Ancient/Medieval Times, Jews and Judaism

Although it is anachronistic to apply modern constructs of sex and gender to earlier times, one can state that the classical texts of Rabbinic Judaism discuss gender ambiguity, gender transition, and other relevant topics. The texts reveal that throughout the ages, rabbis have been aware not everyone fits a gender binary. They categorized and classified a number of gender constructs beyond male and female and explicitly discussed whether their intersex constructs were independent constructs or subcategories of female and male. Gender transition is discussed in some of the texts. There are also textual records of discussions relevant to topics such as deadnaming, crossdressing, and castration.