#yosef hatzaddik
Thinking about how trans the story of Yosef is….
Yosef was the son Rachel and Yaakov always wanted. He is described as feminine- adorning his hair, painting his face. His brothers see him as different, they hate him. He’s banished from his home and left to figure himself out in a foreign country. When his brothers see him again, they don’t recognize him.
They don’t recognize him because he has transformed into who he was meant to be.
Now, I don’t know how Yosef would have identified if he were alive today.
Midrash describes Yosef’s soul as having been switched with his sister Dina’s.
Whether he was gay, bi, intersex, or trans is something we’ll never know.
But his story resonates so deeply with me, just another Jewish person who made a huge transformation and became unrecognizable.
Didn’t his brothers hate him because of the sheer arrogance in which he described his dreams? (And the fact that he was treated better than all his siblings by his parents)
His brothers hated him because he was different. Midrash tells us that it was because Yosef was effeminate, and would do his hair and colour his lips “like the women do”. There was also an element of jealousy to his brothers’ treatment of him, but it’s important not to discount the element of “distrust of the different.”
