Transgendered, Two genders, three? Options

So, recently my friend Allison was watching this documentary which was the Vagina Monologues, performed by transgendered women. While it was apparently an amazing performance, she was a little offended. When we discussed the performance, I started to understand why, and I wondered what the people here think about the transgender point of view, and the idea of a third gender. I'm starting this discussion here because first of all, I imagine my own viewpoint is maybe a little offensive, although I don't have a problem with trangendered individuals, but second of all, it doesn't really fit anywhere else.

In addition to the subject i'm about to raise, and keeping with the obvious theme of the forums, I'm curious about what people think about the third gender - if we can or should term it this way - in terms of spiritual and mystical significance. I have thoughts on this, and you all know you'll hear them.

So, for those of you not familiar, the Vagina Monologues are about women accepting themselves - as a gender, and sexually; coming to terms with the female condition, their anatomy, themselves as the counterpart to the male gender, etc. Part of the reason my friend was a little offended seeing these transgendered women was for that very reason - while a transgendered woman (specifically) may have to learn to come to terms with themselves as a third gender, or understand why they feel the need to change gender (viewpoints vary), they don't realistically understand the experience of accepting themselves as women. They never experience the first period, the fear and anxiety that almost always comes with that in our society (western society particularly, it's not like this in all cultures), accepting or rising above their social status due to their gender, and all of the other mysterious things that go with being a woman (mysterious to me, because I'm a man.)

Now, I can sympathize with this a little bit. I've only known a couple of transgendered individuals and while I'm happy to give them whatever pronoun they want, the fact remains that they are in between genders, and this is where I found the greatest contradiction in the performance: the Vagina Monologues are about women accepting their gender and it's attendant advantages and difficulties. This play is performed here by a group of people who didn't accept their gender.

Now, in some cultures a third gender is recognized, and in other cultures this condition is simply overlooked - Thai culture, for instance, never bats an eyelash at a transgendered woman; if a man wants to live as a woman, it's just accepted, although I'm not entirely sure it goes the other way for transgendered men. In parts of india, a third gender is recognized - if I have my information correct - which is neither male nor female, because they aren't either one. In the west, though, the concept of a third gender is pretty new, and most transgendered individuals seem to prefer considering themselves part of their new gender. Personally, I don't think this is right. Like my friend, I feel this cheapens the experience of being one gender or the other. For a third-gender individual to say that they understand, experientially, or to celebrate themselves as their new gender, feels somewhat wrong, even offensive, to me as well. Not only that, but I believe it cheapens the experience of being third-gender as well.

On the spiritual side, I have wondered what the significance of a third gender is. The obvious significance is in the hermaphrodite, the union of male and female into one new being. However, I'm not sure that this divine union can be applied here, and I'll tell you why.

The classical concept of uniting the feminine with the masculine has always been, to me, about balance, integration, and acceptance of both the masculine and feminine parts, reconciled into one. Obvious parallels here are the joining of light to dark, magnetic to electric, yin to yang, etc. - the list literally includes everything in existence on one side or the other of the spectrum. However, what I see in a transgendered individual - from my obviously limited external viewpoint - is someone who has given up or rejected one part of themselves to take on another form. Now, this is quite general, and I'm sure there are exceptions in the form of individuals who live as women/men while maintaining their natural anatomy. But even then, it still seems like substitution.

While I realize it's not the same, having accepted myself as a gay man in a society which was a lot less accepting just ten years ago than it sometimes is today - much less fifty years ago - I understand the need to express the person one feels they truly are, and the need to be accepted as that 'new' person without conditions. However, I also understand having to learn to accept oneself in the face of a world that doesn't accept you as you are, and having learned since childhood only to accept oneself on a conditional basis. It's probably somewhat hypocritical I realize, but I wonder sometimes if the inability to accept one's gender - especially when so many women go through that very thing the world over - and the need to change it is in a way, karmically speaking, a failure. Were you born a man to learn to accept the masculine part of your being, or were you born a man to learn how to create perhaps the greatest change in yourself that you can? It seems to me that, like it or not, you will have to face the challenges of your gender regardless whether you accept yourself as your initial gender or not, and that as there is a reason for everything in existence, it was no accident that you were born the gender you are. While this might seem like a conservative viewpoint, and maybe it is, the question is, does that reason include the journey into the third gender?

