Inthrough the door of life, Stern College professor Joy Ladin offers this analysis of why her colleague Moshe Tendler reacted so negatively to her announcement that she is transsexual: “Rabbi Tendler isn’t only worried about what I am; he is worried about what I mean.”This pithy line sums up why things transgender unsettle us so. It also hints at why this book is a worthwhile read for anyone. Ladin unfolds, in essay after essay, just what it took for her to figure out what she means and come to peace with it.As a transgender person myself, I know this particular state of disorientation intimately. As I grew up I wondered, what did it mean that I, a biological female, could be so essentially male? What did it mean that I wanted to wear boys’ clothes from the time I was able to distinguish the difference between men’s and women’s garb? What did it mean that perfect strangers felt enough of a need to know my gender — when I was five years old — that they would unceremoniously ask, “Are you a boy or a girl?” When I finally realized the answer to that question was, “No, I’m not,” I started to get a glimmer of what I meant.My transition story is similar to Ladin’s in many ways — both of us are Jewish and transitioned in our forties while raising young children and in a committed relationship. However, the sociological backdrop for transmen and transwomen is very different, and Ladin lived through years of stuggle without the pressure relief systems that I enjoyed. Nevertheless, with a heap of pluck, the balm of love, and the promise of a new generation, she made her way through.Through her sometimes wrenching and sometimes funny memoir, Ladin discovers surprising strengths in her family of origin, even as she grasps the fragility of her thirty-year marriage.Her mother proves to be a wonderful shopping date, and, after a few short days of reorienting her parenting, her mother is able to see that she now has a daughter rather than a son. Ladin recalls the following from their first retail outing: “ ‘Do you have shoes?’ my mother asked. These, she told me, would be comfortable and practical. ‘Naturalizer is a good name,’ she said, . . . ‘but here they are too expensive.’ ” The elder Ladin surprisingly doesn’t miss a beat, and the younger settles into her new daughterly role, noting that this boutique bonding was a rite of passage for them both.The impact of transition on Ladin’s marriage was another rite of passage, irreparable and painful to all parties involved. It is in these disclosures that Ladin takes us very close to her own bones. Her ability to receive her wife’s disappointment and anger with compassion is inspiring. After one particularly painful interaction, Ladin says, “In the silence that follows, I hear her heart breaking again.” And we are made privy to the escalating price Ladin is paying to redeem her true expression of self, to find out what she means.With honesty and humility, Ladin takes us on her orienteering journey away from maleness and toward her well-hidden femininity. With her readers riding shotgun, she recounts a ricocheting trajectory from full-bore wretchedness to exquisite peace. We follow her through decades of questioning, myriad attempts to override her truth, and finally a series of cliff leaps that bring her out of the oppressive narrows of gender conformity and into the expansive, if daunting, land of her own liberation. Ladin learns how to create birdseed boobs, what hairstyle will work with her curly mop, and the ins and outs of pursuing high fashion on a shoestring budget. Some episodes are funny and others are tragic, but together they produce a classic hero’s tale.Had Ladin not been a teacher in an Orthodox women’s college, she might have blipped a little less obviously on the gender radar screen. As it was, the newspapers reported on her transition, the Jewish press weighed in, and, like it or not, Joy Ladin became a Jewish transgender poster girl virtually overnight. The return to her teaching position was plastered all over the news. She became an accidental beacon, an unassuming hero, and a spiritually naked spokeswoman for transcendence and transformation.Most of us, with or without the additional excitement of gender dysphoria, clomp through life attempting to figure out what our lives mean. Ultimately what we mean is described by the company we keep. That is to say, our true worth is calculated by those around us and how we affect them. Regardless of our value in dollars and cents, how many years we breathe, or how many inches gird our waist, what really counts is whether our being leaves a trail of scorched earth or warm memories.Ladin’s memoir blows the lid on the fact that being transgender is actually a fantastic opportunity to find out what it means to be fully human. She reveals that moving from a murky sense of self to a blazingly awakened state of consciousness is within reach, even for those who think they don’t have the stomach for it. Additionally, she has to grapple with her own spirituality and evaluate what God means to her. She wrestles with God’s own “coming out.” When Moses has his encounter with God at the burning bush, he asks, “Who are you?” and God nonchalantly answers, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh.” Loosely translated, this means, “I will be what I will be.” With God’s example as a guidepost, Ladin chooses to discover again and again what she means and who she will be.Growing up, as we all do, in a world where binary gender is the rule, one of the first lessons learned is that one is either a boy or a girl. If we sense that there was some mix-up in our prenatal gender assignment, questions arise. Why do I feel so uncomfortable in my own skin? Can people tell? Am I the only one? Eventually all these questions reduce down to one: why me? Which, as it turns out, is an excellent question — one any respectable spiritual