The 8 Genders of the Talmud
Judaism has recognized nonbinary persons for millennia.
by Rachel Scheinerman
Thought nonbinary gender was a modern concept? Think again. The ancient Jewish understanding of gender was far more nuanced than many assume.
The Talmud, a huge and authoritative compendium of Jewish legal traditions, contains in fact no less than eight gender designations including:
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Zachar, male.
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Nekevah, female.
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Androgynos, having both male and female characteristics.
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Tumtum, lacking sexual characteristics.
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Aylonit hamah, identified female at birth but later naturally developing male characteristics.
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Aylonit adam, identified female at birth but later developing male characteristics through human intervention.
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Saris hamah, identified male at birth but later naturally developing female characteristics.
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Saris adam, identified male at birth and later developing female characteristics through human intervention.
In fact, not only did the rabbis recognize six genders that were neither male nor female, they had a tradition that the first human being was both.
Versions of this midrash are found throughout rabbinic literature, including in the Talmud:
Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar also said: Adam was first created with two faces (one male and the other female). As it is stated: “You have formed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.” (Psalms 139:5)
Eruvin 19a
Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar imagines that the first human was created both male and female — with two faces. Later, this original human being was separated and became two distinct people, Adam and Eve. According to this midrash then, the first human being was, to use contemporary parlance, nonbinary. Genesis Rabbah 8:1 offers a slightly different version of Rabbi Yirmeya’s teaching:
Rabbi Yirmeya ben Elazar: In the hour when the Holy One created the first human, He created him as an androgynos (one having both male and female sexual characteristics), as it is said, “male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:27)
For the rabbis, the androgynos wasn’t just a thing of the mythic past. The androgynos was in fact a recognized gender category in their present — though not with two heads, only both kinds of sex organs. The term appears no less than 32 times in the Mishnah and 283 times in the Talmud. Most of these citations are not variations on this myth, but rather discussions that consider how Jewish law (halakhah) applies to one who has both male and female sexual characteristics.
The Mishnah goes on to list ways in which an androgynos is just like any other person. Like any human being, “one who strikes him or curses him is liable.” (Bikkurim 4:3) Similarly, one who murders an androgynos is, well, a murderer.
But the androgynos is also unlike a man or a woman in other important legal respects — for instance, such a person is not liable for entering the Temple in a state of impurity as both a man and woman would be.
The rabbis also recognized that some people’s sexual characteristics can change with puberty — either naturally or through intervention.
Less common than the androgynos and tumtum, but still found throughout rabbinic texts, are the aylonit, who is born with organs identified as female at birth but develops male characteristics at puberty or no sex characteristics at all, and the saris, who is born with male-identified organs and later develops features recognized as female (or no sex characteristics). These changes can happen naturally over time (saris hamah) or with human intervention (saris adam).
Sauce: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-eight-genders-in-the-talmud/