If there's anyone on the forum who is transgendered, I'd be most interested to hear from you regarding all of these points and questions. I think the greatest mistake you can make, perhaps, is to assume you can know the experience of another person, so while I have opinions, ultimately I know there is a gap in my experience that I cannot ever really cross, and that leaves a lot of questions. Failing that, what does everyone else here think of the subject?

peace
V

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Jul 16 2008, 07:22 PM

My son is pretty obviously gay, although he hasn't come out to me about it. But it is possible that he has some form of sexual identity issues on top of that. He sometimes talks about intersexual or transgender issues. He's very into being politically active and does volunteer work with various social groups. I'm supportive of whatever he is going through, but he isn't ready to open up to me. He knows that I'm gay friendly and such, but likely he isn't open about it because of the negative behaviour of other family members. His mom's side of the family are Chinese and Chinese are generally not very accepting about alternative sexuality.

As far as surgical alterations, I'm probably biased against it in his case. I'm fairly accepting about the whole thing, but still have to work through my own issues at times.

I have to agree that there is no messing up your karma; from the higher perspective even our thoughts and emotions are governed by Karma, at least according to my experience with a handful of particular issues I have had to deal with over time. It may not be all experiences are governed this way, of course, perhaps only the particular ones that need some kind of balancing in our spiritual consciousness.

One thought I had today, while, as it happens, watching a documentary about people who want to be amputees - in my opinion, a very similar 'disorder' - is that perhaps the issue hinges specifically on some past life issue. Karma, but specifically a matter of gender, or in other cases apparently limbs. I wonder if there was a more widespread understanding of past life experiences, if this would be a more 'treatable' condition. I have had the opportunity to ask just one male-female transgendered individual who would not change herself if she knew that she could. I can relate to that to some degree - I could become straight if I really wanted to, but the fact is that I prefer to be gay; while I don't believe it was a choice for me, just how I am, at least originally, as an adult and perhaps due to the control I have consciously developed over my psyche, I have the flexibility and freedom now to acknowledge myself beyond the image I present to the world and myself, and make whatever changes I want to. I have wondered if Transgendered people come to the same point in their lives, where they simply make the choice to either accept themselves as they are or follow their need through.

It's an intense curiosity I have on that point, because it's so foreign. Just how deep does the need go? Is it purely psychological or is there more to it than that? Is it akin to any other experience more common to the general populace? My own curiosity may arise largely from just how foreign it is.

One thing I heard recently was a comment on the difference between Gender and Sex, that Sex is a physical configuration while gender was a psychological, social matter. Again, I can sympathize to some degree, based on the way at least our western society treats gender. It makes me wonder, though, how much of it is physical, the desire to be a different sex, and how much is more psycho-social, the desire to be treated as the opposite gender. Apparently it's a kind of sliding scale, as many transexual individuals do not opt, or want, to become the opposite sex, but simply to live as the opposite gender; vs. individuals who want to actually physically be the opposite sex.

IN any case, regarding the karmic aspects of the issue, while there is no single cause for each of the issues that are universal to human experience - the pendulum of karma does not swing on a 2-d line - what might be some particular causes?

I have not spent as much time meditating on this as I feel is necessary. However, through contemplation, intuitive or not, it seems that it might have something to do with the contrast between how one is treated as, for instance, a female in a past life, vs. a male in the current life. That the unconscious well of raw experiential substrate from our past lives gives some of these people an instinct regarding how they were treated as the opposite sex in a temporal-previous incarnation (distinguishing from a more non-linear universal perspective on reincarnation) such that their experiences perhaps at an early age, from the expectations and social pressures regarding their original gender in this life, create an anxiety that manifests as the desire to return to that former gender. While it seems somewhat convoluted when i say it like that, the thoughtforms themselves fit together in a way that seemed to be leading to something deeper.

Hm.

peace