Transgender Professor Joy Ladin Faces Life Back at Yeshiva  | Transgender | Advocate.com

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Transgender Professor Joy Ladin Faces Life Back at Yeshiva
When Joy Ladin told officials at the Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva University she was in the process of becoming a woman, school officials immediately put her on indefinite leave. A letter from her lawyers got the decision revoked, but now Joy, back at school, is facing a slew of new struggles.
An Advocate.com exclusive posted September 18, 2008
Transgender Professor Joy Ladin Faces Life Back at Yeshiva

A few years ago, Jay Ladin found his mind constantly shifting toward the subject of gender, and then one day, it got stuck there. The obsession had turned into a physical illness. Ladin, an English professor at the Orthodox Jewish Yeshiva University’s Stern College, was having trouble eating. He’d dropped a whopping 30 pounds and tossed and turned throughout sleepless nights.

Jay Ladin knew he wanted to become a woman but feared the havoc that would be in store for his family and career.

Now Jay is Joy, miles ahead of where she was two years ago when she told Stern College administrators she was in the process of becoming a woman. School officials immediately put her on indefinite leave. Unfazed, Ladin’s lawyers sent a letter to the school, and in one sharp snap, the decision was revoked; Ladin could keep her tenure (she began teaching at the school again two weeks ago for the first time since her transformation).

The details of the legal work have remained a mystery to the public and even to Ladin, with an anonymous source stating that “it remains unclear whether Stern faculty members suddenly empathized with Ladin or if the decision was completely legally motivated.”

Whatever the case, heated protests could be heard everywhere from the hallways of Stern College in New York City to rabbinic powwows on the other side of the Atlantic.

“We are dealing with someone who is severely psychologically disturbed, and we should physically restrain him from touching his body, the way we would an anorexic teenager,” says Rabbi Moshe Tendler, senior dean of Yeshiva’s rabbinical school. “Transsexuality in the Torah is absolutely forbidden!”  

Other reactions have been milder. 

“I don’t understand this illness, but I don’t think people need to react with such anger and hate,” said a staff member who works in Stern's administrative office. “Rabbi Moshe Tendler is a scary man.” 

School administrators are doing their best, it would seem, to keep their faculty quiet on the subject. When queried, faculty members would provide only PR-tinged responses about how they could not speak to the press, while others would speak only on condition of anonymity.

Reader Comments

These comments are reproduced as written by visitors to this Web site. They have not been edited for content, grammar, or spelling. The viewpoints appearing here are those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or views of advocate.com, The Advocate, or its affiliates.

  • Name: Stanley James
    Date posted: 2008-09-20 3:43 AM
    Hometown: Annapolis, Md

    Comment:

    As a jew, married to a jewish woman for 40 years, it amazes me that the people whose grandparents and cousins shared hitlers crematoriums with germany's gays, would be prejudiced against gay people, and of course trans people. This just goes to show one that conservative religions of most all stripe are living in the dark ages. And I thought all the people who lived then were long dead. Maybe we need a large uninhabited island where people like the othodox, the catholic and baptist heirarchies, etc, can be dropped off on it. And let them fight to their hearts content. Good riddance to them


  • Name: dcjournal28
    Date posted: 2008-09-19 1:16 PM
    Hometown: New York

    Comment:

    Its time to censor posts like this. What an important question to be asked... Thank you for asking the questions that scared, insecure people like the previous commenter don't want to be asked.


  • Name: frank
    Date posted: 2008-09-18 4:11 PM
    Hometown: villa park

    Comment:

    "As Yeshiva and Joy adjust to each other, is the school really welcoming her back, or was the decision just legally motivated?" This has got to be the stupidest question I've heard recently. Let's see - they fired her, they got a letter from an attorny and now she's back. Figure it out. You'd fail an SAT reading comprehension test with deductive reasoning like this.


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