In July 2020, I became the second transgender Editor-in-Chief of New Voices magazine. While we live in a culture which fixates on firsts, I am beyond grateful for precedent: My predecessor, Daniel Holtzman (They/Them), who steered the magazine for the past two years, transitioned on the job throughout my fellowship year in 2019. Though I had been out for four years already at the time, Daniel and I both began new chapters of our transitions around the same moment.
Like many of my transgender peers, I have had to be the first — I was the first out, transgender counselor at my Jewish summer camp, the first student using they/them pronouns my teachers or rabbis had met. There is an honor in this, but also a great deal of stress and pressure. I have often willingly become the first so that it would be easier for there to be a second. This is an act of devotion we often make as Jews for the sake of continuity, to preserve and transmit love from generation to generation. But here, I am the beneficiary of that act. I relish this sweet sense of lineage at New Voices.
Now with the High Holidays fast approaching, as I inherit the Editor’s seat from Daniel, I’ve felt both grateful to receive this “intergenerational” blessing and an obligation to pay it forward. With that spirit, during Daniel’s exit interview we decided to leave some space to have a conversation about our shared Torah of gender and transition. It is a simcha, a pleasure, to publish our reflections here together.
Rena Yehuda: Let’s talk about Gender and Transitioning on the job. For the record, Daniel and I are both non-binary transgender and there’s certainly a dor l’dor, generation to generation, aspect for me as a young trans person to inherit this position from another trans person, especially a mentor. We started HRT around the same time during my fellowship year. It was a cool experience to feel like I was going through it in parallel with you. I’m curious about what it was like for you to transition in the Editor role. How did that change things in terms of your relationships, through New Voices, or the way that you were relating to the work?
Daniel: There are a lot of parts about transitioning on the job that were funny or awkward, like having voice breaks on conference calls or trying to find men’s dress shoes in my size. But there’s also something very profound about the inner work that I had to do to come out as someone who is different than I was expected to be by my family, by my community, and the world. It was really hard. It took me so many years to be able to even imagine to myself, to know I was trans. Then to be able to be open and proud about my transition; I didn’t come out to you and the other fellows until I had been on testosterone for a while. I was even trying to disguise the way that my voice was changing. “Oh, I have cold.” I was really trying to have it both ways, as though I could say, “Alright, I’m trans, but I’m not gonna talk about it.” I was really struggling so much with the idea that I had to justify my existence to this inner voice in my head that was so loud.
You know, I feel like so much of me coming out has just been unlearning. Realizing how much shame that I had ingested from such a young age. But as you know, transitioning as a second puberty is another kind of growing up. It felt perfect to be working for a publication for young people who are in their own journeys of speaking back to the people and institutions who were supposed to raise us.
I think trans people have a holy responsibility to mirror each other and to love each other. During the first few months that I was giving myself my shot of Testosterone, I would have a different friend sitting next to me every time. Sometimes people would sing to me, in Hebrew or English, sometimes someone would play guitar, or just be there and watch me or hold my band-aid or whatever it was. And that has been, I think, the most profound part of coming out. Doing this in community means realizing that we really need each other to be each other’s mirrors. Art and writing are some of the ways in which we can do that.
Rena Yehuda: I really agree about the role of art and writing. It’s a way for us to show love and care for each other through vulnerability, through being honest about our experiences. I hear you as you’re talking about trying to cover up your transition; there’s this constant need to be justified in our existence to the outside. That becomes even more salient with non-binary folks because the end goal is not to be legible by a previously existing standard. So, it feels especially important to produce art and writing that describes the honesty of that experience rather than merely justifying it. Instead of trying to build media just to stave off all of the scrutiny and barrage of questions, we’re trying to create things that authentically reveal where it comes from in our neshamas, in our souls. I want to bring this content into being because I know that there are other people who need to see it.
What drives me to put my art into the world is a sense of avodah, a sense of holy work and obligation. We need to demonstrate that we care for each other. Publishing the very personal is an expression of the obligation to, in your words, be a mirror for other trans people. I’ve received that blessing from other people’s writing and I want to pay it forward. I think about Lou Sullivan’s diaries, “We Both Laughed in Pleasure”. Lou was one of the first out, gay transgender male activists. His book feels like a key; it’s so personal, so funny, so horny and honest. Being trans too often means that, in our desire to be presentable and legible, there are things that we’re not allowed to talk about. We have to self-censor because if our writing is seen as unacceptable, then by extension everything about is unacceptable or lascivious or perverted, G-d forbid. But Lou Sullivan refuses to do that.
It’s moving to see somebody who’s queer and trans bluntly talking about their sexuality in a way that’s self-loving, even if it’s difficult. Lou has all these really terrible experiences with people, but amazingly, it never turns into self-loathing. That’s powerful to read.
Daniel: Yeah, I loved reading about his desires – desire to become himself, desire to have sex with men, and desire to create work that’s enduring. He does have all sorts of insecurities and neuroticism; I loved his vulnerability and admired both the way that he loved himself and the ways he dealt with not being loved back.
Rena Yehuda: I really see a theological, experiential paradigm of desire through being both a Jew and being trans. Both of these identities contain such an intrinsic, baked-in sense of yearning. There’s this desire for closeness. There’s a desire to be part of something. There’s a desire to run towards the self. There’s a deep understanding that this is an important part of who I am and I want to dig towards it and discover it wholly. To bring it full circle; inheriting this position as Editor, it feels big to curate a platform for young Jews to speak their minds. In my time as Editor, I hope to give a stage for people who are doing that work of running towards the self — and by running towards the self, running towards the community and running towards G-d.
