The Eight Genders in the Talmud
Judaism has recognized nonbinary persons for millennia.
Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Think again. The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than many assume.
The
Talmud, a huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains in fact no less than eight gender designations including:
- Zachar, male.
- Nekevah, female.
- Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
- Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
- Aylonit hamah, identified female at birth but later naturally developing male characteristics.
- Aylonit adam, identified female at birth but later developing male characteristics through human intervention.
- Saris hamah, identified male at birth but later naturally developing female characteristics.
- Saris adam, identified male at birth and later developing female characteristics through human intervention.
In fact, not only did the rabbis recognize six genders that were neither male nor female, they had a tradition that the first human being was both. Versions of this midrash are found throughout rabbinic literature, including in the Talmud
Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Think again. The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than ...
www.myjewishlearning.com
OT, but as spiritually uplifting as Jeanette in a bikini, I'm sure:
@KiwiFuzz2 gave us a deft smackdown of this argument above, but further fun can be found at the Jewish News Syndicate, which smacked down the origin of this meshuggah: a 2023
New York Times guest essay by transgender Reform rabbi Elliot Kukla. (
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Kukla opined that her eight-gender-identity invention had “mostly been obscured by the modern binary world until very recently" and "We are not a fad."
Orthodox Jews beg to differ. Well, not beg exactly. More like melt Kulka's septum ring with their fiery ripostes. Example:
Not only do the four refer to physical conditions, rather than genders as understood today, but it is “ridiculous that The New York Times wants to use the Talmud’s recognition of sexual deformities to push transgenderism when the Torah itself very clearly forbids cross-dressing and castration (what’s today euphemistically called ‘gender-affirming surgery’)."
Here is Elliot Kukla of
elliotkukla.com:
Elliot further disseminated her disputed insights into Jewish history by offering six 90-minute Zoom sessions to acquaint us with our transcestors, "TransTextual: Get to know the characters who lived beyond the gender binary in ancient Jewish holy texts." (
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We will learn about how Adam (the first human being) was an androgynos; how Abraham and Sarah (the first monotheists) were tumtums; how to have sex with an androgynos, the joys of drag, and more. No knowledge of Hebrew, religious background, or beliefs are required or expected to participate in this class.
Forensic blouse evidence indicates Kukla, originally from Toronto and Hawaii, began rabbicizing in California before realizing she was a big ol' manlyman.
Manifesting the Jewish Future, a strategic plan! I haven't been able to find a copy manifested online. But Elliot helped found
TransTorah.org, which is still online with a small collection of links and resources for translings, including a blessing for chest binding.
I guess blessings have to be short so there was no room for "holy hell this hurts after an hour and my great grandmother is beating me up the stairs."
Elliot says she lives "on unceded Ohlone Land (aka Oakland, California)" with partner, kid, queer chosen family, a Boston Terrier, a cat named Turkey, and over a hundred house plants. I guess the "chosen family" thing may be telling us her birth fam isn't too impressed with her scholarship.
"Before pursuing rabbinical studies, they were a freelance arts journalist in Toronto." Sounds pretty NEET to me, frens.
Anyway, that's none too Jazz. But as I am a gentile hyena, it makes me laugh.
