Transgender Day of Visibility 2022

Today is Trans Day of Visibility! 

Every March 31, communities around the world mark Trans Day of Visibility, celebrating trans and nonbinary and gender-nonconforming people who expand our understanding of the world and its possibilities.

CBST is particularly blessed to have many trans and nonbinary members, friends, colleagues, and teachers, and we hope you’ll take time today to enjoy the wealth of creativity, brilliance, and opportunities to take action that we’ve curated here.

Last Friday evening at Shabbat services, we were thrilled to welcome rabbinical student Ariel Tovlev to the bimah with a beautiful drashah for Trans Day of Visibility. If you missed it, we highly recommend hearing Ariel’s words of Torah today, and follow it with this collection of blessings for TDOV from several members of the extended CBST community.

CBST’s Emet: Trans & Nonbinary Team meets on the first Thursday of every month from 7:00-8:00 p.m. to learn together and connect. The next meeting takes place on Thursday, April 7. Learn more and sign up to join!
 
Over the past years, we’ve been honored to host teachings from many amazing trans and nonbinary teachers and rabbis, especially at CBST’s two Trans Jews are Here Convenings! Here are a few of our favorites:
 
And this week, CBST’s Ark Immigration Clinic Community remembers our colleague and friend Lorena Borjas, zichrona livracha, the “mother of the trans Latina community,” whom we tragically lost to COVID-19 in the first month of the pandemic in New York City.
 
This lovely, short documentary is a beautiful introduction to Lorena’s powerful presence and passionate work to protect undocumented trans Latina New Yorkers, and we continue to be honored that she considered CBST one of her trusted communities.
 
“Atoning for the Spiritual Abuse of Conversion Therapy”
 
Conversion therapy “doesn’t assist in actually changing a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation,” writes Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, CBST’s Scholar-in-Residence for Trans and Queer Jewish Studies. “It is harmful and highly effective in converting people out of religion.”
 
“It still remains for religious communities, and especially the rabbis who lead them,” Rabbi Moskowitz continues, “to acknowledge and take responsibility for those who have left our communities because of the homophobia and transphobia that we have created.” Continue reading here.

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