In Jonah 1:17 and 2:10 (Heb 2:1, 10), the "fish" is דָּג, which is a male noun. In the next verse,
the term for (small) fish is a feminine (דָּגָה). This has led to the claim that the fish's sex was changed by
God, ergo, transgenderism is true (I kid you not, I have heard this being forwarded by some proponents of this dangerous ideology from the Bible).
Apart from confusing grammatical gender with sexual gender (a
common fallacy), even liberal interpreters refute the "Transgender"
interpretation. Note the following:
the fish The feminine form dagah is normally a collective noun (as
in “the fish in the Nile will die”
[Exod. 7:18]). It is difficult to explain why it is used here. Perhaps it is
simply a case of elegant variation, with dagah
used as in Mishnaic Hebrew (this was suggested by Ben David [p. 61]). In the
Midrash, however, dagah is understood
as denoting a female fish and used to illustrate the obstinacy of Jonah, who
refused to pray until forced to do so, not only by the pressure of time, but
also by the constraints of space: “Jonah was in the belly of the [masculine]
fish for three days and did not pray. The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: ‘I
made him a spacious place in the belly of the fish so that he would not be in
pain, but he still will not pray to me! I shall prepare for him a pregnant fish
carrying 365,000 fry, so that he will be in pain and pray to me” (Midrash Jonah, p. 98). (Uriel Simon, Jonah [JPS Bible Commentary; Philadelphia: Jewish Publications
Society, 1999], 19)
Trans “women” can never become pregnant—it is an impossibility.
This is the opposite of what the Midrash Jonah states where the fish is
biologically female and pregnant.
Another Jewish source, Rabbeinu
Bahya, Bamidbar 22:33:1 states that the fish was dead, thus the use of the
feminine form thereof:
The term דגה repeatedly occurs as describing dead fish such as in Exodus 7,21
when the fish of the river Nile which had died due to the plague of blood are
described as והדגה אשר ביאור מתו. [Perhaps the fact that the fish had died was the catalyst which
caused Jonah to pray. Ed.]. When he said: מבטן שאול שועתי, “I have cried out from the belly of Sheol,” he meant that the
fish had become his grave (Jonah 2,3).
