Q&A: Does uncertainty about androgyny indicate that the Sages did not understand sex and gender?
Does uncertainty about androgyny indicate that the Sages did not understand sex and gender?
Question
In Jewish law, from the time of the Mishnah, it was not clear to the tannaim and amoraim whether an androgynos was male or female.
In my view, this points to scientific humility on the part of the Sages. They understood that there ought to be some ontic feature in reality that should tip the scales and decide the matter. They just did not know how to identify it.
If there had been a tradition, it should have found expression in the opinion of some tanna.
If the Sages had believed that they knew everything scientifically about the androgynous person, there would have been some dispute over how to classify such a person: either as male, or as female, or as a creature unto itself.
“A creature unto itself” is indeed one opinion in the Mishnah, belonging to someone who believed he understood the scientific essence. But those who are in doubt whether the person is male or female are claiming that it could be decided if more scientific knowledge were added.
Seemingly, what we need now is knowledge beyond the signs that the Sages recognized, and perhaps here neuroscience and the psychology of diverse sexual tendencies that we know today could be relevant for issuing a halakhic ruling. After all, it sounds reasonable (though not necessarily self-evident) that the Torah and the Sages would regard a person’s inner psychological essence as more relevant for determining that person’s sex than external bodily form (see the case of an aylonit).
What does the Rabbi think about this?
And at what level does the doubt about the maleness and femaleness of the androgynos lie? If not scientific-psychological, is there a question here about the root of the person’s soul among the angels?
Thank you very much,
Ofir
Answer
It is not at all clear to me whether the doubt was a factual one—what exactly this creature is—or a halakhic one: how we are to relate to it. I do not think this refers to the kind of androgynous person we speak of today. It refers to a person who has both kinds of sexual organs. So I do not think scientific knowledge or neuroscience will help here, because the Sages are not dealing with gender in the modern sense of the term.
Still, one could also say that the Sages did not correctly understand the meaning of male and female, and simply change the definition to the ones accepted today, to whatever extent such definitions exist.
Discussion on Answer
Ofir,
Aside from “a creature unto itself,” you can find in the words of the Sages opinions that it is a doubt whether the person is male or female, that the person is both male and female simultaneously, or that the person is only male—almost all the possibilities.
The appearance of two sexual organs (male and female) in one person can stem from a very wide range of genetic and developmental causes, so you should not be surprised if the true sex differs depending on the cause.
If the sexual organ is the criterion for determining sex, then such a person is certainly both male and female (and if in Jewish law the status is doubtful, that is a legal doubt, not a factual one). But perhaps there is room to argue that today we would treat genetics as the criterion instead (except that genetics does not help decide in every case).
Plus, from simple reasoning, psychology is not a criterion, because psychology can be relatively easily influenced by hormonal and environmental causes (not necessarily only in an androgynos), and if we take psychology as the criterion and want to be consistent, we will reach absurdities—such as people who are sometimes male and sometimes female, people who are not human beings but aliens, people who are animals, and the like.
Ofir, is deciding from doubt not still a decision? Then why were the laws of doubt given at all? Let everything be decided in heaven.
I did not understand the remark about there being no opinion that this is definitely male or definitely female. Why should there be? This is a classic case of doubt. No one says about twilight that it is definitely day either. Why should they?
As for the question whether this is an essential doubt (even from Heaven’s perspective), that is definitely possible. Like one who betroths two sisters in the Talmudic passage about betrothal that cannot be consummated. In such cases this is ambiguity in reality itself and not doubt. There they apply the laws of doubt to something certain.
Roni, I am not sure about what you wrote regarding the psychological criterion. Today even the physical sex markers can be changed surgically. If they ever arrive at clear criteria for femaleness and maleness—not that each person defines himself however he likes, as is accepted in today’s crazy political correctness—then there is room to say that this would replace the criteria used by the Sages.
You wrote: “I am not sure about what you wrote regarding the psychological criterion. Today even the physical sex markers can be changed surgically.” — Quite so. Surgery certainly does not change a person’s sex; surgery is merely cosmetic.
As for whether they will ever arrive at psychological criteria for maleness and femaleness, it is hard to discuss that now when one cannot even imagine objective psychological measures for this. Even if they find some trait that appears in 90% of males and 10% of females, it would be hard to treat that as a sex characteristic. Of course, if it is decided that this is the distinguishing characteristic, then automatically it will be true in 100 percent of cases, because that is the criterion that was defined—but that would be more a matter of a new definition, one that can and should be debated, and not really an objective measure. The strength of the genetic definition, by contrast, is that in the end it touches the root and cause of the phenotype that naturally always served as a sex characteristic, which does not seem like something that could be said about psychology.
Roni, regarding the possibility of change, the Magen Avraham writes in section 589: “Its own kind—but not that which is not its kind. (Gemara) And the Rif explained that even if his fellow is also an androgynos, if at that time when he is female his fellow is male, he does not discharge his obligation.” And Tiferet Yisrael comments on this, Boaz on tractate Shabbat chapter 19: “And I did not find this in the Rif. The matter itself is also far from human comprehension. How is it possible that his appearance should change like a chameleon and become this way at one time and that way at another? Perhaps the intention of the Magen Avraham is that at one time the male force within him prevails, and at another time the female force. Since he has both maleness and femaleness, his name fits him.” And in my opinion, Tiferet Yisrael means sexual inclination, which changes over the course of life.
To the Rabbi: do you agree that even the halakhic considerations, which are not scientific questions about reality, in any case must involve, by force of reasoning, the definition of human sex—what defines sexuality? Or could it be that this is a tradition or a derivation from verses? And even if there is some derivation from the sources, should that be taken into account regarding a case that nowadays clearly appears male or clearly appears female according to reason, in the sense of “when the reason lapses, the enactment lapses”? After all, no derivation from verses is mentioned in the Talmud.
Ofir,
The Be’er Heitev already asked: “And furthermore, according to this it would imply that sometimes he is male and sometimes he is female, as I have heard people say that one month an androgynos is male and one month female. But this does not appear so in the Talmud and the halakhic decisors. And furthermore, if so, why do we need a verse to exclude an androgynos from the rule that his circumcision overrides the Sabbath? If he is in the month in which he was born female, that is obvious; and if he is male, it is also difficult—how would we know that next month he will be female?” End quote.
And this seems to be the main point.
And Tiferet Yisrael certainly does not mean sexual inclination, or even psychological gender identity; rather, he means the Platonic male idea, not psychology. And we have no foothold at all in the world of ideas.
It may be a tradition, though it is more likely the reasoning of the Sages. That is why I wrote that there is room for change when there is a clear scientific definition. This is of course not an enactment but Torah law. Regarding changes in Torah law due to changed circumstances, see here:
On the possibility that this is a halakhic question of how to relate to reality—does it make sense that no tanna expressed the view that it is specifically male or specifically female? Do the signs of maleness and femaleness stand in exactly equal balance for all the Sages, without tipping the scale? That is not reasonable. After all, the assumption is that theoretically it can be decided. Or is the claim that even God does not know what the Jewish law is? Or that God knows but did not reveal to us even the slightest hint to tip the balance? So are we waiting for divine inspiration? Isn’t this a situation that runs contrary to the principle that human beings issue rulings below and the law is accepted in heaven? Why did they not decide?