by Nevo Zisin
But I didn’t feel particularly supported by my family. Although they were slowly coming to terms with my transition, I still felt deeply hurt by how some of them had invalidated and patronised me. I didn’t necessarily feel safe around them, so it didn’t make sense that I should wait to be with them.
My dad didn’t understand the rush to take testosterone and my mum and I had many long arguments about it. The funny thing was we were both arguing the same point – we didn’t want my transition to be at the forefront of my year. We both wanted me to focus on the program I was on, the relationships I would be building and the volunteer work I would be doing. But we had radically different ideas of how that could be attained.
I argued that I needed the hormones in order for my gender to be affirmed. I was nervous about being in a different country as an only-sometimes-passing trans boy – especially Israel, where social cues are different and people tend to be less filtered than Australians. Hebrew is a gendered language and I was worried I would be misgendered constantly, which would have a very significant effect on my mental health. At least if I was taking testosterone, I would feel like I was making progress. Mum thought if I was on testosterone it would isolate me from the rest of my group and shift my focus primarily onto my transition. She didn’t understand I needed to be on it in order to stop thinking about it.
All I wanted was for my gender issues to be pushed to the back of my mind because I wanted to focus on bigger things.
Due to a very serious lack of understanding about testosterone and its effects, there were some concerns in my youth movement, Habo, surrounding me taking the medication while in their care and on their program. I went out for dinner one night with one of my leaders and she explained the coordinators of the program had decided that I must choose between testosterone and the year-long program. I broke down. She said she felt awful, telling me that the movement I had been a part of my whole life was not going to support me through this. I began pleading to the people higher up in the movement to find a way around this. I sent letters from my doctor, psychiatrist, endocrinologist, my psychologist and myself in an attempt to educate them about testosterone and its effects and how it would affect my year away. I thought their decision was grounded in ignorance and a misunderstanding of the process.
Their concern was that I would be living in close quarters with fifteen other people for the year. They were unsure how the testosterone would affect my mood and interactions and worried it could contribute negatively to an already intense social situation.
I agreed to wait until I returned from Israel before taking testosterone. But with each day, this decision lay heavy on my shoulders. This promise felt wrong and I wasn’t sure how I would make it through another year feeling the way I was in my body. I viewed my dysphoria as a serious medical condition and couldn’t understand why people would ask me to wait until things got worse before treating it. I needed to fix what was happening to me. Testosterone was urgent.
I spoke with my parents about the importance of testosterone for my mental health. They eventually agreed that I could start taking it slightly earlier. I was leaving for Israel at the end of January 2014 and the agreement was I could start in August 2014. Also, I would only be on a half dose for the first few months while my body became accustomed to the medication. This meant minimal change, but at least it would be something.
I had filled the testosterone script and had it to take to Israel because it would likely be hard to access while overseas. Having the medication in my room made things a lot more real. I began counting the months till I could take it. I was starting on testosterone gel rather than injections, because it’d be easier to transport overseas and to administer myself. It would involve rubbing the serum on my upper arms and stomach. When I looked at it, I saw the possibilities for my future. I could see facial hair, muscles, a low voice and what I most longed for: comfort and happiness. I wanted it desperately. I saw it as a solution to many of my problems. I sat counting each individual packet, ensuring it was all there.
Two weeks before going away, Habo conducted a seminar with the group of people I was going with to prepare us for the program. The seminar was geared towards logistics as well as building relationships with the people we would be living with. There were about thirty-two people from Perth, Sydney and Melbourne and we were divided into two groups. We had a few conversations about our expectations for the year, our concerns and the support we would need. I asked my friends how they felt about living with a transgender person and if they were apprehensive about potential side effects that could come from me taking testosterone. Everyone seemed understanding and unfazed. Mostly they were confused as to why I was waiting until August to start when I was clearly distressed. I offered the explanations and justifications I had rehearsed in my head from other people’s words. But the more I said them, the less they made sense. My friends asked why I wasn’t starting as soon as I turned eighteen and I could no longer think of any reasons that came exclusively from me. Other people’s voices had taken over and I had lost my own. My voice was the most desperate, the most in need and the most affected. I needed to listen to my own voice.
I once did a first-aid course where they taught us that when someone is unconscious and not breathing they are in the worst situation they could possibly be in. Their airways are the total priority. While conducting CPR, you can accidentally break a few ribs, or injure another part of the person in order to save them, but it doesn’t matter, because they couldn’t possibly be worse off than they were at that point in time. The only important thing was to save them. This is how I felt about taking testosterone. I didn’t care if I would maybe one day in the future regret it, or if the effects were not what I anticipated. I didn’t care if it made me a “real” man, or if some relationships would be affected along the way. I know that sounds incredibly selfish, but that’s because it was. I needed to go on testosterone for my survival, and I’m not sure I would be here today had I not. So I made the most difficult decision of my life. I went against the opinion and decisions of the people I loved and trusted the most, and I decided to take testosterone as soon as I got to Israel.
