Abby Stein is an American transgender activist, speaker, and blogger. She is the first openly transgender woman raised in a Hasidic community, and to have been ordained by an Orthodox institution.

Abby was born in 1991 to a Hasidic family in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, NY, and is a direct descendant of Hasidic Judaism founder Rabbi Yisroel ben Eliezer, better known as the Baal Shem Tov, and grandchild of Rabbi Mordechai Stein ¹.

Born to a family of 13 children, Abby followed a traditional path of a Hassidic male, attending high-school yeshiva of the Vizhnitz Hasidic community in upstate New York, and completing a rabbinical degree in 2011²
At the age of 18, an arranged marriage was set for her, and a year later her wife had a baby³.

Growing up in a Hassidic community, Abby had very little access to the internet and television, as well as very limited interaction with females. At the age of 20, Abby was able to use the internet for the first time, which led to her exposure to the possibility of becoming a transgender and provided her a platform to interact with other transgenders. This exposure set the ground for the change in Abby’s life.

 

In 2012, Abby decided to leave the Hasidic community as well as get a divorce and started a blog to document her experience ⁴. In the summer of 2013, Abby and her wife separated, and in November 2015, Abby came out as transgender and announced that she had begun hormone replacement therapy ⁵.

Abby’s story gained mainstream media coverage, attracting names such as The New York Times, New York Post, New York Magazine, NBC, Daily Dot, CNN, Fox News, HuffPost Live, and Vice Canada.

Today, Abby is a Gender Studies and Political Science student at Columbia University and a transgender rights activist and public speaker. In December 2015 Stein founded a Facebook support group for transgender people from Orthodox backgrounds. Abby also works with Footsteps, a not-for-profit organization based in New York City that provides educational, vocational, and social support to people who have left or want to leave an ultra-Orthodox or Orthodox Jewish community in the United States and its Canadian sister organization, Forward. Abby also works with Yafeed, an advocacy group dedicated to improving secular education in Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox school.

Among her many achievements, Abby was named as one of the “36 Under 36” young Jews who change the world by The Jewish Week (6, Jewishweek), received the Footsteps Leadership Award, and was named by the Times of Israel as “as one of the nine “most influential Jews who have helped make LGBTQ issues visible and are still working to enact change” ⁶.

Abby’s activism originated in New York and has been spread globally through social media, providing her the platform to affect many lives and become an influential leader.

 

Works Cited:

DISCLAIMER: All images are linked to their original sources. Some original sources may have been deleted, in which case the images should redirect to wherever the curator pulled them from.

 

1. Nussbaum Cohen, Debra. “‘Gender Began Punching Me in the Face’: How a Hasidic Rabbi Came Out as Trans Woman.”17 February. 2017.  https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.771440
2. Luk, Summer. “Interview: Abby Stein talks about being a transgender woman from a Hasidic Jewish community.” 26 April. 2016. https://www.glaad.org/blog/interview-abby-stein-talks-about-being-transgender-woman-hasidic-jewish-community
3. King, Alexandra. “Meet the former ultra-Orthodox rabbi now living as a woman.” 17 June, 2017. http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/17/health/transgender-orthodox-upbringing-trnd/index.html
4. Clark-Flory, Tracy. “DARK NET: Growing Up Trans In An Ultra-Orthodox Community.” 10 March. 2016. http://www.vocativ.com/295903/trans-orthodox-dark-net/
5. Coughlin, Sara. “14 Intimate Photos That Depict One Trans Woman’s Rapidly Changing Life.” 7 October. 2016.http://www.refinery29.com/2016/09/123226/male-to-female-transition-photos-transgender-woman
6. Dreyfus, Hannah. “Redefining ‘Inclusion’.” 24 May. 2016. http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/redefining-inclusion/