For me, all of this is imbued with a sense of the Divine. In the framing of Dr. Joy Ladin, our identities are not only constructed on our own. While of course we have self-determination and self-definition and agency, we’re also never doing it in a vacuum. We’re never doing it alone. Creation of gender or creation of Jewishness are things that we get to do with other people. We are co-creating. The spark in that, the part of it that’s inexplicable and goes beyond the rational, the “Why I’m doing this”? That’s where G-d is. That’s that divine spark.
Have you ever been asked the ridiculous question, “Why are you trans”?
Daniel: All the time.
Rena Yehuda: These days when people ask me that question, I just reply back, “Do you believe in G-d?”
I think it’s a concise answer for two reasons. First, if there is a reason why I’m trans, it’s because of something so far beyond and outside of me to the point it is inexplicable, divine and infinite. Second, as a Jew, the English sentence “Do you believe in G-d” doesn’t make any sense to me. It’s just as absurd of a question as “Why are you trans?” and here’s why:
For Jews, belief in G-d is actually irrelevant. Jews don’t believe in G-d. Jews have relationships to G-d. Sometimes that relationship to G-d is being an atheist — which is a very legitimate way of being a Jew. The question of “Do you believe in G-d” as a binaristic “yes or no” also seems like a very non-Jewish theology. That English sentence, “Do you believe in G-d”, constructed of English words that Jews were not a part of constructing — I look at that and I say, that’s an absurd question. So, somebody asking me, “Why are you trans?” is just as ridiculous.
Daniel: I probably have quoted this to you before, but one of the books that was really instrumental in the beginning of my transition was Thomas Page McBee’s first memoir, “Man Alive”. He has a line where he talks about the inexplicable force that drove him to understand himself and to start transitioning. He could not explain it or prove it to anyone, but he said, “Some call it faith, I do.” The ability to just listen to the still small voice is really wild.
I also wanted to say, speaking of Joy Ladin, in her book about trans readings of Torah, she has a really great chapter about the moment that Sarah gives birth at such an old age — which is not supposed to happen, not what bodies are supposed to do, not something that she was ever expecting. And like Lou Sullivan, she laughs in pleasure. She and Abraham have this crazy, extended laugh when they learn from G-d that she’s going to become pregnant. The idea of pleasure and joy as part of this closeness, part of our bodies doing things that they never were supposed to do — I think there’s something about the absurdity where we cannot explain this, we’re not going to try to explain this. We are just going to laugh.
Rena Yehuda: You’re sparking some thoughts for me about gender, embodiment, and being a writer. Writing can be a very disembodied act. I think there are a lot of writers that struggle with embodiment — writing becomes a solace because one can be present without attending to the physicality of our bodies. But there’s such wonder and pleasure in being embodied.
As a Jewish writer, I think about the Jewish people’s history with embodiment. There’s a pre-Zionist notion that Jews don’t have a homeland, rather the Torah is the Jewish homeland. The only “land”, the only physical thing that we actually have is our text. As an exilic people, we have only our words to live on. The Temple was the only place that G-d could be physically with us — so its destruction marks the beginning of am yisrael’s collective, two thousand year dysphoria: we are a people who never fit, who are too ancient for the modern world. We’re older than the concept of the nation state or democracy or socialism or capitalism or communism. We are not a race or ethnicity or religion because we’re older than all these English words. Living as a landless minority, it hasn’t been safe to be in our bodies. Yet, we’ve somehow survived as an incredibly resilient people, wanting to keep revealing who we are.
Daniel: Some could call it yearning, or some could say it’s just us learning how to be in place. I think those are two different responses to diaspora.
Rena Yehuda: Right. Within that context of diasporic yearning and desire, we also have the Jewish idea of geulah, the concept of redemption and moshiach, the messianic age. If we’re talking about the experience of exile as being one of dysphoria, then the experience of geulah is one of euphoria. The thing that we work and pray for is a desire to be embodied once more. To move beyond the notion that we only have to exist in the heady and disembodied state of language. To be able to, in a fulfilled and physical sense, better understand all of the beautiful parts of this world that G-d gave us.
Daniel: I think a lot of transitions are a process of making profound choices. I had a name change ceremony at my synagogue that was really beautiful and I chose a Hebrew name, “Daniel Chanan”. Chanan means gentleness, chosen to balance out the militaristic story of Daniel.
I think almost all the time I’d rather not be seen, if that makes sense. To go up in front of my whole congregation — I was both really drawn to make that ceremony happen, like something was pushing me to be seen and celebrated. And a part of me was also totally overwhelmed and wanted to hide under a chair the whole time. So I think that’s also like the duality of the G-d in us.
Rena Yehuda: There’s something really moving to me about the notion that G-d doesn’t want to be seen. In a world in which the messiah has not come, and we do not walk down the streets of Jerusalem and feel G-d, we live in a world where Hashem conceals Hashem’s self. A lot of the time G-d doesn’t want to be seen. And there’s that part of us when we don’t want to be seen. It feels both obvious and revelatory; when we feel like we don’t want to be seen, maybe that’s G-d too.
Though a writer may be unseen, their writing makes the writer known, knowable. That’s why we have Torah. That’s why, I hope, we have New Voices — so that young Jewish writers and artists can express their ideas and discoveries and revelations to the world, becoming known in a way that is both significant and secure. It’s such a blessing to inherit New Voices from another trans editor who knows this process by heart. It’s my hope that this magazine can be a platform for young Jews to run towards themselves and our people, revealing their own Torah along the way. ⋄
