Trapped in a man's body in an unforgiving community

For obvious reasons, J, who is in her 30s, wants to stay anonymous and conceal her secret self while she remains within the heart of the Charedi community in Britain. She speaks in a quiet, halting way as though the words have a long, difficult journey to come out.

Being 'trans'

● Transgender (or trans) is an umbrella term for anyone who knows themselves to be a gender that is different to the gender they were assigned at birth.
● Some transgender people modify their bodies through medical means.
● In a recent survey, 48 per cent of trans people under 26 said they had attempted suicide, while 59 per cent said they had at least considered doing so.
● The survey found 59 per cent of transgender youth said they had deliberately hurt themselves, compared with 8.9 per cent of all 16- to 24-year-olds.
Information from www.keshetuk.org

Raised in a large family, she first began experiencing what she calls "feelings of incongruity" when she was six. "I tried to block the feelings out. I didn't want to believe I was crazy," she says. But as she grew older, the feelings became more intense and she withdrew more into herself.

"My teenage years were very confusing. I had no sexual feelings but when I was able to hide, I would cross-dress. I used to take clothes into the bathroom. But my mother found some women's clothes among my own. She said, 'Don't do something so stupid again,' and threatened to send me to a therapist. But I continued discreetly. I felt more in tune with myself. There was no chance of discussing it with anybody because in the Charedi world, it is something which is just not tolerated.

"I had nowhere to turn. I didn't think I deserved sympathy. I thought I was evil for who I was, that I deserved a worse kind of treatment."

Suffering in silence in yeshivah, it was not until J was 20 that she was able to open up to a friend, an older, worldlier, modern Orthodox man who bought J one or two relevant books and introduced her to the internet to find out more.

"I decided it was time to lay it on the table. My parents were suggesting I get married but I wasn't interested. So I gathered the courage and told them. It was awful, a big mistake," J says.

"Their reaction was not negative as such. I was told I would be understood and accepted. But my father told me the next morning that I'd kept my mother up the whole night crying and that was a terrible thing to do to a mother."

Despite her reservations, a shidduch was found for J and she went through with the marriage. "I don't have much recollection of the wedding," she says. "My parents are very primitive and believe that you get married because that's the only thing you can possibly do. I didn't have the tools to figure things out. I just wanted to make them happy.

"I came out to my spouse shortly after, when the marriage wasn't the remedy I thought it was. She was very upset, and I thought, 'We have to get divorced.' She said my family would disown me, I'd have to stay married or everyone would find out."

Although J was able to produce children, she remained unattracted to women. Try as she would to suppress her inner feelings, they grew stronger. Privately she had adopted a female name. "When I was 22, I had my first suicidal thought, and often had them. I even made one attempt. I swallowed a bunch of pills but nothing came of it.

"When my wife was out, I would cross-dress and she did on occasion catch me. She yelled at me but she got used to it and many years later told me to do it quietly."

J even tried "conversion therapy"- a controversial form of counselling that promised to rid her of her transgender feelings. "The therapist told me whenever I felt the urge to cross-dress, he would do some waving of the hand and relieve me of it," J recalls.

"Cross-dressing was a very minor factor. The only means of identity came out in clothes. It is something I resisted because that's what you do in the Charedi world and I believed in that world. I never thought about leaving the community until a couple of years ago."

Four years ago, J began contacting other Orthodox people in the same position via an international email group called the Dina List (according to rabbinic legend, Jacob's daughter Dinah was transformed from male to female in her mother's womb). J is also in touch with Keshet UK, the organisation that works for the inclusion of LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) Jews within the Jewish community.

She bought hormone tablets over the internet but ran out of money. "When I was on hormones, I felt much more confident, much better." She even ordered injections online. "I didn't care if my life was in danger. "

Around a year ago, a doctor referred J to an NHS gender identity clinic. "I want to stay alive, I have no other way of preserving life," she says.

"I'd like to get divorced, leave the community, go through transition and still be allowed to see my children."

The full transition process from male to female can take three to four years. "It's a very rigorous, painful process. I'm nowhere near the finish line," says J.

While some on the Dina List have gone through transition and remained within Orthodoxy in their new identity, J no longer believes that it is an option:

"There are many people who have made peace with their religion but I can't see that reconciliation is possible."