Not a Nice Jewish Boy: How I Realized I’m Transgender

Sep 1, 2021 | Sexuality & Gender

Written by Shuli Elisheva

All I wanted was to be a nice Jewish boy.

I grew a massive beard. I went to an all-male yeshiva. I prayed every day with tallis and tefillin. I got married, had a child, and did everything I thought nice Jewish boys do. And then my world shattered when I realized, in my 30s, that I’m not a nice Jewish boy at all. I’m a nice Jewish girl.

Although it shouldn’t have, this realization caught me by surprise, and I hoped it would just be a passing phase. I googled: “What if I think I’m transgender, but I don’t want to be transgender? How do I not be transgender?” I did not want to be trans. It flew against everything I had learned about science and Judaism. And besides that, I didn’t relate to any of the stereotypes. I didn’t grow up cross-dressing. I wasn’t effeminate or gay. I wasn’t a radical leftist. I wasn’t a man in a dress or a rapist in disguise, and I didn’t like drag. Sure, I had some trans friends from college, and I respected their names and pronouns. But I had assumed they had chosen to be trans, that being trans was merely a wish, a desire, and a lifestyle.

My Google search led me to a web forum for trans women, where someone had asked the exact same question: “What if I think I’m transgender, but I don’t want to be transgender? How do I not be transgender?” I breathed a sigh of relief. Here, surely, I would find out how to make all those thoughts of being a girl disappear. Alas. Reply after reply related the same old story: “Oh, I thought drinking would help me ignore those stupid thoughts, but it didn’t. So I tried drugs instead. I became addicted. I lost my job, my marriage, my home, and almost died from suicide. 30 years later, I finally just accepted I’m trans, and I transitioned, and now I feel so much better! Why didn’t I just transition 30 years ago?!” The replies on this web forum felt like an omen: if I didn’t transition now, I would be doomed to a life of suffering and loss.

I was so scared. I thought that if being trans really isn’t a choice, then I’m powerless. I simply have to accept it. But how would I tell my family? My friends? My students? Would I be kidnapped, tortured, and murdered as portended by so many gruesome headlines? Would I be ostracized by my community?

I began to reflect on memories from my past.

One day, five years earlier, I got off a plane in Detroit. As I walked to the baggage area, I passed by the bathrooms.

“I should go in the women’s room,” I thought to myself.

“WHAT?!” my thoughts continued. “Why would I think that? I’m a man, not a woman. Why should I go in the women’s room?” I shook my head and kept walking.

But then it happened again, and again, and again; every time I walked past a women’s bathroom, I’d think to myself, “I should go in there. WHAT?! That’s crazy! Am I crazy? I’m a man, not a woman!”

And then things got weirder. I’d be sitting in a 

stall in the men’s room and then panic that I’d gone into the women’s room by mistake. I’d open the stall door to check for urinals, a sign I was in the right place, and sigh with relief.

Soon, I would panic every time I entered a public bathroom, even before I’d made it to the toilets. I’d turn around and walk outside to double-check that the sign said “MEN” not “WOMEN.” Eventually, I wouldn’t even make it inside – I’d have one hand on the door – before turning around and checking the sign, twice, thrice, sometimes four times, just to be sure I wasn’t accidentally going in the women’s bathroom.

Why? Was I losing my mind? There was no explanation. It made no sense.

Nowadays, when people ask how I know I’m a woman and not simply a man with feminine interests, I tell them about my bathroom anxiety. Why did I crave, for years, to use the women’s bathroom? And why did I panic, for years, every time I entered a men’s room? Bathrooms have nothing to do with gender roles or stereotypes. Nothing to do with aesthetics. Nothing to do with hobbies or interests. It was a feeling deep inside me – a gut feeling telling me that I belonged in the women’s room, not the men’s room.

And then, in 2018, when I was 31 years old, that gut feeling finally told me what I’d been so afraid to admit: I am transgender. It was a normal, sunny day at our family’s timeshare in Florida. We were at a resort with a fancy pool, enjoying our last day of sunshine before returning to our wintery home in New England. Off in a corner, next to the gift shop, stood two cardboard sculptures of a cowboy and a cowgirl, with the faces cut out so tourists could take silly selfies.

My wife said, “Why don’t you take our toddler over, so I can take a fun photo of you two?” So I did, with a mischievous grin, and stuck my head through the cowgirl’s face. Wouldn’t that be funny, I thought, to have a photo of a cowgirl

with a massive beard?

“Come on!” my wife reprimanded me, with a tone of annoyance. “Stop fooling around! Can’t you be serious for once?”

So I obediently switched to the cowboy. And then it suddenly dawned on me; why had I pretended to be the cowgirl? I began to think back on recent memories of arguing with my wife over who got to be Princess Peach in video games, and my recent infatuation with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Over the next few weeks, I was lost in thought, wondering, for the first time in my life, if I might be a transgender woman.

In May 2019, after a year and a half of painstaking introspection, I finally accepted I’m a transgender woman. Suddenly, my life was starting to make sense. The bathroom anxiety made sense. That episode at our timeshare in Florida made sense. All of my memories, all of my childhood quirks, it felt like I was connecting the dots of my life. But I was still too scared to admit it, especially because I was married to our local Conservative synagogue’s rabbi. Would the community reject me? Would my wife lose her job? Would our child be expelled from the day school? Would I be arrested for using public bathrooms?

On June 4, 2019, I created a Twitter account under the name Shuli Elisheva, using a heavily filtered profile photo that made me look like a woman. I wanted to know what it’s like to live and be seen as a woman, under cover of a pseudonym that none of my friends would recognize. I wanted to finally live as myself, completely unfettered by social expectations.

That experiment taught me so much about what it means to be both transgender and a woman, but the biggest thing I learned was that it felt right. Six months later, I came out publicly, and I have never been happier. Finally, I get to live openly and proudly as my true, authentic self.

Every time I walked past a women’s bathroom, I’d think to myself, “I should go in there. WHAT?! That’s crazy! Am I crazy? I’m a man, not a woman!”

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