What is the purpose of a trans life? As the kinds of embodied trans futures we were promised become harder to imagine, Lexi speaks about the role bodily changes have to play in a spiritual gender transition. Just like the Tabernacle was only as physical as necessary to contain the Presence of God, so too the vessels for Presence that are our bodies must keep the spirituality greater.

The key source in this episode is the Maor vaShemesh on Parshas Vayakhel. We’ve also got two midrashim, one from Shemos Rabbah 34:1 and the other from Chagigah 12a, plus Erin In the Morning and the Human Rights Campaign’s coverage of the House budget’s provisions to defund and disqualify gender affirming care from insurance coverage.

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The Arrogant Kingdom’s executive order writing trans people out of existence decrees there is such a thing as “biological truth.” Okay, darlings, so let’s talk about biology and truth. The truth of the body is linked with the mystery of the purpose of Creation, and it all centers around what it means to build a dwelling place for the Presence of God.

Sources brought in this episode: the Maor vaShemesh on Parshas Terumah, reporting from Erin In the Morning on the University of Cincinnati's “biological” bathroom signs, Lexi’s Gashmius essay “A Lesson from God in Trans Visibility,” Jennifer Finney Boylan on Shania Twain’s Man, I Feel Like a Woman! and the shadows of a section from Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble that didn’t quite make the final cut.