warrior (of any gender) should be asking oneself constantly. “Why me?” is a potboiler, one-size-fits-all, awesome question suitable for almost every existential crisis.Even Moses has to wrestle with this question. The first time Moses utters this question, he actually says, “Mi anochi?” (Who am I?). Moses doesn’t understand why God would choose him, of all people, to play the role of liberator, leader, and inspirer of an oppressed people. Moses doesn’t see that his own struggle with identity is his qualification. Hebrew by birth, with an Egyptian royal upbringing, and having married into an upper-middle-class Midianite family — who better than Moses to lead a social revolution? His incredulity at being chosen to tackle a seemingly impossible job is understandable. His skills were developed so he could herd sheep, not people; he doubts his abilities as an orator; and with a lethal anger management problem in his history, he is well aware that entering into a confrontation with Pharaoh may upset the pastoral life into which he has settled. Mi anochi? Who am I to make a difference? Who am I to be followed? Who am I to spark a social revolution? I guess that if this was a head scratcher for Moses, it is going to be a mystery for the rest of us. That said, I hope with all my heart and soul that all of us who have found ourselves on the business end of that question are able, someday, to manifest an answer.When the question “Why me?” arises, most of us are, like Moses, simultaneously wondering, “Couldn’t you have picked someone else?” Whatever higher power we believe “chose” us is questioned and beseeched — “Why me?” And, of course, the punch line is not delivered by an outside, Divine presence, but rather in how we rise to the challenge of finding out the answer. Moses’s question “Why me?” isn’t answered by God; it’s answered eventually by Moses himself.Ladin follows this biblical example, and that is the beauty of her story. She shows that “Why me?” is a question to be answered simply through bold, gracious, and honest expressions of our true selves. Why me? Because the world isn’t complete until each of us manifests our essence. Why me? Because you are the only one who can tell your story. Why me? Because you are important.As I read Ladin’s winding, zigzagging tale, I was struck by how very different it was from my own gender journey. As she notes, “No woman will be surprised to hear that it’s easier to become male than to become female.” I agree wholeheartedly. I was blessed to have been born at a time when my drive to wear Levi 501s raised no eyebrows. For transwomen-in-training, there was no equivalent access to cross-gender fashion expression. At the very least, I had some pre-transition freedom in what clothes I was able to put on my complicated body. While Ladin found out how to create makeshift breasts on a shoestring budget, I could flatten my chest with an easily procurable undershirt or, in a pinch, a sports bra. Once transition was underway, Ladin had to master the art of makeup, vocal placement, body language, and the incomprehensible art of color coordination, while all I had to do was drag a razor over my face (or not). She had to replace her entire wardrobe; I already had mine. Nevertheless, we shared many of the same stumbling blocks: which bathroom to use, when to switch pronouns, how to tell our children, and constantly wondering why God would choose us for such a miserable task.On my way, I met feminists who were aghast when I told them I was heading toward manhood. One woman said, “Jhos, you can be anything you want as a woman; that is what we have been fighting for all these years. Becoming a man is going to limit you.” And her teaching was right. I have learned that men are much more limited in their expression of self. But I, by virtue of my female and feminist past, am not. If I am able to bring some of that liberation to manhood, maybe that’s “Why me?” Early in my transition, my youngest child said to me, “I think it’s cool that you are becoming a man ’cause it’s kinda like you get to be both and that’s just, well, um, that’s really cool!” If my child is able to enter into future relationships with that same sense of acceptance and awe, well, maybe that’s “Why me.”I recognized similar moments in Ladin’s tale. When her mother tells her she looks beautiful, when she is reinstated as a teacher, or when her story touches others, she knows what she means and why she was chosen to walk this path. When she finally allows her children to see her in a fully female presentation, one of her daughters begins to cry. “Why are you crying?” Joy asks her.“Because I’ve never seen that light on your face, even when you look at us,” her daughter replies.“Yes,” Joy answered. “That’s one reason I want you to see me as my self — to share that light with you.”As Ladin tells her tale, she graciously reveals her fears, depression, and doubt. As a reader, I feel like I have been privy to the inner workings of the mind and body of an Olympic hurdler. In each chapter, Ladin faces another obstacle, builds speed, raises her heels off the ground, and manages to clear the fence like a gazelle escaping a predator. She generously lets the reader see her at her agonized worst, and she humbly shares her moments of personal triumph over depression, anger, exhaustion, and doubt. Most importantly, it is clear that it is her faith, her Jewish spirituality, and her own quiet wisdom that see her through. Ladin’s real teaching goes beyond gender or Judaism however. Hers is a universal message about what it means to be a good parent, partner, child, teacher, and friend, and above all to be the best version of yourself that you can manage. After reading Ladin’s book, we should all be inspired to “be what we will be,” and no matter how hard the becoming, we should be assured that we too are created in the image of the Divine.