Trans Spirituality

First let me introduce myself. I’m Rabbah Rona Matlow. I’m an AFAB NB trans woman, and I use ze/hir pronouns. Rabbah in the modern context means woman rabbi. I use ze/hir deliberately rather than they/them to engage people in discussions and learning because I believe that religion, science and sociology all clearly show that the gender binary does not exist – rather it is a construct forced upon us by “The Church.” To read the rest of the story, please visit my website, and my upcoming book promo site.

As a trans Rabbi, part of my work is debunking the myths that “The Church” have taught, and part of it is undoing the damage they have done. That includes education and counseling. For that reason, I have Gender and Bible workshops which show very clearly that the standard interpretations from the Bible regarding sex and gender are wrong, and I show that there is absolutely nothing wrong with being trans or queer.

In addition, when I do counseling work, I follow standard psychosocial counseling methods and do not bring in religion unless the client asks for it. Because of that I’ve done trauma counseling with trans folx who follow various forms of Paganism, Wicca and Satanism, and they trust me because I do not preach at them, and I’m a trans sibling after all.

Now, as a Rabbi, I know Judaism mostly, of course. I know a few Christian texts, but I know very little about other religions, so I won’t be able to teach from them without substantial research. But I acknowledge that many of our trans siblings have sought out other practices because they need a spiritual home, and their original home was an abusive one which left them traumatized. Religions teach that God is love, yet when we read the sacred texts we see anger and retribution, and sadly, far too often, clerics get hung up on the anger and retribution and forget the love part.

So for example, in the Christian Bible, Jesus teaches that the most important commandment, Matthew 22:35–40, is “First love God with all your heart, soul and might, and then love your neighbor as yourself.” Then we see in the book of Matthew 7:1, “Judge not lest you be judged, for what you see as a splinter in their eye is a log in your eye.” Yet instead of following these two teachings from Matthew, Christian preachers get hung up on Leviticus 18:22 about male gay sex, a commandment that does not even apply to them because of the new covenant. If they would follow these two teachings of their Savior things would be much better.

Students of Torah, the Jewish Bible will recognize the first quote as coming from Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18b. Many famous quotes are shared among Holy literature.

I cannot say whether this means that God dictated the works or whether humans copied other humans. I wasn’t there when they were written, and neither were any of us. It doesn’t matter anyway, because these works are in the canon of these religions, and as such have sanctity. That the same themes follow throughout all Abrahamic religions as well as Eastern traditions such as Buddhism really makes sense though, since all humanity came from the same place, “in the beginning.”

Or, if you’re secular, maybe you follow “Bill and Ted” and you are just “excellent to each other.” Whatever the source of your philosophy, in the end, if you treat people as you would like to be treated, things would be much better.

But, as trans people, we know far too much oppression in this world. The National Trans Discrimination Survey shows that the trans suicide rate is nine times the national average because of oppression. On my website is a link to trans deaths in the U.S. since the last TDOR. It is important to have these data to hand, because we lose so many trans siblings to violence. As of the date I’m writing this (March 16, 2020) there have been 10 violent trans deaths (murder and suicide) and one due to drug overdose. We cannot rest until the TDOR count remains at zero, because in general it is people who claim to fear God who are hurting us.

Being a rabbi, I have even more reason to fear because of all the violent attacks on the Jewish community. But I fear more for people of color, the unhoused, the undocumented immigrant, the poor etc, especially in this time of the Coronavirus.

I pray that we all make it out of this alive and that we live to see a day free from oppression in the name of God, when people remember the “Greatest Commandment” and don’t cherry pick other commandments instead and use them as tools to justify violence.

Peace out,
Rona

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Tags: featured, religion, spirituality, Transgender

Category: Transgender Body & Soul