Chapter 10: I Am Not A Box
I revealed to everyone the decision I had made to bypass my August testosterone date and start as soon as I arrived in Israel. I was anxious and needed their support. My parents reacted badly. They felt I was going behind their backs after we had settled on a later time to take the medication. They didn’t understand that the compromise had mostly been mine. Tia was angry too. I felt like everyone was against me.
There was also the issue of whether the coordinators of the program would allow me to take the testosterone. I had still not received an official answer from Habo. I decided to wait until I arrived in Israel. Whether I began then and there, or tried to plead with them further, depended on their answer.
I felt my year away was going to be transitional in many ways. I was embarking on a leadership program with passionate young activists determined to engage critically with Israel. I knew I was going to change. I was going to develop ideologically – living apart from my family would lead to significant growth. I would deal with intense and challenging social situations, and it made sense to add testosterone to the mix because shying away from one kind of transition while everything else was going to change didn’t make any sense. It was a year of transition.
I was scared to go overseas, and the reality is I was scared to take testosterone. I had been dealing so much with other people’s concerns that I didn’t have any time to think about my own relationship with the medication. All I had been thinking about was the positives. There wasn’t enough space for me to be scared because then I would feel like I was just succumbing to my family’s worries. I wasn’t sure how I would change. I was worried I would grow away from my friends and from Tia, and that petrified me. The idea of leaving for a year was scary. At the airport, walking away from my family, friends and Tia, I had never felt more alone. I
turned my back to them as I entered the tunnel leading to the plane. I had no idea what was waiting for me and who I would be when I came home.
The day after my arrival in Israel I spoke to the program coordinator and asked for her verdict on me taking testosterone. She said that no one would know whether I took it or not, she hadn’t received a straight answer about it, and I should do what I thought was right for me. I appreciated this answer. I knew she couldn’t explicitly tell me it was okay without approval from the head of the movement, but she also knew it was no one’s business but mine. So on 29 January 2014, cramped in a small bathroom in a hotel in Tel Aviv with two friends, I applied my testosterone gel for the first time. I was away from judgement, disapproval and misunderstanding, and I felt free to do what I knew I had needed to do for a long time. I walked out of that bathroom the same person that had gone in. The world hadn’t ended and everything was going to be okay. I was sure I’d done the right thing.
I wasn’t going to experience any significant changes for a while, particularly on a half-dose, but there was something comforting in the thought that there was testosterone coursing through my veins. I felt peaceful, like I didn’t need to fight my body any more. It was going to start doing what I wanted it to.
Meanwhile, I was attending a seminar with members of other Jewish youth movements as an opening to the program we were about to begin. The seminar was an interesting time. I was surrounded by a lot of people I didn’t know and passing significantly less than I was used to. Many of my fellow attendees had never met someone who wasn’t cisgender (that they knew of), and many were quite religious. I knew they would not understand or approve of my lifestyle and I definitely didn’t feel safe coming out to them. I felt paranoid about how I was being read. I didn’t have the chance to run off and talk to my friends about my feelings, so I internalised them.
I was scared of being outed as trans because I thought that would compromise the many gender-divided activities in the seminar, such as prayers, sleeping arrangements and bathrooms. I was worried I would be completely isolated if people knew, and that meant every time I was misgendered, I wasn’t just concerned about being seen as who I truly was, I was worried about my safety. It didn’t feel right hanging out with the guys; we were very different. And I was apprehensive about spending too much time with the girls, as it could be an indicator I wasn’t like the other men. The seminar lasted a week and as soon as I was alone with the members of my own movement, I felt safer.
I was finding that testosterone allowed me to focus on other things. Gender was no longer at the forefront of my mind because I had a newfound comfort in my body. Knowing that changes were happening slowly felt like a daily affirmation and evidence I could be whoever I wanted to be. And because changes were gradual, I wasn’t as obsessed with monitoring them as I had anticipated. I thought I would scrutinise every minor change, make videos and comparison photos, but I was so busy and distracted that I wasn’t overly conscious of how I looked, which I think was very positive. Had I transitioned while at home, I believe I would have paid far more attention to the little details. I’m glad that, for the most part, my mind was elsewhere. I began a transition channel on YouTube like many trans people before me had done. I wanted to offer something in return after those channels had done so much for me. I made a video every month.
Changes were happening. I was grateful my period stopped earlier than expected. It wasn’t necessarily something that caused me stress, but it was certainly a major inconvenience I was happy to be rid of. Plus I would save plenty of money on sanitary items.
