Buy used: $24.00

Get Fast, Free Shipping with Amazon Prime

FREE delivery Monday, August 14 on orders shipped by Amazon over $25. Order within 11 hrs 14 mins

Select delivery location

Used: Like New | Details

Sold by RBS 2 LLC

Fulfilled by Amazon

Access codes and supplements are not guaranteed with used items.

Have one to sell?

Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

See this image

Follow the Author

Joy Ladin

Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) Hardcover – March 15, 2012

by Joy Ladin (Author)

4.3 90 ratings

Part of: Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog (22 books)

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$9.99

—

Hardcover

"Please retry"

$24.00

—

$1.36

Paperback

"Please retry"

$17.11

$14.65

$5.43

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

—

$8.35

—

Kindle
$9.99 Read with Our Free App
Hardcover
$24.00

8 Used from $1.36 1 Collectible from $19.90
Paperback
$14.15 - $17.11

18 Used from $5.43 15 New from $14.65
MP3 CD
$8.35

2 New from $8.35

Professor Jay Ladin made headlines around the world when, after years of teaching literature at Yeshiva University, he returned to the Orthodox Jewish campus as a woman—Joy Ladin. In Through the Door of Life, Joy Ladin takes readers inside her transition as she changed genders and, in the process, created a new self.
With unsparing honesty and surprising humor, Ladin wrestles with both the practical problems of gender transition and the larger moral, spiritual, and philosophical questions that arise. Ladin recounts her struggle to reconcile the pain of her experience living as the “wrong” gender with the pain of her children in losing the father they love. We eavesdrop on her lifelong conversations with the God whom she sees both as the source of her agony and as her hope for transcending it. We look over her shoulder as she learns to walk and talk as a woman after forty-plus years of walking and talking as a man. We stare with her into the mirror as she asks herself how the new self she is creating will ever become real.
Ladin’s poignant memoir takes us from the death of living as the man she knew she wasn’t, to the shattering of family and career that accompanied her transition, to the new self, relationships, and love she finds when she opens the door of life.

2012 Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award for Biography, Autobiography, or Memoir

“Wrenching—and liberating. . . .[it] opens up new ways of looking at gender and the place of LGBT Jews in community.”—Greater Phoenix Jewish News
“Given her high-profile academic position, Ladin’s transition was a major news story in Israel and even internationally. But behind the public story was a private struggle and learning experience, and Ladin pulls no punches in telling that story. She offers a peek into how daunting it was to learn, with little support from others, how to dress as a middle-aged woman, to mu on make-up, to walk and talk like a female. She provides a front-row seat for observing how one person confronted a seemingly impossible situation and how she triumphed, however shakingly, over the many adversities, both societal and psychological, that stood in the way.”—The Gay and Lesbian Review Worldwide

Part of series

Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog
Print length

270 pages
Language

English
Publisher

University of Wisconsin Press
Publication date

March 15, 2012
Dimensions

5.5 x 1.1 x 8.25 inches
ISBN-10

0299287300
ISBN-13

978-0299287306
See all details

Highest ratedin this set of products
Joy Ladin
4
Paperback
$18.00
Most purchasedin this set of products
Rachel Held Evans
2,269
Paperback
$14.39
Lowest Pricein this set of products
Sera Beak
366
Paperback
$5.29
This item:
Joy Ladin
90
Hardcover
9 offers from $1.36
Joy Ladin
23
Paperback
$26.96
Chris Stedman
131
Paperback
$10.98
Elissa Altman
236
Hardcover
$10.96
Stephanie Wellen Levine
52
Paperback
$14.27
Coretta Scott King
380
Paperback
$18.00
Farideh Goldin
40
Paperback
$22.00
Eve Tushnet
126
Paperback
$16.62

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Ladin’s story is a deep, beautifully written exploration of her journey from being a man to becoming a woman.”—Lucy Bledsoe, author of The Big Bang Symphony, Ferro-Grumley Award finalist for LGBT fiction

“Joy Ladin’s book succeeds so well because it is anything but a trans tract; it is a fierce story of regular old human life: hideous choices, endless repercussions, occasional glory, frequent humiliation, abiding difficulty. It could have happened to us. She makes us believe it.”—Kay Ryan, former poet laureate of the United States, and winner of the Pulitzer Prize for poetry

