Growing Up on the Wrong Side of the Mechitza: A Case Study of Contemporary Queer Jewish Language

Abstract

This article presents vocabulary and approaches for expressing LGBTQ+ identities and practices, which derive from Jewish tradition used by queer Jews in the Seattle area. From thirty-four semi-structured interviews with affiliates of Seattle Jewish life, the authors identify eight tokens of queer Jewish English vocabulary, including multilingual wordplay used to construct new terms for queer concepts, the mechitza as a spatial idiom for transgender identity, and “Talmudic genders” being reclaimed as contemporary nonbinary identities. Additionally, queer Jews utilize a variety of approaches to navigate Hebrew, from formal efforts like the Nonbinary Hebrew Project to invoking low-proficiency-driven circumlocution. These approaches demonstrate that queer Jews draw on a range of linguistic and cultural resources to describe their identities and experiences, and the distribution of queer language reflects the continued challenge cis-heteronormatively gendered religious practices present for queer Jews and the corresponding need for queer Jewish vocabulary to make space within them.