Understanding Transgender People

It was by way of a Shaila (request of a Halachic Psak) asked of a Gadol and world class Posek. Someone recognized and accepted as such by all segments of Orthodoxy, right to left. The question was whether a transgender person(in this case a man who now lives as a women) could Daven in his Shul. And if so, which side of the Mechitza she should sit on. The answer is not as important as was what prefaced it. Which went something like this: ‘Would you believe that I now get 2 or 3 Shailos like that every week?’ Remember this man is considered a Gadol even in the Charedi world.

The individual who asked that Shaila was  Rabbi Efrem Golbberg. He asked it on behalf of a married with children - 60 year old Orthodox member of BRS, his Shul in Boca Raton. This individual was a role model of an Orthodox Jewish man - a committed Jew in every sense of the word. No one would have ever dreamed that he had to deal with this issue. That individual wanted to remain in the community as an Orthodox woman and continue to follow Halacha. 

Apparently he is not alone based on the frequency of that Shaila being asked. In a lecture on the subject (well worth listening to despite its length) Rabbi Goldberg noted that after having spoken on this subject in the past, he had received numerous phone calls from Orthodox Jews who lead fully religious lives - with children in the finest day schools. They are tortured by this dilemma.  As are all transgender people. Some estimates say that there are over 700,000 transgender people in the US and as many as 500,000 undergo SRS (sex reassignment surgery).  

I haven’t really addressed this issue because frankly, I never understood it. The body that I was born with is who I am. I cannot understand how a man can feel he is really a woman trapped in a man’s body. Nor can I understand the reverse. But there are people like that. A lot of them it appears.

Most scholarship on the subject seems to agree that gender dysphoria (being transgender) is a serious disorder that cannot be changed. Much the same way that SSA Cannot be changed. Although one highly respected psychiatrist by the name of Paul McHugh of Johns Hopkins believes gender dysphoria is a disorder of assumption. In other words he believes that the person’s perceptions do not match the realty. Much the same way anorexics and bulimics do. They see their almost emaciated bodies as obese. Gender dysphoria, he says works the same way and can in theory be treated.

Be that as it may, gender dysphoria is real and people that have it are in so much pain that they are willing to kill themselves rather than live in the body in which they were born.

Current medical ethics indicate that in cases where it is warranted, sex reassignment surgery is appropriate. After which studies show those individuals become at peace with themselves. They now are now the sex they have always identified themselves as. 

How that is determined is tricky. But the current medical standard is that such individuals must undergo an RLT - a real life test. They must dress and live as a member of the opposite sex in every way before actually changing their anatomy surgically. A very expensive enterprise – especially if one goes from being a woman to a man. No surgeon would perform that procedure without an RLT. (Halachicly this is of course highly problematic.)  

I bring all this up for the following reason. The tendency among most of us that never have to go through that kind of pain is to treat this disorder with contempt, disgust, and condescension. A freak of nature worthy of ridicule. With a deviant sexual desire.  One which that should be overcome with a little work and some psychotherapy. But instead of seeking that help, they indulge their desires to gratify those aberrant instincts by cross dressing. We used to call such people transvestites.

But that is the furthest thing from the truth. These people suffer unimaginable mental anguish. They would give anything not to feel that way. A way they have felt from their earliest memories. The pain is so great that suicide is often contemplated. There is an astounding 41% suicide rate by transgender people. 

Which  may make this SRS permissible in those cases - despite the fact that is completely forbidden by Torah law to performs such a surgery for a variety of reasons. I am not saying it is permissible. Just that suicide might be a reason to permit it. Obviously issuing a Psak on this issue is well beyond my pay-grade. It can only be answered by a respected Posek like the above-mentioned one.  

That he gets as many questions about this issue as he said, indicates that a huge number of observant Jews have this problem.  One might deduce form this that there are people we know that do, and yet we have never encountered one. That’s because of the stigma attached to it. No one wants to suffer th indignities of contempt and ridicule that will result by commig out. Which is far more likely in an observant community.

We should therefore think very hard about our approach to this issue. And to try and understand the pain associated with it among those that have this condition. We need to have sympathy rather than ridicule. And call it out when we see it. Because you never know if the individual sitting next to you in Shul every Shabbos has this condition and how much pain they have – which you are adding to with that attitude.

Which brings me to a  recent story in the Times of Israelabout a Charedi father from Manchester, England who now lives as a woman. She has tried unsuccessfully to have a relationship with her five children. But was denied that personal relationship by a London court. I understand the reluctance of their mother to expose their children to this. 

But I now also understand the extreme pain this woman, their former father, is going through. And so should everyone else with a heart. That something is Assur does not mean we may not have compassion to those desperate souls so unhappy with their lives that they feel they have no choice but to transgress… or die.