Our Jewish textual tradition has always had a place for those who do not fit neatly into binary boxes of sex and gender. From the creation of the first person in Genesis, we learn that humanity is created in God’s image, and that “male and female God created them.”

The ancient rabbis of the Talmudic and Midrashic eras understand this verse to mean a variety of images, including that God created one person with a male side and a female side, or that God created a golem that spanned the earth.

“My gender is golem,” a trans young person joked when we studied this text recently.

A joke, yes, and also an assertion that this young person has existed since the beginning of humanity.

The rabbis of the Talmud explore what it means for a person to be one of six sexes, four of them beyond the simplistic male and female. Both Rebekah and Joseph can be read as being gender non-conforming.

As a transgender rabbi, I know well the obligation to live out this Torah, the obligation to both honor the sacred texts that speak specifically about gender and to live into those texts that speak of compassion and community, which remind us that as Jews, we must act in such a way that honors our own history of oppression.

RABBI BECKY SILVERSTEIN, “Jews Must Support the Trans Community: Our Lives Depend on It,” Forward, October 23, 2018.