Nonbinary genders beyond 'male' and 'female' would have been no surprise to ancient rabbis, who acknowledged tumtums, androgynos and aylonot
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Friday, July 7, 2023
But acknowledging that not everyone fits neatly into those two groups has a much longer history than you might suspect.
Key Points:
- But acknowledging that not everyone fits neatly into those two groups has a much longer history than you might suspect.
- But for Judaism – and for many other religious traditions, too – history shows that’s just not true.
More than two terms
- Rabbinic literature, the body of texts written by Jewish leaders in antiquity, includes several other categories.
- In these texts, a person with both sets of external genitalia is called an “androgynos,” a term borrowed from Greek.
- But some of the rabbis quoted in Genesis Rabbah believed that God had made an androgynos.
Applying the law
- Jewish law, or halakhah, is based on a gender binary.
- For example, some commandments, such as studying Torah or not shaving sidelocks, apply only to men; others, such as Sabbath candle lighting, apply only to women.
- However, some halakhic traditions also recognize that not every person’s body fits that binary.
- Meanwhile, an androgynos must dress like a man, and a priest cannot marry an aylonit unless he already has children.
Forging a future
- In most Orthodox synagogues, for example, a physical partition divides the worship space into two sections: one for men and one for women.
- In other Jewish communal spaces, however, traditional texts have become a resource for contemporary LGBTQ+ Jews.
- Some look to these texts to affirm their beliefs that Judaism has always seen gender diversity as a spectrum.