(From Marilyn)
I am very saddened and disturbed to hear the news about this email message. I would like your permission to share this information with Rabbi Jamie. It’s not who we are or what we stand for.
I truly understand if you can’t serve on the Board right now, but I want you to feel welcome and loved at CBE.
(From Anshel)
Marilyn:
Thank you for your kind words. I was Torah-thumped about my overall appearance and how my tattoos and my upcoming surgeries go against the Torah and that I am not worthy of being respected. When I read the words, “When I look at you I feel queasy,” that just hit me so deep. They might as well have said I make them puke, vomit, or upchuck. It was the same meaning. I have never had anyone tell me that before. I am certain no one wants to hear those words. I am going through some major changes in my life and I realize that what I am about to encounter tweaks with some people. My first response was that I wanted to scream back to them “I am not an animal,” just like the Elephant man, in the book and movie title. I suppose it goes back to someone’s Orthodox and Conservative Judaism teachings while looking at me. I violate so much for them. In their eyes I am not following the Torah at all. I know that. That is why I sought out a Reconstructionist synagogue, because my Secular-Humanistic-Reconstructionist Jewish views are what I really believe. CBE was supposed to feel safe for all people, including me. Mussar class is the only place I feel safe now. I do not want, nor do I deserve to be attacked in an email. I can only imagine if one person is thinking this and telling it to me, others may also be thinking it too. I realize not all CBE members see me in this sort of manner, but if only one does, then it is not a safe place for me on an emotional level. How can I walk into the synagogue and know that the person that said these things is also welcome there and I may have to pass them? I know I will be thinking, “Gee, do they still see my flesh and person as someone that makes them sick, just because my transgressions are different than theirs?” You see, my transgressions that violate the Torah are visible. If they violate the Torah in another manner, that is between them and G-d. My transgressions are a visible reminder to them that I have permanent reminders to them that I transgressed against the Torah and I still carry those transgressions around with me, and will continue to transgress when I have my breasts cut off, my vagina removed, and a phalloplasty surgically attached. That all violates the Torah. Forget about people that have had plastic surgery, botox, smoked cigarettes, or don’t eat kosher. Those are private and invisible transgressions. Mine are not hidden, so in their eyes I make them sick. I get all of that. I just don’t feel comfortable being Torah-thumped and disrespected when I have done nothing to anyone else. What I have done to my body and will be doing to my body is a form of saving my life. My tattoos were a form of cutting and a way to masculinize my body. My transition to a man, both chemically through hormones and through upcoming surgeries are also a way to save my life. I guess that trumps the Torah in places where it says I shouldn’t being doing things to my body. However, those people that judge me don’t understand the turmoil I have suffered with all of my life. It is not as if I woke up one day and decided this. I went through fifteen years of therapy (cutting on myself in the form of tattoos was a part of the process I had to begin to understand), I waited until my son was grown and on his own, and also figured out my identical twin sister wasn’t coming around after eight years of her not talking to me; that it is time to do this for me. I simply couldn’t reach my fiftieth birthday and not ease some of my discomfort with having a brain wired male and body that is female. I only ask others to treat me as a blind person would treat me and see only my neshama, not my flesh and body as a reminder to them that I have sinned. Other people are sinners too. Again, mine are all too visible. I do not have a problem with you showing this to the Rabbi or anyone else for that matter. I don’t know how this will be made “right” for me to feel safe and secure again while in this other person’s presence. This is how this affected me, for the first time in my life, I was speechless. I didn’t know how to respond. I was saddened, hurt, and angry all at the same time. I was not being seen for my goodness that I try so hard to work on each day. I will be back for Mussar, but not for services. At least until I feel comfortable enough to risk being judged again. Mussar feels safe. The person that Torah-thumped me isn’t at Mussar, she works, so I know she won’t be there. Please put yourself in my shoes and understand how this would make you or anyone else feel. No one wants to hear anything about them that is negative, especially in our society that stresses appearances above all else. Maybe a Secular-Humanistic Judaism setting is better fitted for someone that looks like me, but then again, I just might trigger someone else’s Orthodox or Conservative views. Who knows, all I know is, today, right now, I do not feel openly welcome.
Anshel
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