Genders in Judaism

Our modern world is so focused on male and female as the standard division that it seems to many that any attempt to change one’s gender presentation from one to the other—or to no gender at all—is some newfangled notion that didn’t happen in the “good old days.”

It’s not so simple. The reality is that many cultures have more than two genders. My focus here is on how gender has worked within Judaism over the millennia.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s a huge male-female divide in traditional Judaism, with all the rigidity of roles you might expect from that. It’s only been 102 years since the first bat mitzvah and 89 years since the first female Rabbi. But we also have a tradition of six or eight genders (depending on if you separate whether changes in sexual characteristics come about naturally or with human intervention) which the Talmud and other sources discuss at length.

Six Genders

1. Zachar/זָכָר: This term is derived from the word for a pointy sword and refers to a phallus. It is usually translated as “male” in English.
2. Nekeivah/נְקֵבָה: This term is derived from the word for a crevice and probably refers to a vaginal opening. It is usually translated as “female” in English.
3. Androgynos/אַנְדְּרוֹגִינוֹס: A person who has both “male” and “female” sexual characteristics. 149 references in Mishna and Talmud (1st-8th Centuries CE); 350 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes (2nd -16th Centuries CE).
4. Tumtum/ טֻומְטוּם A person whose sexual characteristics are indeterminate or obscured. 181 references in Mishna and Talmud; 335 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.
5. Ay’lonit/איילונית: A person who is identified as “female” at birth but develops “male” characteristics at puberty and is infertile. 80 references in Mishna and Talmud; 40 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes.
6. Saris/סריס: A person who is identified as “male” at birth but develops “female” characteristics as puberty and/or is lacking a penis. A saris can be “naturally” a saris (saris hamah), or become one through human intervention (saris adam). 156 references in mishna and Talmud; 379 in classical midrash and Jewish law codes. 

More Than Just Male and Female: The Six Genders in Ancient Jewish Thought, Sarah Freidson. Sojourn. (Based on Rabbi Elliot Kukla’s classification.)

Eight Genders

1. Zachar, male.
2. Nekevah, female.
3. Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
4. Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
5. Aylonit hamah, identified female at birth but later naturally developing male characteristics.
6. Aylonit adam, identified female at birth but later developing male characteristics through human intervention.
7. Saris hamah, identified male at birth but later naturally developing female characteristics.
8. Saris adam, identified male at birth and later developing female characteristics through human intervention.

The Eight Genders in the Talmud: Judaism has recognized nonbinary persons for millennia. Rachel Scheinerman. My Jewish Learning.

Rachel Scheinerman’s article, among others, lays out the discussion clearly but is very focused on genitals. This isn’t on her or any of the authors; it’s exactly how the Talmudic Rabbis considered gender. In these categories, the first two are cis men and women, and everything else is a form of intersex.

The old term for intersex is “hermaphrodite,” which you’ll see in translations of these works, as well as in modern articles written in English. Hermaphrodite in biology means both fully male and female, which is not what it ever meant in humans. “Intersex” is a much better term which doesn’t make assumptions about how this difference manifests. The Talmudic discussion makes a distinction among people who have both male and female genitals at birth and people who have other gender differences. (See also: Androgynos.)

Although Scheinerman uses the term “nonbinary,” it does not have the modern meaning here. Nonbinary is not the same as intersex. It’s certainly possible to be both, but they’re quite different things. Intersex means there is a biological difference where the person does not fit neatly into male and female designations.

Nonbinary is about identification. Someone who is nonbinary doesn’t feel completely (or at all) male or female, even if they have all the physical characteristics associated with one of those genders. Some nonbinary people present more androgynous, but others present more as either male or female (which can be the gender they were designated at birth, or not).

“Gender fluid” (sometimes called “gender queer”) is a term some people use when they go back and forth between either feeling or presenting (or both) among different genders (male, female, and nonbinary). As you can imagine, there’s a fair bit of overlap between nonbinary and gender fluid. A related term is “gender non-conforming.”

None of the Talmudic gender distinctions are about identification, even though in many cultures gender differences can be all about identification. We have “two spirit” people (by a variety of different names) as well as men and women who are living gendered lives different from the ones they were expected to live.

It may seem confusing but, once we let go of the need for people to fit into neat gendered boxes, it all works. Judaism’s gender classifications though seem to mostly be about keeping those neat little boxes. Men and women have different requirements and permissions when it comes to keeping Jewish law (halacha) and it was of the utmost importance to Talmudic-era Rabbis (among others) to make sure nobody neglected to do something they were supposed to do (or did something they weren’t supposed to do). I won’t go through all the details of how the laws apply because it’s covered by several others (see References below).

Discussions within Judaism of gender beyond the binary didn’t start with Talmud. Nor do they end there. Despite Talmudic obsession with genital appearance and function, that’s not the whole story. Rabbi Elliot Kukla writes beautifully on this topic and I highly recommend reading this and his other works.

