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Der shtern. דער שטערן. The brow, the star. The ridge on my skull I obsess over. This brow makes me feel like a monster, testosterone marred, like a man, I think. I see through society’s eyes the monster they make of me. I clock myself. I allow myself to forget it is a star the very top of my being. And how could I forget the story of the monster they made me out to be, that also held the spell to their undoing? When they created me, the golem, they brought me to life by inscribing the word אמת, truth, upon my forehead. In their minds they made me a monster. Their monster. Because they could not face truth themselves, they gave it to me. Of course the truth was already there, they merely wrote it out. Upon my forehead, my shtern, my star, truth. Like anthropologists labeling their collection, they wrote truth on my star.

#golem #yiddish #trans jew #trans allegory #trans #jewish folklore #jewish magic #writing #musings #creative writing

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Golem as trans allegory? Monstering the other. Trans as in resculpting oneself like clay. Clay as constructing gender. They brand the word “truth” on its forehead to create a monster of the other. They call it soulless. It instills fear in those who feel deep down the way it challenges their very worldview. By living its “truth,” its spell awakens other golems, “cracks more eggs.”

And it exists to protect its community. The monstering of the golem is intended to protect cisheteronormativity (or any binary border enforcer), but branding it with “truth” actually acknowledges its transgressive power. Not truth as in “monster,” truth as in “your monsters reveal you.”

No borders cross the golem. Armed with its truth, its trans golemnity (lol) is an unstoppable spell. It reveals the true monstrosity of those who branded it. Like Adam, earthen, who was without gender before cis-God fucked him & Eve, the golem’s elemental. With earth, not against.

#monster #golem #trans #allegory #gender #story #jewish folklore #trans allegory #clay golem #trans jew #borderless

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Pages from mini zines about Jewish folklore (the series includes zines on golems, dybbuk, malachim and sheydim) by illustrator / zinester, Ezra Rose. Buy them here and pay what you like.