Kveller has always prided itself on being a place where people can discuss the most challenging parts of life and parenting—infertility, death, and yes, divorce.
We have seen how much support, encouragement, and affirmation people feel when their voices are heard and their deepest disappointments and difficulties are shared and discussed.
The honesty and courage of our writers are what have made Kveller such a compelling and valuable website.
At the same time, the social utility of our articles is something we take seriously. We want Kveller to help people feel more confident, more secure, more understood. Unfortunately, our decision to publish “Staying in the Same Town as My Ex” in the form that it was in has undermined that effort, and thus we have decided to remove it from the website.
When it comes to issues that impact a historically (and currently) persecuted community it is our responsibility as editors to be extra sensitive to the exact language being used. Kveller and its parent organization MyJewishLearning are committed to honoring the identities and life experience of all people, including transgender people. We do not believe that this article was meant to be transphobic, but we do believe that our failures in the editing process created an article that could be read that way, which is not good for the writer, Kveller, and most importantly, the LGBT community, which Kveller and MyJewishLearning are dedicated to supporting and working with to create a more inclusive Jewish community.
