There are 15 million transgendered men and women worldwide. Yet the new autobiography, Becoming Eve, is so deeply sincere so unabashedly personal and intimate, reading the book feels as if author Abby Chavah Stein were the only person in the world who suffered the agonizing transformation to come out as a trans woman.
Born in 1983 Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the brother to twelve siblings Yisroel Avrom Ben Menachem Mendel was raised in an insular, strictly gender – segregated community of Satmar Hasidim. Raised on the authoritative writings of ancient holy books, the Talmud and Torah laws, Yisroel Avrom was Hasidic aristocracy, son of 10th generation Rabbis, descendants of Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism.
For the Satmar, contacts with the secular world is perceived as heresy. Unrestricted use of the internet, interaction with the opposite sex, choosing a life partner, eating “impure” foods, watching TV, means going “off the derech,” diverging from the path of righteousness. Fearing punishment for his “evil inclination” Yisroel Avrom submerged his sacrilegious thoughts, though he believed with all his heart, “I am a girl who is being raised as a boy.”
As a toddler he agonized at his “upsheren” a religious ceremony in which Hasidic males’ first haircut, at age three, renders him a ‘boy’. In school, Yisroel Avrom was taught very little English or math, history, or science though he had an “eizenem kop” ( steel head ) for the rigorous, religious curriculum. At recess he avoided the “shpeil platz’ a place reserved for” games and roughhousing” with boys. He loved the color pink, playing with dolls and the smell of perfume. Some days he wondered whether G-d bothered to hear his plea “let me be a girl and I will be happy to have a big family with just boys.”
A pariah in his elementary years, Yisroel Avrom submissively continued his studies at Gibbers Yeshiva ascribing his unidentifiable feelings to “being possessed by demons”. The intense seminary curriculum led him toward rabbinic ordination and marriage. Under the chupa Yisroel Avrom thought, “I should be the bride”. At “kollel” (seminary for married men) he struggled to maintain his sanity, remained in his marriage to Fraidy, saw the birth of his son Duvid’l and prayed for release from his duplicitous life. Pouring over arcane volumes of mysticism in Lurianic Kabbalah Yisroel Avrom read, “souls have gender” and at times, “souls get lost.” Spurred by his discovery, he mustered the courage to log onto the Internet. There he found a lifesaving organization” that validated his existence.
Becoming Eve is a triumph over “gender dysphoria,” a condition that imposed twenty-four years of unbearable psychosocial pain on Abby Chava Stein and affects others just like “her”. Now a Columbia graduate, a proud woman, Ms. Stein is a recognized activist, “trans speaker” and author. She dedicates her book to her son Duvid’l, the love of her life.
