ABSTRACT
Poveda presents findings from the first study in its scope of transgender religiosity in general and transgender with a Jewish orthodox background in particular. He focuses on the ways in which participants negotiated gendered religious practices in three key periods of their lives: pre-transition, transition, and post-transition. The research was mostly based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with thirteen participants (six female-to-male, six male-to-female, and one who presented as male but had a nonbinary gender identity) located in either Israel or North America. Given the qualitative nature of the research the findings cannot be said to be representative of the general transgender population with a Jewish orthodox background. Furthermore, a significant number of participants retain a positive view of orthodox Judaism. According to one of the participants most transgender Jews seldom stay in touch with orthodox Judaism.
Maybe one day someone will write about the stories of those who decided to leave for good. In his study and this Chapter Poveda writes mostly about those who, at the time of his meetings, were still sticking around, often defying the stereotypes of what it was to be orthodox and what it was to be transgender. Hopefully future research will contribute to assess the representativeness of these findings as well as add new nuance and depth to our understanding of transgender religiosity.
