I'm an Orthodox parent of a non-binary child. I am confident Jewish law can accommodate LGBTQ Jews
“If you don’t like it, leave.”
Anyone who has ever advocated for change in a traditional community has probably heard a variation of this dismissal. As a lifelong Orthodox Jew, I have — infrequently but memorably — heard this any time I have suggested small changes to customs that are permitted by Jewish law.
Though I have long felt that LGBTQ Jews should be welcomed with open arms in Orthodox synagogues, the issue became personal in my life when my 11-year-old child shared with us last spring that they identify as non-binary. My husband and I always knew that our love for our child was unconditional. Yet in the months before they came out publicly, we worried that there might be people in our Orthodox circles who would not understand or accept them.
Though it took some time for our child to be willing to share their gender identity with our Orthodox family and shul, we needn’t have worried — our family and our Orthodox community have fundamentally accepted our child. While there are certainly challenges that present themselves in the Orthodox world because it is organized around the gender binary, everyone has treated them with thoughtfulness and sensitivity.
That is why I read with dismay about a trans woman, Talia Avrahami, being told by the rabbi of her New York shul that she could not sit in the section that corresponds to her gender identity, effectively ejecting her from the community. News reports suggest that the rabbi felt his hands were tied and no other decision could be made. This represents a fundamental failure of the system of psak (legal rulings relied upon by Orthodox Jews) to accommodate the LGBTQ members of our community.
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