The Rabbinic Sage Ben Bag-Bag wrote, “Turn it and turn it, for  everything is in it” (Pirkei Avot 5:22). I hold this text as one of my  favorites. There is such immense power in reflection, in looking  at something seen hundreds of times and finding something new.  The text has not changed; we have. 

What does it mean to turn and turn? In our current world,  LGBTQIA+ people and Jewish people are simultaneously hunted,  defiled, and made to be wicked villains. Homophobia, transphobia, and antisemitism run rampant. Wide sweeping generalizations of identity labels create discourse, pain, barriers of entry to  conversations and spaces that were one considered sacred. I am  deeply proud to be trans and to be a Jew. I am also deeply fearful  to be trans and to be a Jew. But why? 

Because I am made to feel fear. 

*** 

I am two years old, sitting in my synagogue preschool class in a  Cinderella gown (my favorite Disney princess besides Ariel). I see  Mama! She’s taking me home. I hope I can have a snack. I get out  of the dress and we leave. 

*** 

I am five years old. I am in my mom’s bathroom putting on her lip stick. My tiny hands are messy in red. My mom giggles, our curls  bouncing in symmetrical laughter. Something clicks but I don’t  know what. We take it off when we hear my dad coming through the back door. I don’t know why I can’t show him.

*** 

I am eight years old. I wanna be a girl for Halloween! Dad says I  can’t but doesn’t say why. 

*** 

I am ten years old. I am in the local mall with my dad. I want to  buy pink erasers. He gets onto his knees to meet me at eye level. I  feel like I’ve done something wrong. He says, “I will get these for  you, but these are toys for girls.” I think he says this to make me  not want it. It only makes me want it more. 

*** 

I am twelve years old, driving in the car with my mom. We’re at  a red light and see a trans woman crossing the street. My mom  makes a comment about how pitiful her wig looks. I feel weird but  I don’t know why. I don’t say anything because Mom didn’t ask. 

*** 

I am fourteen years old. I have just come out as gay. I am met with  responses of: 

“Well, duh!” 

“Ohmygod, can we go to the mall? I’ve always wanted a gay  best friend!” 

“I’ve always known.” 

“Are you sure? Are you sure?” 

No one thanks me for telling them. 

*** 

I am seventeen years old, standing in a Goodwill dressing room.  I am finding an outfit for my first time going to The Rocky Horror  Picture Show with some girlfriends. I am trying on a dress. It sits in  all the wrong places and is not my color and should probably be  washed before I put it on my body. 

I fall in love with it—no, not the dress. I fall in love with the feeling of wearing the dress. I feel like I’m doing something wrong, like  I am breaking a law by wearing this dress. For some reason, that  aspect of going against the grain makes me want to wear it all the  more. 

*** 

I am seventeen years old. I am thrift shopping for more Rocky Horror outfits with my mom. I ask my mom if my “cousin” would like  this top or that skirt. My mom immediately plays along.

*** 

I am nineteen years old, in New York City for my freshman year of  college, standing in a Forever 21 dressing room. I am trying on a  crop top. I feel both ashamed and electrified. I buy it. I don’t wear  it outside of my bedroom for six months.

The first time I do wear it outside is after a photoshoot that occurs  one half block away from my dorm. The photoshoot focuses on  people breaking gender stereotypes—my outfit is the crop top and  high waisted shorts. I wear a different set of clothing (a sweater  and jeans) to the shoot so I won’t be seen publicly in the crop top  and shorts. 

After the photoshoot, I go to change back into my other clothes  when I pause—and I make the decision to face my fears and travel  the long half-block journey home in the crop top and high waisted  shorts. 

When I feel the cold autumn air hit my bare belly, I run. I run  across the street, down the block, into my dorm building, and into  the elevator. I ride up twenty-two floors by myself. I feel a sense of  courage I have never felt before. 

I wear the crop top all the time. I buy more. I get compliments  on it. I feel powerful. 

*** 

I am nineteen years old, home for winter vacation. I wear the crop  top in front of my family. My mom and sister make comments  about how it’s a shirt meant for girls. I change. 

*** 

I am twenty years old. I am back at school. The students who have  transferred in from other programs are introduced into ours—their  pathway is called the “transfer track.” We cheer for them. Chants  of “Tranny! Tranny!” roar all around me, an initiation of sorts that  is meant to be innocuous but holds insidious biases within. I feel  weird and I don’t know why. 

