Gender: A Part of the Consciousness or Soul?

[Kreuzfidel]

I am a member of numerous spiritual forums and have found that, especially in NeoPagan circles, the concept of 'gender' is often seen as existing solely in the consciousness as many subscribers to New Age beliefs insist that the soul, or spiritual essence, is genderless. 

There are schools of thought which state that the soul is multi-dimensional, that there is more than one 'part' of the soul and that it is not limited to a 'bare bones' energetic core.

Do you believe that gender is limited to our physiology and to the waking consciousness or do you believe that we do, indeed, have an aspect or aspects of our souls to which a gender or genders is/are assigned?  Maybe you believe it's a combination or something altogether different...

I personally believe that we do have aspects of our souls which may be seen as having an assigned gender.  I just can't come to terms with the thought that it's all in one's head or limited purely to the consciousness.  Thanks for your thoughts. 

[rejennyrated]

I believe in the soul - but on reflection I am not so sure about the existance of gender. What is this strange concept of which you speak?

[Janet_Girl]

I am of the opinion that gender is of the soul.  The soul is genderless, until it is reborn in a new life, where it becomes that gender of the new life.

With Transpeople, the soul is the gender that the body should be, in my case it is female.  But through some intersession the body became male.  At which point the soul feels trapped.  It is all wrong, what happened?  And now I am on the journey to alter the body to that of the soul.

[LordKAT]

3 part man, body soul spirit

body is physical

soul is what give animation, even animals have soul

spirit is what gives the difference.


Just my personal belief

[Miniar]

I view soul as genderless. I see no rational reason for why a soul should have a gender.

I believe, 'specially with the physical evidence available, that gender exists as a function of the physical, rooted in the wiring of the brain.

[NessaJ]

I treat consciousness and soul as referring to the same thing.  Then I think gender is something that is formed into your soul based on society and your physical sex

[LordKAT]

I have to go with Min here. Society can enforce behavior but not cause your gender as it is usually defined here.

[Miniar]

I treat consciousness and soul as referring to the same thing.  Then I think gender is something that is formed into your soul based on society and your physical sex

Problem with that equation is... how do transgender folk fit into it?

[sascraps]

I know these topics are old, but I came in here looking to see what other people thought. Because oddly enough, even though I'm new to having discovered the trans world out there, I have always believed in reincarnation. I believe a lot of us have lived many times over, and some of us have lived the majority of those lives in male bodies while others have lived the majority of their lives in female bodies, and some of us have lived about an even number of lives as both male and female. And I've always believed that I'm one of those who has about evenly experienced lives as both males and females. But everyone has at least lived one life as both a male and a female. And I would think that our souls do have a gender, or maybe just something that leans more towards male or more towards female, that we would get our identity and sense of self from. Or it could also be that souls have no gender, and it's just how we perceive things since we're hardwired to assign gender to aspects of personality and behaviors.

[Padma]

This is trixy as a question, because everyone has different ideas about what makes a soul (or absence of).

I don't believe in a soul - not in the sense of something unchanging about us, anyway - because I don't believe there's anything at all that's fixed and unchanging. What I do believe in (if you can put it that way - when I say 'believe' I mean something like 'I have pretty strong confidence about', not 'I am absolutely certain') is something I've come to call a 'dynamic continuity' - a consciousness whose will is bent towards staying the same, and therefore seems to, but it's like walking up a down escalator to stay in the same place.

I think everything that happens to us changes us, all the time (even though we resist it). And death is a really big change, so I do believe in rebirth (but not reincarnation, in the sense of 'the unwavering soul puts on a fresh outfit for the new day'), and I think what comes back is a changed being, so it's not quite us either. And hey, this is all just theory! But I do have this sense that our consciousness remembers past lives where we've been different genders, and that has some kind of effect (though I don't claim to be certain in any way about what that effect is).

So I think there's physical (biological) gender, and then there's what my consciousness experiences itself as. And that latter is at least faintly perfumed by experience from past lives. I think it is actually possible that my consciousness thinks she's a woman just because I was one, last time round. But that's either true or it's just the voice of my doubt/fear dressing itself up in fancy clothes. And there's no way ever to know, so all I can go with is how I now feel, and what that makes me need to do. Because body and mind are inextricably intertwined (it seems to me), as my mind experiences itself as a different gender from my body, both feel unhappy.

PS - whenever I talk about mind or consciousness, I really mean mind-and-heart - but it takes longer to type .

[FairyGirl]

I believe there is a higher, or inner, self (consciousness) that is more aware of it's environment, more connected, and more able to see the bigger picture. Our conscious or rational brain is often distracted and easily confused by limiting beliefs or social concerns.  The inner self, or soul, is not hampered by these outer concerns and so is more able to see clearly our place in the world and how best to proceed through it. That's why I think it is very important to listen to our hearts, or intuitions, because it is the voice of our higher self guiding us. Because it is a part of ourselves, it will always, always have our own best interest at heart and lead us correctly.

