to sanctify and welcome men who are having babies into the community, which is something previous generations of Jews could never dream of, is increasingly becoming part of modern Jewish life," Kukla tells the Times of Israel.
The past decade has been hugely transformative for LGBT Jews. But while lesbian, gay, and bisexual people have become fairly well-integrated into most aspects of non-Orthodox Jewish life, inclusion of transgender Jews is still in its early stages.
