Why be Normal?

Before (Photo from the NY Post)

 After (Photo from the NY Post.)

Last fall, Yeshiva University Professor Joy Ladin returned to campus after a two year hiatus.  She took a two year break, not to work on a novel or a book of poetry, but to become a woman after spending her first 45 years as a man.

Professor Ladin began working at Yeshiva University in the fall of 2003 and was granted tenure in the fall of 2006.  A few weeks after being granted tenure, Professor Ladin told the University that she was in the process of becoming a woman.

Although the school did not want Ladin to return, she returned to campus in the fall of 2008 after Yeshiva University decided that it wasn’t worth the negative press an extensive legal battle would bring.

I’ve met Professor Ladin a number of times.  She is quiet, sweet, and honestly, if I didn’t know better, I would believe she was a female from the start.  (the picture above doesn’t do her any justice.) I’ve had my share of experiences with transgenders in the uberliberal town I live in, and Professor Joy Ladin can easily pass as a woman if you didn’t know better.

If the higher ups at YeshivaUniversity just kept their mouths shut and didn’t make such a controversy over it, it is likely that Professor Ladin’s transition would have happened and gone relatively unnoticed.

Professor Ladin has taken many hits, many criticisms for her transition.  The New York Post reported that she “has to face a far messier battle on the home front.”  This is simply not true.  Her wife has filed for divorce, yes, but it is amicable and there is no battle to contend with.

I can understand why a University such as Yeshiva might be outraged, but join the new century people.  If you want people to follow religion, to follow a faith, you are going to have to become much more tolerable or your flock will die out.

Ladin has written a personal memoir book:  “Inside Out:  Confessions of a Woman Caught in the Act of Becoming.”

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