Over this past week, I devoured a book called Becoming Eve by Abby Chava Stein. It is an autobiography about a transgender woman who left the Chasidic community to become a woman. She was born into a Chasidic family as a boy and explains how she felt that she was a girl growing up. She talked about how every night she would pray to God before bed asking to wake up in a girl's body. She believed that there was a mistake, and one day she would be in the right body again. There were so many things that she described as a young child about the thoughts of a girl inside a boy's body. As she grew up she caused trouble in schools and had to transfer multiple times. She went to Yeshiva, and eventually got married and had children. When her first son was born she asked the doctor what the gender was and he said it was a boy. She asked the doctor if he was sure it was a boy and the doctor said yes. Abby thought to herself how the doctor could be sure that it was a boy. She eventually breaks away from the Chasidic community and now lives as a woman in New York.
I have never completely understood how transgender people experienced extreme gender dysphoria. It has always been so foreign to me I know that I will never completely understand but after reading this book I think that I do have more insight as to who transgender people are. I used to think that they decided to switch genders because they felt like the opposite gender. But it is so much more than just feeling like the opposite gender, it is fully knowing that you were born into the wrong body. What I noticed in the book was that from an extremely young age she was so uncomfortable in her body. Even when she didn't know what a woman's body looked like, she knew that the one she was in did not match the person she was inside. I have referred to her as she/her through this whole review because that is how I perceived her. I recommend this book to everyone who wants to read it. It is a coming of age story, and a gender identity story, and an off the Derech story all in one. Have you ever read a book like this? if so you can write it down in the comments because I would love to read a book similar to this one. Would you read this book?
Hey Eden, I don't know of any books similar to this, but from how you described it, this book sounds very interesting. Speaking as a cis guy I don't know what it's like to feel that, but from the way you describe it, it sounds like it really impacted you.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great book. I have to check it out. I have known people who felt like that, and it was heartbreaking for them. We are not in anyone's skin but our own, and we should always understand that - as you said, I can never know what it's like but I can certainly learn and accept.
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