*** 

I am twenty-three years old, working at The URJ’s 6 Points Creative Arts Academy (CAA) in its inaugural summer. During staff  week, we receive a training session from Keshet, an organization  that promotes LGBTQIA+ belonging in Jewish life. I digest the  terms “nonbinary” and “pronouns” for the first time. The following day, during a separate staff training, we are asked to write  down our names and pronouns onto name tags. I write down my birth name and “he/him” onto it. I stick it onto my chest. Something changes within me. 

I take off the nametag. Underneath “he/him” in smaller letters,  I write, “they/them.” 

***

A few days later, I FaceTime my parents and tell them about my  new discovery. Given the affirming responses I received when I  came out as gay, I expect to be met with tepid acceptance that will  blossom into full blown celebration. 

I am met with questions, hesitation, fear. I feel like I have done  something wrong, like I have disappointed them, like I have broken some unspoken rule that “boys should be boys”.

*** 

A few weeks later, I stand in my bedroom. I am standing in a beautiful floral dress purchased for Shabbat. It is the first dress I have  purchased besides the one from the Goodwill. I feel beautiful in it.  I am terrified to leave my room—I’m living on the boys’ floor, and  boys don’t wear dresses. Right? 

I leave my room. 

I am immediately complimented by the boys who surround  me. I make my way down to Shabbat dinner. People hug me.  A young camper comes up to me and asks why I’m wearing a  dress if I’m a boy. I say: I am not a boy. She rolls her eyes and  walks away. I smile. She will learn. We all will learn. We all are  learning. 

*** 

I am twenty-four years old. I have been publicly out as nonbinary  for a few months. I walk down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan when  my brain goes, “she/her.” 

I stop in my tracks for a split second. I break out into a smile and  keep walking. 

*** 

I am twenty-four years old. I am using “she/they” pronouns. It is  right after CAA’s 2019 summer. I meet up with a friend in Brooklyn for dinner. I wear makeup in public in New York City for the  first time. I am terrified. I can never go back. 

*** 

I am twenty-five years old. I sit in my therapist’s office. I say, in the  smallest of voices, 

I’m a trans woman. 

I break into sobs. 

*** 

I am twenty-five years old, and I have decided to change my name.  I am sitting in my classroom at a synagogue in Manhattan. I am  searching the internet for Jewish female names that start with E, to have some semblance of the name given to me at my birth. I  stumble upon “Eliana,” which translates to And God answered. I smile. 

*** 

I am twenty-five years old. I go to Planned Parenthood for my consultation to begin hormone replacement therapy (HRT). I am told I  can start that day. I freak out, and take the pill anyway.

*** 

I am twenty-five years old. My mom cries while she tells me she is  mourning the loss of her son. I don’t know how to respond.

*** 

I am twenty-six years old. I have just received facial feminization  surgery and am in the recovery process. I look in the mirror and  feel I have made a terrible mistake. What if I never see myself again?

*** 

It is two weeks later. I look in the mirror and I see myself. I see her. 

*** 

I am twenty-six years old. I am attending Hebrew Union College Jewish Institute of Religion (HUC-JIR) to pursue my Masters of  Educational Leadership. One of my courses involves creating a  theoretical action plan to support LGBTQIA+ identities within our  residencies, or our student placements at various Jewish educational institutions. I bring my action plan to my supervisor, who  brings it to their supervisor, the senior rabbi, who schedules a  meeting for the three of us to talk through it. 

We have our meeting on Zoom. I am halfway through my first  point when the rabbi interrupts me and asks: 

“Is this really necessary?” 

I think of my rationale: “If we build it, they will come.” I pause, a microsecond of a pause, but it’s all the rabbi needs to  continue speaking. 

My action plan does not go forward in any capacity.

*** 

I am twenty-six years old. I have been granted the opportunity to  switch my residency, something that was not intended to be done  within the structure of the program. I take the opportunity. 

In my last two weeks at my first residency, a new sixth grade  teacher is hired. They are nonbinary and I immediately click with  them. We become the only two trans people on staff.

The night before my final workday, this teacher and I get dinner.  They let me know they received a phone call from our supervisor  a few days prior. During this call, the supervisor wanted to ensure  that this teacher knew they were hired as “The sixth grade Judaica  teacher, not the sixth grade queer Judaica teacher.” 

We both decide to not rustle any feathers, as we don’t believe  any change will come from it. 

This is the constant thought process for many queer and trans  people in Jewish education. 

*** 

I am twenty-seven years old. I have switched residencies and now  work at two different Jewish institutions. One of them is a small  religious school. I have been hired to oversee the program. We  have four teachers on staff, and more of us are queer and trans  than straight and cisgender. 

I am amazed at how normal this is for this community.