"Not only a memoir of transgender experience, it's also a story of family heartbeak and family love; of growth as a teacher and writer; and, not least, of a self deeply connected to God and Judiasm throughout a life lived across genders."—Rabbi Jill Hammer, author of The Jewish Book of Days and director of spiritual education at the Academy for Jewish Religion

“Readers will be rewarded not only with an expanded understanding of a complicated choice but also a compelling and moving story of a person transitioning, not only from male to female but from a numb, suicidal 'nonexistence' to opening the 'door of life.' ”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Moving from living in misery to being joyful and grateful provided a profound, fundamental release from what she saw as a moral quandary. It’s the kind of resolve that makes her work reverberate with emotion, and her artful, thoughtful writing creates an even deeper resonance. . . . A cohesive, powerful memoir.”—ForeWord

“Joy Ladin’s Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders is a life-affirming and generous work—and one of the most compelling memoirs of recent years. . . . [S]he writes with beautiful clarity, humility and breathtaking candor.”—Jewish Woman Magazine

“No doubt about it, change was going to hurt. It would require, if not tears, then a kind of ripping of your soul, a new way of life, an alteration of outlook. . . . For author Joy Ladin, pain was exactly the reason for change. Pain had accompanied her for most of her days, but in her new book Through the Door of Life, she explains a journey that was, for her, long overdue.”—LGBT Weekly

“In painstakingly and painfully constructing her new self, Ladin is fully aware of the societal conventions and privileges of which she makes use. . . . But there seems to be a poignancy, of which Ladin is exquisitely aware, that precisely because what Ladin wants is so normal, her efforts to obtain it are so fraught with pain.”—Lambda Literary

About the Author

Joy Ladin, David and Ruth Gottesman Professor of English at Stern College for Women of Yeshiva University, is the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. She is the author of five books of poetry, including, most recently, Psalms and Coming to Life.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ University of Wisconsin Press; 1st edition (March 15, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 270 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0299287300
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0299287306
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 1.1 x 8.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,954,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3,650 in LGBTQ+ Biographies (Books)
- #6,853 in General Gender Studies
- #81,465 in Memoirs (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.3 90 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

Important information

To report an issue with this product, click here.

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Joy Ladin

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Joy (formerly Jay) Ladin is the author of a memoir, Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders (U. of Wisconsin Press), and six books of poetry, The Definition of Joy, Forward Fives award winner Coming to Life, Transmigration (a 2009 Lambda Literary Award finalist), The Book of Anna, and Alternatives to History, all from Sheep Meadow Press, and Psalms, a collection of original psalms from Wipf & Stock. Her poems and essays have been widely published. She holds the David and Ruth Gottesman Chair in English at Stern College of Yeshiva University, where, in 2007, she became the first openly transgender employee of an Orthodox Jewish institution. She has given many talks on writing, literature, Judaism, and gender identity. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Keshet.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

90 global ratings

5 star
4 star
3 star
2 star
1 star

How customer reviews and ratings work

Sort reviews by

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

K.A.

Almost impossible to read without being moved to tears!

Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2017

Verified Purchase

Joy Ladin's journey is more than just a Jewish journey or a transgender journey—it's a human journey about coming into one's truth of being that's universal in it's truimphs and heartwrenching suffering. And it's not just that this story is remarkable—Joy's brutally, nakedly honest narrative strips away all defenses and goes straight to the heart and the gut. Her prose sings and screams, weeps and dances, and makes me want to reach out through time and space to give her a hug and tell her someone out there cares.

As for all the haters out there who wrote mean reviews of this book personally judging Joy for her decision (and frankly her incredible courage!) to live her truth—I WILL be going through the reviews carefully when I get a chance, and flagging any hate speech I find. Passing judgement on an author is not a proper book review, and there is no room for hate on this forum. To be truly alive we each have to fully live our own truths, whether or not they match what society would like to be true about us. That's the point of this wonderful, wonderful book, which I couldn't recommend more highly!

17 people found this helpful

Helpful

groupworker

Outstanding story - OK Book

Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2013

Verified Purchase

I wanted to love this book and at times I did. Joy's story is fascinating, especially in 2013 as the focus on understanding trans-gender issues is in the spotlight. This is a hard review to write as I am so glad I read the book and understand her journey. This memoir has allowed me to read other articles and listen to a recent powerful NPR hour on trans-gender with much greater understanding.

