![]() ![]() Depending on the legal context and the interpretation of the reader, these categories can be understood as disabled, as transgender, as intersex, or as all three at one and the same moment. ![]() Androgynes, in contrast, trouble the legal boundaries of male and female. They can be born eunuchs (which is a category we would probably call intersex), or can become eunuchs later in life. The rabbis define eunuchs as people who lack procreative capabilities, but are legally male or female. My work centers gender variant bodies in Late Ancient Jewish legal literatures eunuchs and androgynes are found throughout the rabbinic corpus, and are invoked in connection with diverse legal issues. ![]() My research is shaped by the uneasy imbrication of queer bodies and religion. And yet the intimacy of this scene in the restroom-a charged space in queer, trans, and disabled communities-enables both the violence (of potential re-creation) and a rebellious intimacy. The pairing of queerphobia and religion is a familiar specter. Afterwards, Hillman addresses them both: “You and I have bodies that make people pray.” 1 This is an allusion to Hillman’s mother’s prayers, and more broadly her mother’s desire that she be “fixed.” These prayers enlist divine aid in (re-)creating queer bodies. She describes their inelegant struggle to undress this relative stranger. The scene takes place at a conference, where Hillman works together with another activist to support a disabled woman’s access to the restroom. In her memoir, intersex activist Thea Hillman describes an encounter in a bathroom. ![]()
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