opinion
Stand With Transgender Teens
T his year for Transgender Day of Visibility on
March 31, some of us felt a little too visible.

It felt like all eyes are on our trans and
nonbinary teens, and not all of those looking are
gazing with the compassion trans people deserve
as beings created b’tzelem Elohim, in God’s image.

Across the nation, many states have already
passed state laws restricting the ability of trans-
gender people to access medical care, to transition
socially, or to live publicly in safety at all. In fact, at
427 bills so far this year, anti-trans legislation makes
up the largest category of bills proposed in state
houses — more than infrastructure bills, budget bills,
or any other category of legislation.

Why 427 similar bills all of a sudden? Why, when in
affirming states across the country, trans teens have
been allowed to use the right bathroom in school for
years with no issues?
The movement to eliminate transgenderism — that
is, to eliminate trans people from public life — is
intertwined with other hate movements. Some of the
same groups advocating for these legislative attacks
connect their hatred of trans people with their
hatred of Jews. We see that when, as ADL Center
Extremism reported, transphobic attacks on medical
programs that help transgender youth are accompa-
nied by antisemitic rhetoric and conspiracy theories.

In this environment, is it any wonder that LGBTQ
teens are at greater risk for mental health conditions,
including anxiety, depression and suicide?
According to a February report from the Center
for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of
Adolescent and School Health, 69% of LGBTQ teens
felt persistent sadness, 45% considered suicide and
22% attempted suicide, compared to 6% of non-LGBTQ
teens. To repeat: That means one out of every five
LGBTQ teens you meet has attempted suicide, and
nearly one out of every two has thought about it. This is
the future the transphobic antisemitic hate movement
wants for our trans teenagers — to die, preferably early,
never having been able to live their truth.

Thankfully, we know that support for transgen-
der teens’ identity and access to gender-affirming
medical care are powerful protective factors against
depression and suicide. For example, gender-affirm-
ing medical care was associated with a 60% drop in
depression and a 73% decrease in suicidality in this
study of trans and nonbinary teens reported in the
Journal of the American Medical Association.

14 APRIL 27, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
It is an act of pikuach nefesh, the Jewish value
of saving a life, to ensure that our trans teens are
fully supported in living into their full selves. Not
only because the facts are that trans teens who are
supported have a much lower rate of depression and
suicide, but because it saves the potential person
they could have been.

I believe that a sacred vision sees and loves our
trans teens in all their infinite potential.

Thankfully, scores of Jewish organizations —
Federations, Jewish Community Relations Councils
and individual synagogues — are working to support
transgender teens in the face of these difficulties,
participating in the Thrive Coalition, led by Keshet
and Sojourn. The Thrive coalition tracks, studies and
organizes against anti-trans legislation. Working with
Jewish organizations like these, I know I’m not alone
in striving to help trans youth be able to live full and
healthy lives.

Moving Traditions — where I work — is also helping
to build an ecosystem of support for trans youth
through programs such as Tzelem, a teen group curric-
ulum for trans, nonbinary and LGBQ youth, created in
partnership with Keshet. Together with our commu-
nity partners, there are 20 Tzelem groups across the
country serving more than 150 participants.

According to Moving Traditions’ robust outcomes
data, youth in the Tzelem program learn that the
Jewish community is here to support them, that
they are not alone and that they are made b’tzelem
Elohim. For example, 94% of the teens in Tzelem report
that in this group, they have developed a connection
to a supportive community, found a place where
they could be themselves and feel accepted for
who they are, and felt supported in their mental,
emotional, social and/or spiritual health needs by
their peers. And 100% of respondents report that
within Tzelem, they feel supported in their mental,
emotional, social and/or spiritual health needs by
their group leader, the trained adult mentor who
facilitates our curriculum.

These findings align with what mental health
experts identify as some of the most powerful
protective factors against mental health crises,
particularly for LGBTQ youth. We know from scien-
tific studies of resilience that a robust support
network and a sense of connection are powerful
protective factors against mental health crises in
the future.

The news about new anti-transgender laws can
feel overwhelming, but the antidote to overwhelm
is action. Here are three ways you can positively
support trans teens on the Transgender Day of
Visibility and throughout the year:
• If you have trans, nonbinary or gender-ques-
tioning teens in your life, please help them get
through this difficult and scary time by connecting
them to resources for support, such as our Tzelem
groups, which give Jewish teens a safe place to
be themselves.

• Educate yourself and other adults: Help connect
parents and helpers of trans teens to educational
resources. Moving Traditions also offers parent
education programs, such as Demystifying Teen
Language Around Gender. Keshet helps to train
staff and leadership of synagogues and Jewish
organizations on LGBTQ inclusion.

• If you don’t directly know any trans teens, please
consider supporting Moving Traditions and Keshet
and spreading the word about our work.

It might be through you that a trans teen makes the
connection that could save a life. ■
Kerrick Goodman-Lucker is a curriculum manager for
Moving Traditions and a transgender man.

betka82/ Sdobestock
Kerrick Goodman-Lucker



opinion
Lawsuits Are Key to Fighting
Antisemitism Phillis Chesler
F or the last 20 years, many of us have
documented the overwhelming rise of hostility
on American campuses toward Israel, Jewish
students and professors who do not toe the party line.

The hostility seems to be based on the extraordi-
nary effectiveness of long-term propaganda online,
in mass media, at the United Nations, among NGOs,
in textbooks about anti-racism (which do not include
Muslim/Jew hatred), in countless campuswide
spectacles such as Israel Apartheid Week and BDS
campaigns, biased curriculum, textbooks on preju-
dice (which do not include Jew hatred in general),
well-funded anti-Israel speakers and extraordinarily
vulgar and vicious rhetoric against Israel and Jewish
students from both activists and professors.

