And G-d created man in His own image, in the image of God created him; male and female, He created them.

Reading God and Torah: The Soul of the Stranger From a Transgender Perspective, by Joy Ladin, transgender Torah scholar & activist

God never mistook me for the body others saw. God knew who I truly was, and understood how alone I felt, because God, like me, had no body to make God visible, no face human beings could see…

But I was alone with God. All the things that cut me off from other people-- my lack of a body that felt like mine, my inability to fit into gender categories, my sense of being utterly, unspeakably different-- made me feel closer to God. God knew who and what I was. God had created me, fitting my mismatched body and soul together. God was always there, day and night, as I tried to live and sometimes tried to die. We were an odd couple, me struggling with my body that didn't feel like mine, God existing beyond all that is, was, and will be. But when it came to relating to human beings, God and I had something in common: neither of us could be seen or understood by those we dwelt among and loved...

And so, for as long as I can remember, being transgender has brought me closer to God. That may seem strange. Both religious and nonreligious people tend to think of transgender identities as inherently secular. But there are many religious people whose relationships with God have been profoundly shaped by being transgender because, as they wrestled with suffering, isolation, and questions about who they were and how they should live, they, like other religious peope, turned to God for the understanding they couldn’t find among human beings...

(1) And G-d said: Let us make Adam in our image, in our shape: R' Yirmiyah ben Elazar said, when G-d created Adam HaRishon, he was created as both genders; thus is it written, "male and female did He create them." R' Shmuel bar Nachman said, when G-d created Adam HaRishon, He created him with two faces, one on each side, and [when He made Eve,] He split him along the middle, forming two backs. They challenged him: but it is written, "And He took one of his ribs!" He said to them, ["mitzalosav" doesn't mean rib, it means] one of his sides, similar to that which is said, "and to the 'tzela' of the Mishkan," which is translated "the side of the Mishkan."

Without consent, G-d forces Adam into a deep sleep, and rips part of Adam apart in order to create a partner. The part which is taken from Adam’s body is called a צלה, which is a word mentioned one other time in Shemot 26:20. צלה is used to describe one complete side of the mishkan, which is equal to all 4 other sides of the mishkan. From this, one can assess that just like the mishkan, we humans have sides which contain sparks of G-d within. The word צלה implies that it was not a small rib which was taken from Adam’s body to form another, but rather a complete whole and equal side which was extracted to create another separate being to be Adam’s partner.

Rabbi Elliot Kukla, Reform Devises Sex-Change Blessings

The Midrash, classical Jewish exegesis, adds that the [first human] being formed in G-d's likeness, was an androgynous, an inter-sexed, person . . . Hence, our tradition teaches that all bodies and genders are created in G-d's image, whether we identify as men, women, inter-sex, or something else.

(1) An Androginus (most likely - someone who has both male and female reproductive organs) is similar to men in some ways, and to women in other ways, in some ways to both, and in some ways to neither. (5) Rabbi Meir Says: Androginus is a (gender) category of its own, (because) the rabbis could not decipher whatever s/he/they is a man or a women. However a Tumtum is not so, as at times s/he/they is fully male, and at times s/he/they is fully female (but we can't tell which).

In a binary gender system, in which beings are either ultimately male or female (with no crossing over the line!), a Divine Being that is male, female, and trans at one and the same time would pose a serious logical problem. But when we recognize that binary gender is a limited cultural construction that tangles up human and holy truths all the time, then my three realities can live together in all their brilliant, paradoxical complexity. Just as human genders come in a variety of expressions, divine gender is not a stable, reified finality. Jewish tradition speaks of God in masculine, feminine, and non gendered ways: as Tsur (Rock), and HaMakom (The Place), alongside Melekh (king) and Av Harachaman (compassionate father), Rather than splitting off the feminine from the masculine and declaring them distinct and separate spheres, Jewish affirmations of divine unity and wholeness suggest that God is Goddess. A Goddess who is God who is Goddess.

(18) And G-d said: ‘It is not good that the Man should be alone; I will make a help mate for him.’ (21) And G-d caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his sides, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. (22) And the rib, which G-d had taken from the man, He made into a woman, and brought her unto the man. (24) Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.

Why does G-d wish to locate a partner for Adam to begin with? What does it mean that in order to find Adam’s missing mate, G-d needed to violently and painfully split Adam’s perfect whole body into two equal parts, and seal the back-sides with skin? Perhaps G-d knew that as a unified, whole, and balanced being, Adam held much more power and was 100% in G-d’s image and likeness. When Adam was split, longing for wholeness was created, and Adam became incomplete until Adam is to be reunited with the other half. Many humans look for a complete and whole feeling of love and balance in partnership, rather than striving towards personal wholeness, self-love, and building up their internal self-balance. Perhaps this splitting of Adam was the first golus, the first exile. It mirrors the Kabbalistic concept of the Shekhina, G-d’s feminine side, being disconnected from Hashem, oftentimes associated with G-d’s masculine side.

Degel Machaneh Ephraim, translation by Rabbi Abby Stein

In every generation, the scholars (of that generation) are making up [alternative translation: are finishing, or filling up] the Torah, because the Torah is being interpreted in every generations according to the needs of that generation And according to the source of their souls - so is God enlightening the eyes of the wise people of that generation, in Its holy Torah.