In the topic: https://www.susans.org/forums/index.php/topic,5832.msg42108.html#msg42108

I just wanted to comment on a post by Beth when she said this:

QuoteMen and women have different souls.

But I didn't want to change the subject which was something like, "Is the Term Male Lesbianism a Myth." So, I started a new topic.

I am fairly certain I disagree that men and women have 'different' souls.

I believe that our souls have certain 'characteristics' that are gained through a succession of lives, but, they are not different persay.  I also think that no soul goes through all of their lifetimes as a male, or conversely, as a female.  I think the souls characteristics naturally draw it to a male or female body, unless they have important lesson(s) to learn by being the other.

As far as a male having this type of soul, and a female having some other type of soul, I don't agree with that, I think the soul is genderless, it just has certain characteristics that have been learned by numerous previous lives.

I just wanted to express my opinion on that.

What do you think?  Is the soul inhabiting a male body fundamentally different? functionally different? charactaristically different? than a soul inhabiting a female body?

Jessica

           I guess there are different definitions of soul.  I define it to myself as a combination of mind, heart and spirit.  I do believe the soul has gender.  It is not black and white, male or female. The gender of the soul is in a range much like gender is.  I do believe some souls, but not all are recognizeable as male or female. It is much like a body whose gender can be recognized by the way it moves, sounds and looks. A soul does not affect the body. A feminine walk or mannerisms does not signal a female soul, just as is true in the male soul case.  I believe the gender of souls can be recognized if you are in tune with the things people say and do over time.

beth

My soul is genderless!
You can easily find Scripture to confirm the concept of all souls being such.

-Emerald 

There might be a difference between what I'd call soul and spirit.

To me spirit is more pure, and genderless.

Soul is nearer the character and can have colors but as to whether it has a gender, perhaps it just has tendencies to gentle vibrations etc.

Nice question!


Sky

Quote from: Emerald on August 29, 2006, 12:25:55 PM

My soul is genderless!
You can easily to find Scripture to confirm the concept of all souls being such.

That's what I hear over and over, which is why I believe transsexualism is biological.

Melissa

Funny you'd ask, as just the other day I did a little thought experiment and started categorizing everyone I know as male or female in spirit, in flavour. I tried to not think about it, but just go with first impressions.

And it's odd, but probably half *didn't* match their biological sex for me. And I couldn't find any real reasons for my impresssions. Some of the biggest, strongest men seemed female to me, and some of the most petite, cheerleader-like women seemed male somehow.

I'm not quite sure how that relates, but.. there it is

I've used the analogy of a female soul in a man's body to describe my feelings of being TS and I never considered it anything other than that.

I agree that the idea of a "gendered" soul is very debatable.  I tend to think that placing a gender on the concept of soul is actually limiting.  My take is that souls exist on a plane beyond gender.

helen

I find that a soul cannot "have" a sex, because sex is really about the physical world, and the soul is about the spiritual world. But Gender is something that I believe is a set of characteristics, and to which "gender" you express can often depend on the culture and the time period inwhich you live.

However I do believe that our spirits/souls ( not sure that I seperate the two, need to give that further thought honestly) do carry with them many life times of experience, and due to that there are some dominate characteristics that have been developed.

I can't say that I believe we share "equal" time in the physical life, sexes. But I do believe that one tends to dominate the other through out various portions of our spirits lives... hope that made sense.

I do like reading threads like this, I find others that think like I do, when I have never heard anyone talk about it before...and then I find others that say things that are new perspectives for me to mull over.

Peace,

Taylor

Having lived on both sides of the equations, this is how I see it.  We are humans.  Some of us get a female body and some of us get a male body.  We are driven by various aspects of our body such as genitals, brain, hormones and other societal factors and live as one gender or the other.  Some of us get bodies that do not fall into either category.  The purpose of the different bodies is solely for reproductive reasons, but because each sex tends to have a different set of behaviors (as fueled by various aspects), we tend to polarize to one division or another (men/women). 

I see myself as a human that looks female and people treat me as female and that makes me happy.  I like it when my body looks female, because it feels right.  If somebody chooses to see me as female and realizes I was born male, then it is their fault, because they are the one who made the decision that I looked mostly female. 

