(כז)וַיִּבְרָ֨א אֱלֹהִ֤ים ׀ אֶת־הָֽאָדָם֙ בְּצַלְמ֔וֹ בְּצֶ֥לֶם אֱלֹהִ֖ים בָּרָ֣א אֹת֑וֹ זָכָ֥ר וּנְקֵבָ֖ה בָּרָ֥א אֹתָֽם
(27) And God created the human in His image, in the image of God He created it; male and female He created them.
(ב) אנדרוגינוס יש בו דרכים שוה לאנשים ויש בו דרכים שוה לנשים ויש בו דרכים שוה לאנשים ולנשים ויש בו שאינו שוה לא לאנשים ולא לנשים.
[As far as the] androginos [is concerned]:
there are with regard to him ways in which he is similar to men, and there are ways with regard to him in which he is similar to women, and there are ways with regard to him in which he similar to both men and women, and there are ways in which he is dissimilar from both men and women.
Androgynos: A person with (some or all) "male" and "female" genital characteristics
Tumtum: A person whose genital characteristics are indeterminate or obscured
Ailonit: A person born with a vulva but who never develops secondary sexual characteristics associated with women; is infertile.
The usual Starbucks where I change for work – the one with two bathrooms – is under renovation, so I head across Union Square to its cozier northwestern counterpart. The line there is ten deep, and it’s already mid-morning. I’m in a hurry. Emails from undergraduate women anxious to know what I think of their latest poetry revisions are piling up in my inbox, so I decide, for the first time, to change in the street. I’ve gone the other way before, unzipping my androgynous coat to reveal a blouse, putting on earrings and makeup while I walked, but that was in the semi-darkness of the New York evening. I’ve never gone from female to male on the street in broad daylight.
No woman will be surprised to hear that it’s easier to become male than to become female. I was already wearing pants and shoes which, though sold in the women’s sections, are completely androgynous, at least to casual inspection. In approximately 90 seconds, I’ve taken off my jewelry, wiped off my lipstick, and pulled a baggy black top over my white shell.
No one gives me a second glance. After all, this is New York, and Union Square has seen stranger transformations than mine. The same cannot be said for my workplace, however. Modern though my Orthodox Jewish college may be, I have no doubt that its modernity does not extend to acceptance of transsexual faculty members. When my more pious students and colleagues find out what I am… when, after three years of “knowing” me, they finally realize who I am… they will consider me – well, the term “abomination” is a bit archaic, but then so is the response I expect. I gaze at the students I adore teaching and know that the only reason they are gazing back is because they cannot see what’s behind the male image I have created. When they can, I fear, they will avert their eyes in disgust…
According to Genesis, the human gender binary reflects the image of God. By this standard, New York City is a theophanic paradise. Gender is everywhere I look, smeared across every face, wrapped like a flag around every body. Gender shouts at me from the shop windows that line the avenue, it shrieks from racks of magazines, it holds hands shyly in doorways.Every gesture, every tone of voice, every one of the hundreds of bodies in my vicinity are biologically, culturally and personally marked as male or female. I am the only creature in the crowd that isn’t one or the other, that is both and neither. The power to shift from one side of the gender binary to the other should make me feel special, like a comic-book superhero, albeit one with a peculiarly useless power. Instead, I feel isolated, subhuman, unable to embody any image or identity…
I wish I could … tell my students the truth – not just the truth about me, but what that truth has taught me about the image of God. I want to tell them how hard it can be and how necessary it is to embody that image, to find it in oneself and find the self that can make it visible in the world. When you look in the mirror, I would say, you see your own faces; when I look in the mirror, I see the incomprehensible mystery of God’s creation. Look at what makes me so hard to look at. If you can find the image of God in me, you’ll find God everywhere.
(ח) מַה בֵּין אִישׁ לְאִשָּׁה. הָאִישׁ פּוֹרֵעַ וּפוֹרֵם, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה פוֹרַעַת וּפוֹרֶמֶת. הָאִישׁ מַדִּיר אֶת בְּנוֹ בְּנָזִיר, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה מַדֶּרֶת אֶת בְּנָהּ בְּנָזִיר. הָאִישׁ מְגַלֵּחַ עַל נְזִירוּת אָבִיו, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה מְגַלַּחַת עַל נְזִירוּת אָבִיהָ. הָאִישׁ מוֹכֵר אֶת בִּתּוֹ, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה מוֹכֶרֶת אֶת בִּתָּהּ. הָאִישׁ מְקַדֵּשׁ אֶת בִּתּוֹ, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה מְקַדֶּשֶׁת אֶת בִּתָּהּ. הָאִישׁ נִסְקָל עָרֹם, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה נִסְקֶלֶת עֲרֻמָּה. הָאִישׁ נִתְלֶה, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה נִתְלֵית. הָאִישׁ נִמְכָּר בִּגְנֵבָתוֹ, וְאֵין הָאִשָּׁה נִמְכֶּרֶת בִּגְנֵבָתָהּ:
(8) What distinguishes a man from a woman? A man lets loose his hair and rips his clothes [as a metzora], and a woman does not let loose her hair or rip her clothes. A man makes a vow rendering his son a Nazirite, and a woman cannot make a vow rendering her son a Nazirite. A man shaves concerning the Nazirite status of his father [if his father dies], and a woman does not shave concerning the Nazirite status of her father. A man sells his daughter, and a woman cannot sell her daughter. A man betroths his daughter, and a woman cannot betroth her daughter. A man is stoned naked, and a woman is not stoned naked. A man is hanged [after execution], and a woman is not hanged. A man is sold for his theft [i.e., to repay it], a woman is not sold for her theft.