page_title: LGBT history in Israel
section_title: 1900–1950s
hierarchical_section_title: LGBT history in Israel / 20th century / 1900–1950s
caption_attribution_description: British Mandate of Palestine, 1920s. Note: Wasserstein, Bernard (2004). Israel and Palestine: Why They Fight and Can They Stop?, pp. 105–106."Palestine, therefore, was not partitioned in 1921–1922. Transjordan was not excised but, on the contrary, added to the mandatory area. Zionism was barred from seeking to expand there – but the Balfour Declaration had never previously applied to the area east of the Jordan. Why is this important? Because the myth of Palestine's 'first partition' has become part of the concept of 'Greater Israel' and of the ideology of Jabotinsky's Revisionist movement." Created by modification of public domain image en:Image:BritishMandatePalestine1920.jpg. Modifications consisted of enlarging the font of two words and converting to PNG.
context_page_description: Homosexual relations were legalised in the state of Israel in 1988, and during the 1990s various forms of discrimination were prohibited. Debate has since centred on recognition of same-sex partnerships and the rights they confer, including inheritance, residency, and the adoption of children. The staging of LGBT pride parades has been controversial in some cases.
context_section_description: The British Mandate of Palestine was given to Britain in 1923 after the disbandment of the Ottoman Empire following the events of WWI. Now governing a new territory, the British took some interest in the population of Palestine. In terms of sexuality and sexual rights, British involvement began in terms of questionnaires which would question the Palestinian population about their sexual practices and what they considered both unnatural and immoral. It was revealed that in Palestine there existed many ways of “unnatural” sexual expression including sodomy between school boys and acts of lesbian love which were blamed on influences from nearby countries such as Syria and Egypt. Though these acts were not considered horrible to Palestine, they were considered unnatural and immoral to their British colonizers. Thus, throughout British rule of the mandate, Britain would slowly incorporate their homophobic policies into the lives of the Palestinian population. Until 1948, when the British Mandate would be partitioned to give land to the Jewish people, British leaders would encourage the criminalization and punishment of sexual acts that they determined were either unnatural, immoral, or both.  Before the intervention of Britain and in the beginning of their intervention, the Palestinian population knew that acts of homosexuality in regards to both genders existed in their society. They deemed these acts as unnatural to the norm but not as immoral to way of life. After British intervention, the population would begin to criminalize these acts and this criminalization would last into the development of the Israeli State in 1948.
  The newly formed government of Israel continued in British tradition with enforcing their laws regarding the criminalization of homosexual relationships as well as other acts that the government deemed immoral or unnatural which included acts of gender fluidity. In the 1950s, an Israeli woman by the name of Rina Natan was arrested for cross dressing, this entailed that she was wearing female clothes while being of biological male gender. The arrest was made on terms of her breaking public order. Later, the government had concluded that they could not charge her for wearing women’s clothing and ultimately released her.  After her arrest, she became very vocal in Israel’s political sphere in regards to gender and transgender rights, even becoming known as Israel’s first transgender rights activist. Specifically, she was protesting the Israeli government’s policies and laws that denied her rights to treatment and denied her the appropriate resources to transition between the male to female gender. Denying her specifically on her gender reassignment surgery was Attorney General Haim Cohn who in 1954 was persistent in making sure that Natan would not receive her surgery. Following this, two short years later, Natan severed the penis that she was born with herself. After this, Israeli hospitals were forced to treat her and Rina Natan became Israel’s first transgender woman. After her transition, Rina Natan was a woman by gender and in society but the Israeli government never changed the name and gender on her passport, which remained under her birth given male name. Natan would pave the way for gender and transgender rights in Israel. She gave transgender rights a sphere of influence in activism and her actions and story would lead the Israeli government to legally recognize and permit sex reassignment later in 1986.
caption: The area of The British Mandate of Palestine given to Britain in 1923.
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