INDEX
Note: page numbers followed by n refer to notes, with note number.
Abba, Rabbi, 59
Abraham: abandonment of father, 42â43, 43â44; authorâs recognition of own experience in, 43â44, 72â73, 80â81, 107; banishment of Hagar and Ishmael, 52; child with maid Hagar, 46â47, 52; and circumcision as manhood-altering, 44â45, 51â52, 153â54n12; God as source of trans experience of, 42, 43, 46, 58; Godâs appearance to, as traveler, 74â75, 161n12; Godâs promise of offspring to, 76; rabbinic tales about, 161n11; relationship with Godâs formless and human forms, 73, 74â75, 76â77, 161â62n14; and Sarahâs miraculous conception, 47, 48, 49â51; silence about God, 161n11; Torahâs silence on feelings of, 45â46; trans experiences of, 42â45, 107; unquestioning obedience to God, 73. See also Akedah; Sodom and Gomorrah, destruction of
acceptance of transgender persons: acceptance of gender-vs.-sex distinction and, 20; vs. intersex persons, 20; by religious institutions, increase in, 31â32; scriptural models for, 121, 136
acceptance of oneâs identity, Book of Jonah as story about, 4â7
Adam and Eve: eating of Forbidden Fruit, 68â70, 71. See also Genesis creation story
adolescence, brief trans experiences in, 35â36
Akedah (Godâs command to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac), 53â56; alternative readings of, 59; authorâs identification with, 55â56; as entry into moral wilderness, 58; and Godâs identity as unknowable, 82; and incomprehensibility of God, 63; Isaacâs experience of, 58â59, 157n29; and Isaacâs relationship with Abraham, 56; and Isaacâs relationship with God, 56â57, 157n30; and moral wilderness, maintaining human values in, 60; parallels to family sacrifice of LGBTQ persons, 55â56; as trans experience for Abraham, 53â54, 55, 157n27; as trans experience for Isaac, 55â57
Allen, Woody, 17â18
Ammi, Rabbi, 154â55n18
Annie Hall (film), 17â18
Ashkenazic rabbis, and kitniyot rules, 118
Auden, W. H., 93
Back to the Sources (Holtz), 10
Bettcher, Talia, 153n6
binaries: as convenient generalizations, 22â23; tendency to accumulate symbolic meanings, 22; use in Genesis creation story, 21â23, 27â28. See also gender identities, binary; Passover, binary distinctions asserted in
Bornstein, Kate, 31, 157n28
Butler, Judith, 150n2
census, US, invisibility of transgender persons in, 99â100
circumcision: of Abraham, as manhood-altering, 44â45, 51â52, 153â54n12; and Jewish identity, 167â68n22; as sign of Abrahamâs manhood-altering covenant with God, 45
clergy, openly-transgender, 31â32
cross-dressing, Biblical prohibition on, 94â95, 97, 102, 105, 165n3, 165n8
Du Bois, W. E. B.: as activist, 171n8; experience as hyper-minority, 131â32, 134, 170n5, 171n6
Dzmura, Noach, 150n4
Elijah, Godâs appearance to, 84
estrangement from community (hitgayer): adoption of ger (stranger) ident...