Question

Hello Rabbi Michi.
 
In the latest column about LGBT people, and in several other columns on the subject in the past where you wrote more extensively, you wrote that in your opinion there is no principled obstacle (on the secular-moral plane, on the plane of basic decency) to recognizing trans men and trans women as women/men. And that even from a halakhic-religious standpoint, although the surgery is initially forbidden under the prohibition of castration, it may be that after the fact one can recognize the person who underwent surgery as belonging to the sex to which they ostensibly transitioned, and perhaps even before that, if they appear outwardly as male or female, they should be treated as such in certain areas of synagogue roles, regarding marriage, and the like, since there is no principled prohibition about this in the Talmud—because in its time this phenomenon did not exist. You are admittedly not rushing to permit it and declare that a male who identifies as a woman is, in your view, permitted to marry a man or be in the women’s section, but you only write that perhaps there is room for this and that the matter requires a non-emotional discussion.
 
I am puzzled by your approach from two angles:
 
On the plane of basic decency, you wrote in the past that from your perspective Jewish identity, in its value-laden and essential sense, is the observance of Jewish law out of the command of the Holy One, blessed be He, and nothing more. Culturally, you added that perhaps one can be a traditional atheist, in the manner of Ahad Ha’am. And that indeed is something that can exist in reality, but it is an identity empty of real value-content, only emotional and nothing more. You added that of course there is such a thing as a Jew in the ethnic sense. But you mocked those who try to invent the creature called secular Judaism—there is no such thing in your view, because for the most part these are universal values, and the fact that Jews practice them and call them Jewish values is meaningless.
Do you not find similar flaws in the whole issue of trans identity? Many feminists argue that the only objective thing that can define what a woman is is someone’s biological reality as a woman. The other things—such as sensitivity, a tendency to wear dresses, to have intimate conversations, or anything else more common among women—cannot legally and judicially grant a man dressed as a woman the right to enter changing rooms, women’s restrooms, or participate in women’s sports and receive scholarships intended for women. And men can do anything feminine while still being men, and vice versa, because these things are not absolute to any particular sex.
Does the fact that trans men and trans women have no objective definition but only an undefined mental feeling not place them under the same flaw that you described among those who try to pour objective, value-laden content into “secular Judaism”?
And in practice, how do you think one can decide the question of the participation of a woman identifying as a man in forums and spaces for men only, and vice versa, if the other people present do not accept that “identity”?
From a halakhic standpoint—even if there is no formal prohibition in the Talmud specifically regarding those who experience gender dysphoria—on the other hand there are many prohibitions regarding dress and imitating the opposite sex. Is it not more reasonable to say that, at the very least, the Sages would certainly not look favorably on such a phenomenon?
And regarding the LGBT community in general: you wrote that from your point of view, granting LGBT people recognition of civil rights as a community and granting an individual LGBT person those same rights is one and the same. From a purely religious standpoint, is there no prohibition in expressing support—or giving even a symbolic sum—to a community that openly says it sees the joyful realization of forbidden relationships as something positive, out of its secularity? In other words, is there no purely formal prohibition in supporting or donating to such a community? (As distinct from helping and giving support to an individual, who certainly has rights in a democratic state, and in our times, when providence is not manifest, as the Hazon Ish wrote, and so on.)