I'll give you yet another label, one taken from the best of classical philosophy - and for those of you who can't read Marcus Aurelius in the Latin, Hannibal Lecter says it in The Silence of the Lambs.
Aurelius would ask of us to view everything in its most simple terms. (much like the concept of pu' in the Tao Te Ching) and to ask ourselves, much as Hannibal asked Clarice, "What is it in itself?" What is the most basic nature of the thing? What is its nature?
And you will find when you look at it that way that 'male' and 'female', 'men' and 'women', 'masculine' and 'femine' are not the nature, they are only attributes. Secondary charatistics that determine nothing of the nature in and of itself.
That thing, that basic nature, is human.
Being a 'man' or 'woman' does not make one better, or worse. It's just an attribute, like say the color of paint on a car. Some cars might look better in yellow, others worse - but a yellow car says nothing about how it is in its nature, i.e. how good a car it is.
Again, as Aurelius continues on: Whatever is in any way beautiful hath its source of beauty in itself, and is complete in itself. As Nichole tried to point out in another post, most misery is that which we, and we alone, bring upon ourselves. Its a prison of our own construction, and we are free of it the day we decide to cast aside the bars and get on with it. If we are to be beauty, we find that beauty not from outside, nor from others praise and worship, but simply sitting within ourselves, where it's been all along.
That you choose one path does not make it right, nor other paths wrong - that will be seen in the end as to what creates harmony and projects beauty. Guard against thinking that you are somehow better - or worse - for in the end neither matter much given the fullness of time. Or, as good old MA said: Think of the totality of all Being, and what a mite of it is yours; think of all Time, and the brief fleeting instant of it that is allotted to yourself; think of Destiny, and how puny a part of it you are.
Be happy and beautiful in that, everything else works out in the end. Seek to be superior and all your going to find is the low spots.
