My Final Coming Out (?)

I want to come out and I'm so afraid. there's no going back in to this closet...

I've been here before and somehow this feels like the scariest door to open. I realize there's trauma buried deep that I haven't ever unfolded and shaken out. It's wrapped around my core as tightly as a vine climbs brick and I'm afraid that if I peel it from my skin, there will be yet another god sized hole where the sad can seep in. So I stare at the good Jewish girls on the train and hold myself back from yelling "I was just the same. There's Hope for you yet"

because where did that ever get me?

Well, here goes nothing. I'm coming out, and maybe this can be my final time.

I was born as the third girl to my parents, and remained the youngest until age four, when the first boy was born to our orthodox Jewish family.

I know the religious world loves to claim that it does not discriminate against women, but if you know anything about Orthodox Judaism, you’d know that girls have less stringent life milestones than boys do. Try arguing that there is no discrimination to someone who is raised with differences in how the sexes are treated, and feels greatly disadvantaged by that differential treatment. Here's the thing with orthodoxy, girls/women are “naturally more spiritual” and thus have less active commandments binding them to god. The argument is that men are more wrapped up in their carnal desires and thus, must actively engage with god on an ongoing basis.

Girls are lesser than, in a way that is reinforced through gendered prayers that are said each morning (“blessed are you god our god the king of the universe (women say) who created me in his image// (and men say) who did not make me a woman”), through the importance of the social roles we play, (women raised to be teachers, mothers, teachers, mothers), while men are raised to be rabbis, community leaders, fathers. Women are the hidden, modest, reserved, men are not. Women's images are not shown in orthodox magazines, women's voices are not heard in orthodox music, women are not allowed to be rabbis, cantors, community leaders (unless that community only consists of women, of course).

Don't even think of bringing up people who fall outside of the binary...

As a child I was me, I climbed trees and was covered in scratches and bruises, I jumped off the highest step of our flight of stairs over and over till I sprained an ankle, I collected bugs and squashed the ants infesting the spots in our living room where my brother had spit up, with my bare fingers. I was also playing with dolls, dressing up as a royal monarch, and at some point getting into my mothers makeup.

I remember the first sparks of jealousy crackling when my brother turned 3 and had a huge party to celebrate his first haircut as a Jewish boy. He got to lick a glob of honey from a laminated book of the Hebrew alphabet in symbolism of “how sweet the Torah is” and my heart sunk as the voice in my head said “why didn’t I ever get to do that”.

As life went on and we were raised differently, I had to quench my desire and impulse to climb, I had to avoid hanging out with the boys I identified with, I lost the ability to ride a bike since “it is immodest for girls to ride bikes” and to this day there is a sense of rebellion around that activity for me. I asked numerous times growing up to wear pants or even just ankle height socks, to be sent to coed schools but was obviously always met with "no".

At age 8 I was nearly expelled from elementary school for talking to the boys I attended synagogue with, at 9 I was sent to an art therapist who questioned me about my “fascination with boys”, and at 11 when I asked my mother if I could be friends with boys, she told me it isn’t necessary until I was ready to have a family.

I was socialized as a girl, and the angry outbursts that resulted socialized my parents to fear me and misunderstand me. I was socialized as a girl and the dysphoria that exhibited itself as tantrums, intense emotions and “acting out” was diagnosed as a mood disorder. I was told time and time again I was a girl and I screamed into a void that they were wrong, but I had no words, I only had anger. I only had anger.

I wanted to dance with the Torah scrolls and instead was relegated to the back room so men wouldn’t watch my 10 year old female body experience joy.

I wanted to wear the hats all the yeshiva boys wore, I wanted to don the jackets they donned, I wanted to sing at the Shabbat table like the men, and was silenced time and time again because “men aren’t allowed to hear girls sing”. "So leave the table" I told them, which was met with glares.

The first time I wore a cap backwards and dressed somewhat less "girly", everything felt right and the future was muddied since I knew I’d be penalized if I dressed like this more often, and so I didn't try again.

Orthodoxy is like the panopticon of life and god is the guard, so you conform.

Convinced you want to follow this path because there's no other one to walk. Yet, if you aren't one to follow the path, you cross the fields like they are yours to pave, you envision a life without these boundaries while living so disfigured, but there is no real other option. The other options are cautionary tales of rehab, of death, of trouble with the law, and those are really just self fulfilling prophecies. The other options are spending years undoing the obsessive thoughts, the compulsive behaviors that are dressed up as rituals meant to fill your life with meaning, while you wonder if you have the right to consider your background a "cult upbringing".