Lion is a 13-year-old who lives in Brooklyn. The middle school student identifies as pangender, a term for feeling like you are every gender at once, and likes to go by “they” because it’s an inclusive pronoun. “I can identify with male and female and others in between,” they said. “I don’t really feel masculine, and I don’t really feel feminine.”

They are also of the Jewish faith, and on Sept. 1, 2018, when they turned 13, they participated in a traditional coming-of-age ceremony: the one in which children become adults and mature members of their religious community.

Traditionally 13-year-old boys celebrate becoming bar mitzvahs (meaning “sons of commandment”) and 12- or 13-year-old girls celebrate becoming bat mitzvahs (“daughters of commandment”). But Lion went an alternative route: a “they” mitzvah, if you will.

Their family got the idea from a set of twins who celebrated a b’nai mitzvah . “‘B’nai’ is just the plural form of the word ‘bar’ or ‘bat,’ so we thought maybe we can use that,” said Hilda Cohen, Lion’s mother. “We didn’t make a big deal out of it. We just sort of did it.”