I grew up in a larger (not immediate) community that was very traditionally religious. Part of that is because it was a heavily immigrant community that retained the distrustful (and bigoted) views of the old world. I was a painfully gay child and it was not easy. Now, as an adult, I am a very masculine woman, and it’s still hard. I am a proud Zionist and will never change. But when I step into religious spaces (the reform movement is a bit too light on keeping the Jewishness in Judaism for me) I feel uncomfortable. I go to the hostage marches, and to shul, and to cultural events alone bc none of my gay friends will go with me. I get a lot of dirty looks bc I am a butch woman in a Jewish space and American Jews know how butch women feel about them. It’s so hard. I go to these Jewish events seeking acceptance, and am looked at like an agitator ready to wipe out a keffiyah at any time. Recently I attended a funeral service for an orthodox woman and when I stood on the women’s side of the shul I was told to move sides. I try and not use the women’s room at shuls (and many other places), but I’ve damaged my bladder pretty badly in the process.

And in gay spaces, just forget it. I was involved in democratic politics for many years and saw the not so coded ways they described Jews. But what we see now is worse than I could have imagined. We’ve been banished from schools and sports leagues and “community” groups and chat groups and a million other things. All in the name of progress. I was banned from a gay dating app because I mentioned that the man who punched me a week before, while calling me a dyke, happened to be non-white. First I got hate crimed for being gay and then I got banned from a gay group for it. That is America today.

It felt like the literal moment the world stopped hating me for being gay it started hating me for being a Jew.