Enjoy your position of privilege that this stuff doesn’t threaten your existence :)
People sometimes assume religious traditions’ ideas about gender have always been conservative and unchanging.
In many cases, “conservative” views are actually new! Conservatisms always claim to stand for the values of the past, but they quite often make up a past that didn’t actually occur.
“The past” - you know, back when they were much younger and didn’t know how the world worked, so they made up a bunch of assumptions in their head and got mad whenever anyone told them they were wrong because it was obvious they were right since they’re brilliant and they came up with it.
case in point : wahhabism
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wahhabism#Criticism_by_other_Muslims
you say that until you see their Tumblr posts, then you would’ve lost the ancient rabbis
I always interpreted the “don’t be gay” Bible thing to mean “if you’re not gay, don’t pretend to be” kinda thing. So I’ve always thought what the Bible says is wrong is to not accept your sexuality & try to change it.
I don’t think the bible says “don’t be gay”, I think it says something like “thou shalt not lay with a man as with a woman - that is an abomination”.
I grew up an Orthodox Jew (I’m not as an adult). The way I learned it was that existing as a gay person, as in, that’s simply who you are, isn’t problematic. The issue is the act of gay sex itself, which is what the verse in the Torah refers to.
That is to say, your understanding is correct.
Disclaimer: I don’t care about it myself. Just explaining it how I was taught in Orthodox schools.
Hermaphroditus is literally older than Jesus. Of course the ancients knew about them. We still use their words to describe Hermaphrodites.
You’re not wrong, however it’s worth mentioning that the intersex community in general would prefer that term not be used
