It’s no secret that it’s a scary time to be trans in the United States. Since before he took office, President Trump and Republican lawmakers have promised to roll back the rights of transgender individuals on everything from access to healthcare to participation in high school sports. So far, he’s been making good on that promise.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order stating that all Americans’ gender is determined by their biological sex at conception (even though all people are biologically female at conception…). He has also signed orders which threaten to withhold federal funding from hospitals which provide gender-affirming care to people under the age of 19, do not allow for passport gender markers to be changed and force incarcerated transgender women to be moved into men’s prisons.
But for the trans community and their allies, many are refusing to be silent in the face of this discrimination. Enter Rabbi Mike Moskowitz, the scholar-in-residence for Trans and Queer Jewish Studies at Congregation Beit Simchat Torah in New York City. (CBST calls itself the world’s largest synagogue for LGBT Jews.) Last week, Rabbi Moskowitz shared a powerful message for trans Jews and the entire trans community.
“For those who feel scared or alone right now, we see you. We love you. God doesn’t put extra people in this world, we need you,” he said in a video posted on CBST’s Instagram page. “As clergy, as allies, we are here to speak truth to power against this unholy hypocrisy of hate that betrays both our American values and also human dignity.”
He then shared his email and phone number, urging those who feel isolated to reach out. “It will get better. We will make it better together,” Rabbi Moskowitz concluded.
“As a rabbi, I feel encumbered to speak with a voice of faith,” he told me via email today. “Both from the wisdom of our tradition and from a place of not being afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing.” For now — and hopefully the same is true moving forward — the consequence of doing the right thing hasn’t been punitive. Instead, Rabbi Moskowitz tells me that following the video, the volume of people reaching out to him for pastoral support has been “significantly higher than usual.”
Rabbi Moskowitz’s message comes at the same time that other rabbis are reemphasizing their support for the trans community and their belief that all people, trans people included, are made b’tzelem elohim, in God’s image. “With and for my transgender siblings: We aren’t going anywhere. No law, no legislation, no policy, no executive order will change that,” Rabbi Abby Chava Stein, an activist, interim rabbi at Brooklyn congregation Kolot Chayeinu and herself a trans woman shared on Inauguration Day.
“I’m terrified of how much and how many we will lose, especially among trans youth,” she continued. “But I know that we will not break. Every attempt to harm us will galvanize us more to resist. To fight back. To push back. A world without trans people never existed and never will.”
“Trans lives are sacred, regardless of what legislation says,” Rabbi Sara Zober of Temple Sinai in Reno, Nevada wrote on Bluesky last week. Rabbi Emily Cohen of West End Synagogue offered, “The government cannot erase the existence of trans Americans, no matter what labels and phrases are banned. AND it’s on all of us, particularly those of us who are safer in the current climate, to continue to speak and act in unabashed support for trans Americans, because this time is terrifying.”
For those who would disagree with him that trans lives are sacred, Rabbi Moskowitz has another very clear message: “There is no mitzvah to be straight or cis, just like there is no prohibition on being queer or trans. People are never forbidden to just be.”