At times I thoroughly enjoy the writing and at other times there were either too many details, or not enough. It just didn't flow as I would have hoped being written by an English professor. I wanted to understand more about her relationships with her friends, colleagues and children. I found it interesting how the last 1/3 of the book felt like it was not written by the same person and perhaps the spiritual truth was that she was a different person.

That being said, I gave it 4 stars, because it is important to read.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Catlover

Profoundly Touching Book

Reviewed in the United States on July 30, 2014

Verified Purchase

Joy's account helped me appreciate the profound suffering a trans person can experience before and even after he comes out. I am straight, but have a professional (and personal) interest in understanding members of the LGBTQ community. I have read several autobiographies written by trans individuals but I believe Joy's book was especially useful in my search to better identify with those who are trans. Her book reached into my soul and shook me. I am very proud of her courage and wish her all the happiness she most assuredly deserves. I recommend this honest and touching book to anyone--straight or in the LGBTQ community--who wishes to expand her mind, spirituality, and compassion for those who experience the pain of losing so much in order to be true to themselves.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Samuel Rafael

Powerfully written

Reviewed in the United States on March 19, 2012

Verified Purchase

I have not read such a powerful and well-written memoir in many years. Providing the best first-hand description of the agony of gender dysphoria I've read since Jennifer Boylan's "She's Not There," I'm confident that this work will stand as the definitive non-text book offering on this subject. The author vividly describes what it is like for people like herself who venture into a "no-man's land" of femininity that was forbidden to her. Her insights about family, work and everyday life are profound and spot-on. She offers an honest, sometimes agonizing and always poignant look at her own gender transition and the impact it has had on herself, her loved ones and others in her life. In so doing she has some amazingly deep things to express that resonate with the struggle of all transgender individuals, transitioned or not.

14 people found this helpful

Helpful

hafez s. ward

A courageous journey

Reviewed in the United States on September 12, 2013

Verified Purchase

Joy Ladin is a fine writer. She seems to cover almost all aspects of the daily trials of changing her gender in her life. We learn about what happens in her marriage, with her children, and at her job at a Orthodox Jewish facility where she is a hoping to receive tenure. At times I became restless with the intensity and the non-stop focus on Joy's every thought but I would say that how the story was written was mostly justified. This is an unusual story and one would learn a lot about this subject.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

nightreader

Amazing memoir

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2012

Verified Purchase

Starting at age six, "Jay" knew that "he" was in the wrong body and should have been a girl. In his forties, married with three kids and teaching at Yeshiva University, he decides to come out as a transsexual and make the transition to being a woman. Now known as "Joy," she takes the reader through her innermost thoughts and difficult experiences, with all the doubts and pains in such a radical change of life. As a published poet, her writing is engaging, poignant, and heartbreaking, yet at the same time uplifting. She tries to reconcile traditional Jewish teachings and her desire to be a good Jew. Her talks with her God speak to all of us, religious or not.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

K-8 Librarian

Greater understanding

Reviewed in the United States on February 17, 2016

Verified Purchase

I read this for a book club, and we all thought that it changed our perception and gave us greater understanding of what it is like to be transgender. This book really made me think about gender, gender roles and how we treat others. It was a bit long and sloggy at points, but mostly, a genuine, painful account of what she went through to become herself.

4 people found this helpful

Helpful

Mar

Her ability to stay focused on Love, which flowed from her relationship with God

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

This book helped raise my consciousness about the challenges of the trans-community. Joy's courage to suffer enormous pain so that she could grow into who she is created to be as a human being inspires me. Her ability to stay focused on Love, which flowed from her relationship with God, is what saves her as she continues to suffer pain and challenge. For me, personally, the book gave me the opportunity to reflect on my own judgement(s) of the trans-community, and more importantly, trans-individuals. My level of compassion has increased as has my desire for deeper understanding.

8 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Follow the Author

Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders (Living Out: Gay and Lesbian Autobiog) Hardcover – March 15, 2012

What do customers buy after viewing this item?

Editorial Reviews

Review

About the Author

Product details

Videos

Important information

About the author

Joy Ladin

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.