what a weekend!

i was in philly this weekend at the philly trans health conference. i met so many tans jews and some even one who is a profess at yeshiva university. this weekend i realized how much i love jewish texts one being the talmud and how thankful i am for the opportunity to begin to start the journey to be apart of such an amazing people!

That's great! Do you live near Philadelphia or were you just visiting?

Hey, mrenziboi!

I'm so glad that you've found the way to connect a rich heritage of Jewish texts and knowledge with the trans issues. As you've already learned, you are not alone - there are many trans Jewish people and trans allies who are doing the same in this very moment.

Perhaps you already know, but there's a TransTorah project that struggles with this topic - maybe you'll find it interesting (or maybe you know about the project already!): http://www.transtorah.org/aboutus.html

Then there is also this site: http://www.ritualwell.org/ that works on a possibility of developing Jewish rituals, blessings etc. adjusting many "new" circumstances in nowadays society (or a circumstances that are just getting more visibility these days - they are not "new" at all really!) - there is also a section for LGBTTIQ issues and life circumstances. Personally I don't know to how extent I am comfortable with the idea of so many new rituals that we can just come up with (I'm sure that the old texts have as much potential in the mean of interpretation/interpretability as the new ones and basically I'm more interested in older texts right now), although I definitely see the potential of innovation and adjustment to a contemporary society and individual problems and issues in Judaism and I agree that Judaism has a capacity to stay in touch with the contemporary living in theory as in practical life.

Then there is this book http://www.amazon.com/Torah-Queeries-Weekly-Commentaries-Hebrew/dp/0814720129, which follows weekly Torah portions interpreting them from a queer and gender theory perspective.

Since I'm familiar with gender and queer theory (it's my major on PhD studies, particularly postfeminism studies), feel free to ask anything from that domain if you are interested in discussion or sharing thoughts.

i was just visiting for the trans health conference so there were people from all over the word. there were about 79 trans folks and allies at the shabbat dinner at the conference and the rabbinical student that led was a pregnant trans guy. i know several trans jewish guys in my area but it was just really affirming and amazing for me

May I ask, what is a trans health conference? Is it just to discuss particular health issues that may come up and how to deal with them? Like hormones and that sort of thing? I know nothing about the trans community so forgive my ignorance.

hey Dena yes the Philly Trans Health conference had its 11th annual conference last weekend it discusses all kinds of health issues from physical to spiritual to sexual all sorts of topics