Lilith Magazine offers visitors to their website (www.lilith.org also seen on our links page) an archive of interesting, "landmark" articles. Two issues, one from 2002 and the other from 2007, deal with concerns of changing views on gender and sexuality within a Jewish context. Transgender Jews, gender ambiguity and many other topics are explored in this very interesting archive.
Read the articles here... http://www.lilith.org/pdfs/Lilith%20Trans%20Sp02.pdf
4 comments:
I'm really really really interested in contemporary conceptions of gender. I'm not sure if no-gender or multi-gender models would be considered a post-human theory or one of postmodernism. If anyone has any suggestions about where to look for gender theory I would love to hear them.
Of course, one of the interesting points of gender-differentiation comes when new definitions of gender encounter religious writings. Judaism, particularly in very Orthodox communities, adheres to engendered practices and rituals. Could a female-to-male transsexual be admitted to male-only areas? What side of the Western Wall would he be expected to pray on?
There are just so many instances that I think will be given rise to in the years to come with regard to gender and sexuality within Judaism (and other spiritual traditions).
Carly,
I just interviewed someone about Judiasm & gender for the film. His name is Ethan Blustein and he talked a lot about how Jewish mysticism has a lot of gender fluidity built into the conceptions of gender. Ethan quoted someone in Oakland, who I don't know, named Micah Bazant who apparently said "My gender is a Jewish gender" in some film and runs a Jewish/trans zine. I'm no expert on any of these intersections, but there's a start for googling some folks who are...
I'm more of an expert on contemporary gender/queer theory in general, outside of any religion or spirituality, and I think it is worth noting that many of these theorists are Jewish: Kate Bornstein, Judith Butler, Leslie Feinberg, Joan Nestle, Lawrence Schimel, Matt Bernstein Sycamore. However, I don't remember reading anything that actually discussed gender/queerness in relation to Judaism with the exception of the essay "I Can Love all the Faces of G-d," by Gilly Rosenthol in the book Blessed Bi Spirit (the book was also edited by a Jewish woman, but I don't remember her discussing Jewishness). It could be that I missed it or that I'm not reading the books that deal more specifically with religion, or maybe the folks who write more on religion are more in the gay/lesbian or feminist camps and less in the gender/queer theorist camp. I don't know.
I realize you were asking specifically about gender theory in general and also gender & Judaism but the authors I listed above are probably the ones I would send you to anyway...
Thanks for the sources. I will definitely be looking in to them.
hey friends - this is the above-mentioned Micah Bazant from Oakland. The film was "Young Jewish and Left". You might also be interested in the newish website launched by a collective of trans jewish folks: http://www.transtorah.org. good luck with yr learning!- Micah
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