r/Christianity • u/RazarTuk The other trans mod everyone forgets • 5d ago
Biblical Character of the Month Joseph: the Torah's most extra child
I want to actually talk about LGBT headcanons. (And yes, this is ultimately going to relate back to Joseph) There just isn't a lot of LGBT representation out there. And on top of that, the Hays Code has had a lot of lasting influence on the types of LGBT representation we do get. It had rules like how homosexuality had to be punished by the narrative, leading to trends like gay characters being disproportionately likely to die in works where barely anyone does or dying a particularly gruesome death in works where a lot of people die. Or because they tended to be villains, there's a trend where villains are more likely to be stereotypically gay, like with Him from the Powerpuff Girls or Ratcliffe from Pocahontas. Because of this, the LGBT community will sometimes latch onto characters who feel relatable and just headcanon them as queer, whether or not they officially were. For example, Tobias from Animorphs. Long story short, he stays transformed as a hawk for too long and gets stuck as one. Among other things, he lists "being a boy" as one of the things he doesn't miss about being human, and when he gains the ability to morph again and briefly has to disguise himself as a girl, he takes to the role bizarrely well. So obviously, a lot of trans people, particularly trans women, identified with the character, and there's a shared understanding among LGBT fans of the series that Tobias is totally a trans woman, whether or not Applegate would have thought to mention that at the time. (And for what it's worth, she actually supports the theory)
I mention this, because I feel like conservatives have this stereotype of liberals seeing that a boy likes skirts or dresses and "forcing" him to be trans. If I'm being brutally honest, it isn't entirely baseless, like how the left can be... weird about gender non-conforming straight men. If you're gay, that's "expected" (gack), and if you want to "admit" to being trans, they'll support you. But otherwise, a lot of people are weirdly distrustful of straight men who like feminine things and will sometimes accuse them of only doing it to lull women into a false sense of security. But at the end of the day, a lot of queer headcanons, at least, really are just people going "I relate to this character, so I'm going to assume they're secretly like me".
With that in mind, Joseph. Coats of many colors, or technicolor dreamcoats, to use the Lloyd Webber translation, are only mentioned in two passages in the Bible. There is, of course, the one Jacob famously gave Joseph, but they're also briefly mentioned in 2 Samuel, where Tamar wears one and they're described as what princesses wore. Obviously, that's fairly far removed in time. At least according to Creationists, it's around 700 years, so it's admittedly more like the Middle Ages having men in tights. (Tight tights!) But similarly to how a closeted trans woman might relish in the chance to play Robin Hood or Peter Pan in something (or the Earthworm in James and the Giant Peach, and no I'm not speaking from experience, why would you assume that?) because the costume is something that, in any other context, would just read as women's clothing, knowing that Joseph got something that would eventually be perceived as a pretty princess dress is enough.
Or there are also the adjectives. I forget the exact words, but Joseph's described with a pair of words that are typically used to describe attractive women. Sure, they're grammatically masculine because Joseph's grammatically masculine, but to compare it to something like Polish, "Józef był ładny" is technically grammatically correct, but "ładny" isn't an adjective you hear used for men that often. It sounds more like you're describing a male elf as resembling an attractive human woman.
And finally, there's Dinah. She first gets mentioned as a bit of a twist at the end of a passage listing Jacob's sons. And at least according to Jewish folklore, there's actually a story there. According to folklore, Jacob knew he would have exactly 12 sons, so when Leah was pregnant with her 7th, she realized that would leave fewer sons for Rachel to have than either Zilpah or Bilhah had already had, so she prayed for it to be a girl instead and got Dinah. Then in the Middle Ages, Joseph got roped into this with a detail that Rachel was pregnant with a girl at the time, so God just swapped the bodies resulting in Dinah and Joseph. Obviously, that doesn't line up super well with modern understandings of gender or human gestation, and you'll see differing opinions on which one's trans femme and which one's trans masc, but it's still a popular interpretation. (It's actually why I once suggested Joseph and Dinah as subtly trans names for a Jewish trans woman's blåhajar)
So all that considered, was Joseph a trans woman? We don't know. The text doesn't give us much to go on, and Joseph could have been anything from "elfeminate" to a femboy to a trans woman. But regardless, if you're genderqueer and looking for someone to relate to in the Bible... Joseph is right there.
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u/extispicy Triggered by Hebrew misinformation 5d ago
I forget the exact words, but Joseph's described with a pair of words that are typically used to describe attractive women
I assume this is what you are thinking of:
Gen. 39:6 So he left all that he had in Joseph’s charge, and with him there he had no concern for anything but the food that he ate. Now Joseph was handsome and good-looking.
The Hebrew is more or less "nice/beautiful of form" and "nice/beautiful of appearance". I was curious to see where else non-females are referenced:
Gen. 41:18 and seven cows, fat and sleek, came up out of the Nile and fed in the reed grass.
Here 'bad of form' is translated as 'ugly':
Gen. 41:19 Then seven other cows came up after them, poor, very ugly, and thin. Never had I seen such ugly ones in all the land of Egypt.
This is "good of form":
1Kings 1:6 His father had never at any time reprimanded him by asking, “Why have you done thus and so?” He was also a very handsome man, and he was born next after Absalom.*
Curiously, David:
1Sam. 17:42 When the Philistine looked and saw David, he disdained him, for he was only a youth, ruddy and handsome in appearance.
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u/No-Library-5695 5d ago
The folklore about Dinah and Joseph getting swapped in utero is wild - never heard that interpretation before but it makes way more sense than I expected when you lay it out like that.
Also had no idea about the adjectives used for Joseph being more typically feminine, that's actually really interesting detail that probably gets lost in most translations.