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“I knew only one other person who was queer, and that person – G-d – was much, much queerer than I was.”
— Joy Ladin, “The Soul of the Stranger: Reading G-d and Torah from a Transgender Perspective”
“Young people have a right to sex education that gives them the information and skills they need to stay safe and healthy. Withholding critical health information from young people is a violation of their rights. Abstinence-only-until-marriage programs leave all young people unprepared and are particularly harmful to young people who are sexually active, who are LGBTQ, or have experienced sexual abuse.”
—
Leslie Kantor, VP of Education at Planned Parenthood Federation of America
source
“One of the biggest problems with religion is that people stubbornly, insistently reduce God to their own size; they imagine that God loves the same people they love, and that God hates the people they hate. This is not just insidious theology; it’s actually idolatry, because people are just worshiping a blown up version of themselves. So let me say it simply: God’s love transcends all of that. When your parents reject you, God loves you; when your friends or classmates make fun of you, God loves you; when your priest, minister, imam, or rabbi tells you that you are an abomination, God loves you; when politicians cater to people’s basest prejudices, God loves you. No matter how many times and in how many ways people make you feel less than human, God knows otherwise, and God loves you. When you feel frightened, or abandoned, or humiliated, I hope the unshakeable conviction that God loves you can help hold you and enable you to persevere.”
— From a Rabbi, An Open Letter To People Who Are LGBTQ by Rabbai Shai Held (via jewishtransition)
In the Mishnah, Rabbi Yosi makes the radical statement: “androgynos bria bifnei atzma hu / the androgynos he is a created being of her own.” This Hebrew phrase blends male and female pronouns to poetically express the complexity of the androgynos’ identity. The term bri’a b’ifnei atzmah is a classical Jewish legal term for exceptionality. This term is an acknowledgement that not all of creation can be understood within binary categories. It recognizes the possibility that uniqueness can burst through the walls that demarcate our society. The Hebrew word bria (created being) explicitly refers to divine formation; hence this term also reminds us that all bodies are created in the image of God. People can’t always be easily defined; they can only be seen and respected, and their lives made holy. This Jewish approach allows for genders beyond male and female. It opens up space in society for every body. And it protects those who live in the places in between.
Rabbi Elliot Rose Kukla and Reuben Zellman
Traditionally religious people often claim that the Torah requires them to exclude, exile, or condemn transgender people, but the Torah never commands or encourages that kind of behavior. None of the Torah's laws requires the Israelite community to treat people whose appearance or behavior doesn't fit binary norms as defiled or defiling.
— Joy Ladin, “The Soul of the Stranger: Reading G-d and Torah from a Transgender Perspective”
“You might not realize it, but in-your-face displays of heterosexuality are everywhere — the family photo on a desk, the man and woman holding hands on the beach, or an opposite-sex couple kissing in a bar. No one accuses these couples of “flaunting” their sexuality, but make it two men or two women in the photo holding hands or smooching, then we’ve crossed the line. That’s the double standard.”
—
Steven Petrow, writing on “What’s so upsetting about a gay couple kissing in public?“
(via
washingtonpost
)
“Gay sex life, unlike straight sex life, is never a private matter. When a man and a woman walk hand in hand, it is their love that they make public. When two men walk hand in hand, it is their sex life that they make public… Our words are acts; our privacy is public. This reality stems from the nature of homophobia.”
—
Rabbi Steven Greenberg
“Wrestling with G-d and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition” (2004)