A History of Jewish Sexuality and Gender Non-Conformity
An illustration from 'TimTum: A Trans Jew Zine.' In the modern day, religion is seen as incompatible with queerness. Because traditional biblical and Talmudic readings have historically enforced conservative ideals on religious communities, we see religion as anti-Queer. In reality, whilst much biblical interpretation is anti-Queer, the original scripture is either ignorant or inclusive of gender non-conforming identities. Today I'd like to talk about the diversity in gender identity that we see in the Talmud - the primary source for Jewish law, tradition, philosophy, ethics, and history. The Talmud defines six genders, six! That means that when the Babylonian Talmud was written, in the year 500sih - Jewish authorities thought that the populations of non-binary genders were significant and diverse enough to fall into four non-binary categories. The six genders defined in the Babylonian Talmud are as follows: - Zachar (זָכָר) - AMAB, living as male; - Nekevah (נְקֵב...