My voice began to drop, hair grew in places it hadn’t before like my stomach, toes and upper arms, veins began to pop out more, my appetite increased dramatically and I gained a lot of weight. This was scary because of my turbulent history with weight and exercise, but I was in such a safe environment that I was surprised to find it didn’t bother me. Plus being exposed to new and exciting oily Middle Eastern food meant a lot of people were gaining weight alongside me. Over time I developed more acne, more pronounced muscles, a change in body odour, my face became fuller, my voice cracked more frequently and I had significant struggles with crying. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to cry; I absolutely love crying. I think testosterone halted my tear production and made it a lot more difficult to cry. That made me want to cry. My voice changed and it hurt my throat to sing too high. I became self-conscious about my voice and the loss of range I was experiencing, and I stopped singing completely for over a year.
With each day on testosterone my dysphoria was alleviating, however I still felt different to the people I was with. I was one of the only queer-identifying people and I was the only trans person. I had left behind my queer community and chose to prioritise my Jewish community for the year, but I definitely missed embracing that aspect of my identity. When I found out we were going to be in another seminar with people in our youth movement from Israel and North America and there were going to be two other transgender guys attending, I was incredibly excited. I loved that being transgender didn’t have to define who I was in every aspect and that I could fit in with non-queer people, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t lonely sometimes. I couldn’t wait to meet these other trans men and discuss our transitions. I thought it was amazing that my movement had other trans people in it, and to me that solidified there was a safe place for me within this community.
I met the trans guys and straight away compared myself to them. I wanted to see who looked more “believably” like a man. Then I felt guilty for even thinking about it. After speaking with them briefly, I realised we had little in common. We discussed transition-related topics, then there wasn’t much more we could talk about. Conversation didn’t flow like I thought it would and I didn’t feel very connected to them. I realised that just because we may have had certain aspects of our identity in common, this didn’t mean we were destined to be friends. It reminded me of when I was a lesbian and people would say, “Oh, you’re a lesbian? I have a lesbian friend you should meet!” Being part of the same marginalised group means there is a certain solidarity and shared experience, but it’s not the only factor that contributes to a strong relationship.
Being a trans person in Israel had some interesting moments. Aside from the very blatant misgenderings I encountered without the social filter I had become accustomed to in Australia, there was also the aspect of religion. I was not heavily involved in the religious world either at home or in Israel. I don’t consider myself particularly religious. I am deeply and wholly Jewish, but for me that is more to do with the culture, language, music, food and engagement in community, than the religion.
For a few months, my program had us based in Jerusalem, and suddenly I was confronted with the Jewish religion in a way I had managed to avoid throughout my transition. The moment I realised this was on a trip to the Western Wall, one of the holiest places for the Jewish people. The Wall is divided into two parts: the men’s section and the women’s. I was already feeling displaced there. I had been to the Wall before and was told I would have some sort of transcendent spiritual and religious feeling, which I didn’t, so I was underwhelmed to be there again. I had only ever been to the women’s section (which for the record is about half the size of the men’s) and I was afraid to enter the men’s, considering I wasn’t passing as frequently in Israel as I was used to. I decided both for spiritual reasons and gender-related safety that I wouldn’t go up to the Wall; I would watch from afar and ask my friends how their experiences were.
Not going up to the Wall was the right decision for me at the time, but I had a lot less choice when it came to needing to pee. I headed straight for the men’s toilets and was glared at by the men in long black coats and big fluffy hats. It was terrifying. I thought I might be arrested.
Over the months that we lived in Jerusalem, I became accustomed to being stared at, feeling unsafe in religious spaces and sometimes even being yelled at. As a group, we often went into the homes of religious peopl
e. These generous, beautiful people opened their homes to travellers or non-citizens who needed a place to go to for Friday night dinner, which is a time for Jewish people to come together with family, take a break from the week and be close to each other. Growing up with family dinners every Friday night, it can feel like a very lonely time when away from home, and these people took it upon themselves to create an open house for anyone in need. These were people I would rarely encounter in my usual life. I was grateful to be in their homes but I felt like I had to hide away from them as a trans person. I was cautious every time I opened my mouth, in case anything I said would accidentally indicate my trans or queer identity.
In the Jewish religion, men and women are not allowed to touch each other before marriage, unless they are family. It was affirming when religious men shook my hand – it meant they were seeing me as a man. Though in the same moment I felt guilty, as if I was tricking them into committing a sin. I wasn’t sure how Jewish law navigated non-normative gender identities, if at all.
I did go to the Western Wall on the men’s side one day and ignored the stares that came my way. It wasn’t a heartfelt or revolutionary moment; I simply felt out of place.
Nevo at their brother’s wedding, nineteen years old (2015)
Chapter 11: Here, Queer and Jewish
I had been away for around eight months when my mum came to Israel to visit me. My mum and I were in contact most days through the glorious modern technologies of WhatsApp, Skype, Viber and Facebook. She was fairly updated on my program, my journey and my feelings, and had been watching my YouTube videos so she could follow the changes I was experiencing on testosterone. I was eager for her arrival and looking forward to spending some time on weekends and holidays getting away from a household of sixteen people.