Ladin had no illusions this institution would accept an openly transgendered person. Although Ladin was finding being a man increasingly unbearable, he took a job with YU because it offered the chance of getting on the tenure track. In 2000, Ladin completed a PhD at Princeton University and was looking for a permanent teaching position to support his family. Today, she is a member of a Reconstructionist congregation in Amherst, Mass. Ladin is not Orthodox herself, but has also felt a strong affiliation with Judaism. In the Jewish community, if not always intolerance, there is a slowness to accommodate transgendered people, be it in schools and camps or in the synagogues, with their specific roles for men and women. Misunderstanding and prejudice still surround transgender issues, Ladin believes. The marriage ended when Joy Ladin started to emerge. He kept up the guise of being a man until his mid-40s when he felt he could no longer live a lie. They stayed together on the understanding Jay would remain Jay. Out of college, Ladin married a woman to whom he confided his inner turmoil, and they had three children.

There was no real understanding of gender identity then,” Ladin said. “I was terrified that anybody might discover that I was not a boy. The 53-year-old Rochester, N.Y., native said in a telephone interview that she felt she was a girl from the time she was in preschool, but told no one. Ladin, whose memoir Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders was a finalist for a 2012 National Jewish Book Award, will speak at the Jewish Public Library on April 24 at 7:30 p.m.

On the contrary, she says it was only the threat of legal action that allows her to be “tolerated” there today. Ladin isn’t there because YU adopted a groundbreaking liberal attitude toward her sex change. Today, Joy Ladin – the same person – lives as a woman and still teaches at YU in New York, making her what’s believed to be the first openly transgendered employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. MONTREAL - When Jay Ladin began teaching at Yeshiva University (YU) in 2003, he soon became a popular English professor in its Stern College for women.

Joy ladin through the door of life