How does one dismantle Big Lies that are believed
to be living truth? How does one open minds — if not
hearts — when reason no longer prevails and “free
speech” is expressed by shouting, rioting, overwhelm-
ing the platform and trying to hold speakers hostage,
when chaos is used to eliminate opposing ideas?
One way is by bringing lawsuits that demand an end
to such subpar education and that the documented
humiliation, harassment and persecution of Jewish
students and professors be remedied.

I reviewed 10 such lawsuits brought from 2018-2023
by the American Center for Law and Justice (City
University of New York in 2022); the Louis D. Brandeis
Center for Human Rights Under Law (University of
Southern California in 2020, the University of Vermont
in 2021 and SUNY New Paltz in 2022); StandWithUs
(University of California Los Angeles in 2020, Hunter
College CUNY in 2021 and George Washington
University in 2023); student Sasha Westrick (Temple
University in 2022); the law firm Winston & Strawn,
LLP and the Lawfare Project (San Francisco State
University in 2018); and private attorneys Joel Siegel
and Neal M. Sher (New York University in 2019).

The grounds for the lawsuits were diverse: Students
being expelled or refused membership in student
groups based on their pro-Israel and/or Zionist
viewpoints. Exclusion from campus events. Social
media posts that read “all Zionists [need] to die,”
leading to the closure of the campus Jewish center.

Physical injuries to Jewish students and desecration
of Jewish centers. Professors and students espous-
ing, cheering and clapping for pro-Palestinian views
that falsely label Israel a “white supremacist” nation
that engages in “ethnic cleansing.” Hijacking a Zoom
class background by posting Palestinian flags. The
vandalism of a Jewish student’s campaign posters.

In one case at CUNY, students were observed carry-
ing swastikas on campus and using class time to accuse
Israel of settler-colonialism and ethnic cleansing. Some
Jewish students had their grades lowered, and one
student was forced to resign her position as vice presi-
dent of student government for defending Israel or
refusing to hide their Jewish heritage and culture.

The proposed legal remedies have ranged from
revising current anti-discrimination and anti-harass-
ment policies (at NYU and UVM, to name two) to
taking (unknown) disciplinary action against students
and faculty who have participated in antisemitism
Most suggested remedies
focus on revising current
policies and training to
include antisemitism and
anti-Zionism among its
prohibited forms of
discrimination. (such as the professor at Hunter College who partic-
ipated in the Zoom “hijacking”). Most suggested
remedies focus on revising current policies and train-
ing to include antisemitism and anti-Zionism among its
prohibited forms of discrimination.

According to Lauri Regan of EMET: “Title VI of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 bars federal funds to be paid
to a college that discriminates on the basis of race,
color or national origin. This needs to be expanded
to include religion, which is why the passage of the
Antisemitism Awareness Act is so critically important.”
“As we know, anti-Israel views pervade campus
programming and curricula and with no repercus-
sions,” she said. “We need to know if programs and
departments receiving Title VI funding … are pushing
a radical, antisemitic agenda. Are courses offering
highly biased syllabi or even antisemitic textbooks
and curricular materials? Are public institutions paying
membership dues to organizations dedicated to the
destruction of Israel?”
Attorney Yael Lerman of StandWithUs said, “One
thing we see as crucial (but difficult if not impossible
to mandate) is that the antisemitism training we are
requesting be based in a proper understanding of
Zionism — that is, Zionism as a key component of
Jewish identity. When understood in this context,
anti-Zionism in most cases is not a political position
but rather an identity-based attack of anti-Jewish
bigotry, also known as antisemitism.”
“This is why the adoption of [the International
Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of
antisemitism] is so important — it provides the critical
context and proper understanding of what is and is
not antisemitism,” she asserted.

According to Lori Lowenthal Marcus of the Deborah
Project, “Title VI isn’t even the best claim to bring (yet),
because it does not include religion as a protected
class. [We] are pushing hard to get antisemitism/
anti-Zionism to fit under the concepts of national
origin and/or ethnicity, both of which are protected
classes under Title VI.”
“We also made First Amendment (free exercise of
religion) claims and state law anti-discrimination law
(which do include religion) claims in our ethnic studies
cases. You still want to encourage people to seek an
educational component as a remedy. I think we have
to be very careful not to allow Holocaust education to
satisfy this,” she added.

I fully agree. Such educational initiatives cannot
remain in the hands of an already biased and indoc-
trinated American professoriate and administration.

They are neither equipped nor inclined to teach that
anti-Zionism is part of the new antisemitism, Israel is
not an “apartheid” state, Jew hatred existed among
Muslims in the Middle East and central Asia long
before Israel became a sovereign nation or that
colonialism, imperialism and slavery, as well as real
gender and religious apartheid, have been perpe-
trated by many non-Western nations, some of which
continue to do so today.

To teach this in a fact-based, “nuanced” (the word of
choice) and balanced way, the administration must be
mandated to turn to outside scholars and academics.

Luckily, many historians, political scientists, theolo-
gians, archeologists, linguists, anti-propaganda
analysts, psychologists, lawyers, military intelligence
experts and others are available to do the job.

Such education should be mandatory, annual and
university-wide. Most importantly, the focus must be
on Jews — not all persecuted people in the world. ■
Phyllis Chesler is an emerita professor of psychology
and women’s studies at the City University of New
York and the author of 20 books.

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