*** 

I am twenty-seven years old. I have finished the first draft of my  thesis, a curriculum guide that teaches LGBTQIA+ education to  middle and high schoolers in Jewish spaces through an original  modality I created at CAA called “Jewsicals,” or Jewish musicals,  short musical numbers and poems based around our sacred texts. 

I am amazed that, the more I turn and turn these texts, the more  queer and trans they can become. 

*** 

I am twenty-seven years old. I am going through boxes in my parent’s garage when I stumble upon two separate files written by  psychologists I saw between the ages of eight and ten. In both, it is  recorded that I had asked if “a boy could be a girl.” I feel immediately vilified. I feel anger. I knew. I KNEW!!! I close my eyes…breathe…thank Gd…and I throw out the files.

*** 

I am now thirty years old. I have received two rounds of facial  feminization surgery, a tracheal shave, and a breast augmentation.  I have been on HRT for four years and eleven months. I am receiving bottom surgery in January 2025. 

*** 

I am 30 years old. I am more sure of my identities than I ever have  been. This sense of self-assurance comes, in part, from my comfort  to examine my identities, to make sure that they are still relevant to who I am as a person. If I find I have outgrown my shell, I allow  myself to evolve. 

*** 

Genesis 1:27 can be translated as, “male and female Gd created  them.” Two interpretations cross my mind: 

1.  God created male and female, man and woman, Adam and  Eve. This interpretation has been used time and time again  to invalidate trans identities and to say that these identities  go against what Gd designed. This design of there only being  two genders is archaic, stagnant, historically binding. This is  not to say that people cannot be male or female! The issues  arise with this interpretation deciding the validity of folks’  identities that do not align with it. 
2.  A male and female Gd, or a multi-gendered Gd, created them,  gender-expansive people. When I think about each person  made b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of Gd, I think about how  each person decides to express themselves externally, or with  their gender expression. 

I view so much of my lived experience through the lens of gender.  How do I walk? How do I speak? Does this shirt make my shoulders look big? Do these words make me come off as more masculine or feminine? Occasionally, I pause and consider: Why does this  matter? The answer I come to time and time again: It doesn’t, not  really. We all should get to decide how we express ourselves. We are all expansive, whether through gender or other identities. I am made in the image of Gd. You are made in the image of Gd.  But we do not look alike. 

Is one of us more Gd than the other? Who decides? Do you feel  fear? What lies within the fear? 

Turn it and turn it. 

*** 

I am thirty years old. On the day of completing the first draft  of this article, I have just come home from leading a training on  LGBTQIA+ education to early childhood educators at a Westchester synagogue through my job at Keshet. 

Funny how life works out that way. 

After the training, an educator approaches me and asks me how  I move through the world when the world wants to hurt me. I pause. Consider her question. And I respond: “It’s hard. It’s  hard to get up each day knowing that people want to hurt me. But  I won’t let them. I can’t. I can’t let every single person who uses  their Gd or their politics as a thinly veiled attack of transphobia.  Remember at the start of our training when we talked about having fun? About how joy can be an antidote to fear? To be joyous is  to resist, to be resilient. It’s hard! But it’s worth it. If not for me, I do  this work so that I can help others better understand themselves,  each other, and the world around them. That’s why I’m here with  you, too.” 

She nods, thanks me, walks away. I wonder if she is turning and  turning. 

*** 

This is, to me, the core of my work, and where my gender and sexuality journeys have led me. We must continue to turn our ideas,  and turn them again. If we do not, they risk becoming sedentary,  with new thoughts forming over them like layers of rock. They  can still shift and change, but it takes more and more effort, and in  our current world, effort can be hard to come by. We must listen  to those we agree with, and to those we do not (as long as those  voices are respectful, equitable, and compassionate). 

I listen to the voice of two-year-old me, of four-year-old me, of  thirteen-, nineteen-, twenty-six-year-old me’s. My inner children  have so much to say. I owe it to them to listen. 

I am afraid to listen, sometimes. I am afraid to learn new information about myself, to realize I have…not been wrong, but have  not considered all of my options. 

There is power in knowledge. There is fear in being wrong. And  yet… 

To admit that we have more to learn is one of the most powerful  actions we can take. 

I will conclude this essay with a thought exercise. It is simple, yet  vulnerable. I do not hold expectations for what you find or do not  find—that is for you and you alone. When you are ready: Close your eyes. 

Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth. Ask yourself: 

Have I ever truly considered my gender? (There is no wrong  answer.)

What makes me a woman? nonbinary? a man? cisgender?  transgender? 

Turn those thoughts…and turn them again…and again…and  again…and again…

—

This piece was originally published in the CCAR Journal from Winter 2025.