Now whether this part of ourselves dies with us or not is a debatable point. However, to me this is identical to the God concept, and all the God I personally need in this life- one that is practical, has practical advice, and lives down here in the dirt where I live. Some esoteric pie-in-the-sky god outside of who I am now is less than useless to me.

Having said that, I am quite sure my inner soul is female and always has been. It was she who guided me wisely and safely through my transition, which is a difficult path to follow even in the best of circumstances. Every single step of the way I looked to my heart for guidance, reassurance, and strength to carry on, and found it in abundance. Because of this, my resolve became rock solid and I am more sure of who I am now than I have ever been sure of anything. I know, literally in the depths of my soul, that I have done the exact right thing, even when it was painful and difficult, from my first hormone prescription right through to my SRS and beyond.

If we are all merely driven by chemical reactions (which to some extent I see strong evidence for), then the concept of gender for the soul has some merit. Perhaps the soul is nothing more than a hidden part of our brains that our conscious minds cannot directly access, who knows? As I said above, anything beyond that is above my pay grade and of no practical use to me in any case, so it becomes a moot point as far as I'm concerned.

[Amazon D]

Gender is of the world which needs a body to have it. One needs to have a superficiality of the world to want it changed or to feel one has it.

However, the soul is where we transcend gender and so we no longer care what people see or think after we transition because we have transcended gender.

However, many who do transition never transcend gender due to their superficiality which controls them in this world.

Where are you now that you have transitioned?

Myself i feel as if i have one foot in this world and one in the next and have a shell which i am just waiting to shed.

[cynthialee]

I would say a touch of both.
Reincarnation is the fact of our existance that I believe in completely.

We are capable of being both genders however I think that in the case of a trans person either one of many things could cause it.
First of which is that a person has spent so many lives in one particular gender that they become tied to that gender even when embodied in the oposite body.
Second likely cause of a spiritual nature would be we left something undone that we need to acomplish. We have been born in the wrong gender and we have to fix it.
Third and most likely is a chalenge from the Goddess to be true to ourselves in the face of adversity. How can we be true to the gods if we will not be true to self.
Then there could be any number of other reasons a soul chooses to put itself in a trans life.

[kate durcal]

The soul is divine and as such genderless; it is given by G-d to humans shortly after conception. After our death, the soul returns to G-d unaffected by our good or bad deeds. The spirit is the product of the mind. The spirit can ear G-d speak through the soul. The spirit goes to G-d after our death. How close our spirit gets to G-d depends on our acts. Our spirit may or may not be gender.

Shalom,

Kate D

[Pinkfluff]

I believe souls do have genders. Really a person is a soul that happens to inhabit a body for a life. Now, gender is not as simple as just male or female though. Even physically some people are born not completely male or female, so of course without a physical body anything is possible. Consciousness I would call the mind, which I view as the software that runs on a brain. This is how a person gets interfaced to a body at the beginning of a life. Sometimes though, incompatible peripherals get plugged in instead the proper ones...

[V M]

My consciousness is aware of the gender I feel in my soul 

[Sabriel Facrin]

My beliefs hold a theory on this. ^.^;

The soul retains your whole mental existence, so it is definitely gendered.  Since gender seems to be part of some of our more core parts of identity, it is likewise part of the soul to hold it as an important aspect of practiced identity.  If how you act at one time is a persona your personality uses ---your soul takes your identity, gender and all, as just one persona of itself, in a way, even if it is the only persona it holds.  The spirit, a channeled instance of the soul dealing with reality, is more purely gendered according to your mind rather than simply hosting its presence.  It is also sex-ed according to your gendered identity.  (The soul, on the other hand, does not have a sex due to its structure.)
Although it doesn't seem to be asked, I wanna go ahead and remark towards the concept of consciousness: I know there's some beliefs out there that transsexualism, or even multiple/all kinds of ->-bleeped-<-s come from spiritual aspects, such as reincarnation from a mismatched gender, a soul that develops itself inaccurately to the body, etc.  --My beliefs consider on this that your physical consciousness holds your personality as well as your soul and spirit, because of how exactly mind<->spirit<->soul relate with each other.  The mind holds your transsexualism full-stop, but holds it as that you are a transsexual rather than that your mind is of your true gender.
Finally, I feel there's a separate aspect of the "essence" which is somewhat soul-like but very temporary state.  It has a sex in terms of that it hosts the body structure of a sex, but does not hold a gender because for what parts of the mind it hosts, they effectively aren't active.  It furthermore only indirectly has a sex exactly like the soul indirectly has the gender, because of its structural design.  The essence directly reflects your physical sex at all times.

So in short~ Five parts of a person: Essence, Body, Mind, Soul, Spirit.
Essence - sexless, simulates current sex, absolutely genderless.
Body - <Everything as put in practice>
Mind - Combines aspects of sex and gender and is a transgender accordingly.
Spirit - Sex is ultimately where gender identity lies as true, gender always is as gender identity and thus of the sex.
Soul - Sexless, genderless, simulates gender.