Sruly Stein, who left the Brooklyn hasidic community four years ago, is now in the process of transitioning to be a woman. As you might expect, people within the hasidic community are appalled, and some have voiced that confusion and disgust through some pretty awful text messages and the like, and many people don't understand why she didn't just suffer quietly inside the community and keep up appearances so as not to shame her family and their wider hasidic community – especially because Stein is supposedly descended from the founder of the hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov.
Above: Sruly Stein several years ago, Abby Stein today
Sruly Stein, who left the Brooklyn hasidic community four years ago, is now in the process of transitioning to be a woman.
As you might expect, people within the hasidic community are appalled, and some have voiced that confusion and disgust through some pretty awful text messages and the like, her family has disowned her, and many of her former neighbors don't understand why she didn't just suffer quietly inside the community and keep up appearances so as not to shame her family and their wider hasidic community – especially because Stein is supposedly descended from the founder of the hasidic movement, the Baal Shem Tov.
But Stein, who now goes by the name, Abby, told the New York Post today that not all of the comments from her former community have been negative.
…“Since I’ve gone public, 17 people have reached out to me who still live within the community and struggle with similar things,” she said. “Most of them didn’t know there’s help.”
Stein said that while she felt like a woman for many years, she couldn’t even consider taking action until she left her Orthodox community.
Initially, she followed the traditional path of most in Hasidic Williamsburg. By 18, Stein was married, and soon had a son.
“I was raised in an extremely sheltered community,” she said. “No Internet, no TV and no movies — not even Jewish ones.”
“My family and community was so sheltered that up to around 14 I thought that most of the world is Jewish and most of the Jews are ultra-Orthodox,” she added.
With an intense desire to pursue a college education, Stein divorced, and ultimately left the Orthodox community about four years ago.Being part of a famous Hasidic family made that split even more difficult, Stein said.
“My family had more restrictions than most families even in Williamsburg,” she explained. “Like men were expected to work only in Jewish scholarly jobs, not drive, and I was constantly told that we ought to be role models.”…
Stein is interested in someday working in the nonprofit world, advocating for other transgender people from similar backgrounds and shaping public policy.
She’s currently raising money for her own transition on her blog.
“But my main goal is to raise awareness for trans people within the ultra-Orthodox community,” Stein said.
She added: “It’s been totally ignored until now.”
Stein is now a student at Columbia University’s School of General Studies. She told the Post it took a long time for her learn the basic references to popular culture everyone else knows, and that until she did, she often didn't understand what people were saying.
You can read it all here.
[Hat Tip: WSC.]