Binary categories for the human experience grew in popularity in the 18th and 19th centuries, as a way to regulate and control society. The Victorian science of difference discovered “evidence” of binary differences between men and women; between working and owning classes; between white people and people of color. This evidence was used to justify and reinforce fundamental social and economic hierarchies at a time when these power structures were under siege by various emancipation movements….

Judaism speaks in a different voice. Although Jewish Sages often tried to sort the world into binaries, they also acknowledged that not all parts of God’s creation can be contained in orderly boxes…We read in the Babylonian Talmud: “Our sages taught: As to twilight, it is doubtful whether it is part day and part night, or whether all of it is day or all of it is night.…We might have thought that the ambiguity of twilight would have made it dangerous or forbidden within Jewish tradition. But in fact our Sages determined that dawn and dusk, the in-between moments, are the best times for prayer. Jewish tradition acknowledges that some parts of God’s creation defy categories and that these liminal people, places and things are often the sites of the most intense holiness. After all, the word for holiness in Hebrew, “kedusha”, literally means set aside or out of the ordinary….

Reuben Zellman, a transgender activist and rabbinical student writes: “Twilight cannot be defined; it can only be sanctified and appreciated. People can’t always be 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 space in society. And it protects those who live in the places in between.”

A Created Being of Its Own: Toward a Jewish Liberation Theology for Men, Women and Everyone Else. Rabbi Elliot Kukla.  Transtorah.

There is no “always” in history. To understand a society we have to immerse ourselves in it. And to understand our current selves, we can reference the past but we can’t bind ourselves to it. At first glance, all of the 6 or 8 Jewish genders are about genitalia. Yet we have the Tumtum, a person whose gender is obscured (the discussions talk about a flap of skin covering the genitals) in ways that simply do not happen biologically. And as we dig deeper into our texts, we see a lot more ambiguity in gender discussions than just the biology.

Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar said: When the Holy One blessed be He created Adam the first man, He created him androgynous. That is what is written: “He created them male and female” (Genesis 5:2). Rabbi Shmuel bar Naḥman said: When the Holy One blessed be He created Adam the first man, He created him with two faces, and [subsequently] He sawed him in two and made [for] him two backs, a back here and a back there. They raised an objection to him: But is it not written: “He took one of his ribs [tzalotav] … [and the Lord God built the rib that He took from the man into a woman]”? (Genesis 2:21–22). He said to them: [It means that He took] one of his two sides…

Bereshit Rabbah 8. Talmudic Israel, 400 CE. The Sefaria Midrash Rabbah, 2022.

As a writer of historical fiction (which The Boat Children is, even if it is also fantasy), I can’t just impose modern views on the past. But it’s hard when the available sources don’t actually come from the time period or the place I cover. Even if you believe the Torah was written in the 1300’s BCE (and I don’t), obviously the Talmud (and even Midrash) came much later. This means a bit more poetic license than for some of the other topics in the novel.

References:

Gender:

• Gender and Jewish studies. Wikipedia.
• More Than Just Male and Female: The Six Genders in Ancient Jewish Thought, Sarah Freidson. Sojourn. (This is a web archive version as the original is no longer on the Sojourn: Southern Jewish Resource Network for Gender and Sexual Diversity site. It’s a poor copy and you need to refresh constantly.)
• More Than Just Male and Female: The Six Genders in Ancient Jewish Thought, Sarah Freidson. Sefaria. (Despite the similar name, this is a different (but related) article from the Sojourn one.)
• The Eight Genders in the Talmud: Judaism has recognized nonbinary persons for millennia. Rachel Scheinerman. My Jewish Learning.
• Gender Identity In Halakhic Discourse. Charlotte Elisheva Fonrobert.  The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women.
• For Centuries, Jewish Tradition Has Recognized Trans People.  Rabbi Elliot Kukla.  October 26, 2018.  The Forward.
• Androgynos. Wikipedia.
• Tumtum (Judaism). Wikipedia.
• A Created Being of Its Own: Toward a Jewish Liberation Theology for Men, Women and Everyone Else.   Rabbi Elliot Kukla.  Transtorah. 
• Arachin 4b ~ The Tumtum, the Androgyne, and the Fluidity of Gender. June 20, 2019. Jeremy Brown, Talmudology.

Additional Resources:

• Honoring the Real First Woman Rabbi. Rabbi Amy Eilberg, Women Rabbis.
• Judith Kaplan Celebrates First American Bat Mitzvah Ceremony: March 18, 1922. Jewish Women’s Archive.
• Two-Spirit. Wikipedia.
• Thomas/in Hall: Subverting the Gender Binary in Colonial Virginia. Rebecca Schneider, Senior Reference Librarian. April 17, 2023. The UncommonWealth: Voices from the Library of Virginia.