Q&A: A Transgender Student in a Religious School
A Transgender Student in a Religious School
Question
On his Twitter account, Emanuel Shila revealed that this coming Sabbath an article will be published in the newspaper Besheva about a transgender child (registered as a girl) in a state religious school that operates with gender separation. The matter was kept secret for several years, but in the end it was discovered, as I understand it, through the child’s classmates. Criticism is being directed there at the fact that the educational staff knew but acted to conceal the matter.
Is the criticism of the school justified, in your opinion? Did the child’s parents violate a moral prohibition? A halakhic one? And did the other parents who worked to expose it act improperly?
Answer
Did he undergo surgery and now physiologically is actually a girl? If so, then perhaps there is nothing wrong with it.
Discussion on Answer
No
I mean that I don’t know, because I haven’t looked into the subject. Not necessarily that there aren’t any.
With all due respect, Rabbi Michi. What does “and now he is actually a girl” mean? Do you know of any way, other than plastic surgery—even very elaborate plastic surgery—to turn a man into an actual girl? Can he give birth?
If they arranged him properly then he certainly can’t impregnate anyone. Maybe give birth. But there are women who also can’t give birth. He may belong to the gender of the infertile.
In the past I saw an interview with a boy who grew up in Breslov, 100 Shearim, and after sexual abuse and male homosexual relations with him on a constant basis, regular and additional offerings according to law, by a neighbor—and according to him his mother knew and kept quiet [in return he supported him financially…]—he felt that he had to change his sex.
According to him, several rabbis permitted it for him. May the Merciful One save us, at some point he tried to take his own life. But I checked and maybe found a possible basis for permitting it in Tzitz Eliezer [through a non-Jewish doctor?]
Does the Rabbi know of other rulings that permit it?