I believe if the soul were extracted out of a normal male and placed into a normal female (or vice versa), they would feel like whatever sex of body they occupied and never question gender.  Why?  Because souls are genderless.

Melissa

The question of whether souls are Male or Female is irrelevant to me.

Even though the body continues to live our spirit and soul can be taken away by tragic events that unfold in our lives. I lost both my soul and my spirit a long time ago.

When I finally die I just hope that we all end up in the same place, I would like to be reunited with them.

Buffy

Innately souls are pretty much androgynous as far as I know. Gender is mostly a biological thing, but knowing what I know saying that gender is totally biological is not correct, at least for what I am.  However, that is the kicker, so I will leave it at a caution of not expecting everything to work the way it works for you.

Quote from: Emerald on August 29, 2006, 12:25:55 PM...
You can easily find Scripture to confirm the concept of all souls being such.
...

Just because it was written does not mean it is true.
... A topic for a different thread however.

In my old LDS faith, souls were the spiritual children of God.  Souls have gender and are given matching bodies on earth to procreate and provide bodies for other children of God.

This is one of the reasons that I had such a difficult time with my faith and the church.  First of all, I believed it.  Second, they believed it and could not let me leave.  I was told I was committing a sin second only next to murder. And that too weighed heavily on my mind.

What do I believe now?  I'm pretty much an atheist.  I do believe that we are part of our mother earth, who is alive. We are a part of the big picture.  Our sentience is not divine. It just is.  That's what I believe.  I still feel that I am a very spiritual person. And I'm glad that I can still live many of those things taught to me which I consider virtuous and righteous.

Cindi

A passage in Tokien's Silmarillion always stuck with me:

"when they desire to clothe themselves the Valar take upon them forms some as of male and some as of female; for that difference of temper they had even from their beginning, and it is but bodied forth in the choice of each, not made by the choice, even as with us male and female may be shown by the raiment but is not made thereby"

Hm!

The realm of souls is a very tricky thing, mysteries not easily comprehendable to the human mind...

The underlying question for this thread is of course the old Body/Soul paradox....

I follow the old school that souls transcend the realm of the physical, which includes gender. They are traditionally considered the animating force of ones life. They are you, the you inside of your body....

While souls might take on aspects of gender, these are attached by humans and human minds. To have souls dictated by ones bodily state is more in line with the physicalist school that souls are nothing more than side-affects of having a body...

I would like to think souls are much more than that....

But thats just me.... everyone is entitled to their own views on the matter.

-Nessa

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, ten minutes ago there were:
six billion, five hundred forty million, nine hundred thirty two thousand, four hundred ninety two
human beings alive, a figure I will not try to keep up-to-date!  That is (was) 6,540,932,492 souls out there that in various ways represent nearly that many genders, allowing for the ultra-orthodox adherents to the rigid male only or female only gender position.  Admittedly many of those genders are not very far apart, and just perhaps most of us are not very far apart at all.
No wonder I'm , thanks mostly to the either/or advocates.

Susan K

God

This mindset is also the belief that each soul is separate from one another, from what we desire for our lives, and that we are separate from The Pure
Consciousness of the Cosmic Infinite Circle of the Universal oneness.

Everything people, animals, fish, reptiles, insects, water, earth, air, planets, solar systems, galaxies, universe, are all one tiny integral of quanta realities within the one consciousness.

It is the hard wiring within the biological brain that differs in males and females. Females having a higher developed sense of intuition, nurturing and empathy.

Cin

Cin,

You stated "It is the hard wiring within the biological brain that differs in males and females. Females having a higher developed sense of intuition, nurturing and empathy."

Now what I would love for you to do is to define exactly what a "male" and a "female" is for me, because so far the best of the best have never been able to draw that line! And you seem to be able to do that in regard to the "biological brains" Really???

  I assure you; I like many on the male end of the spectrum are very intuitive, and we nurture, and as all humans we have empathy as well.  How one displays various parts of these particular variables that you have spelled out, varies from cultural and internal digestion of them all.  But I find someone telling me that males are less capable based on our "brains" as being rather insulting...though I have no doubt that this was not your intent...I just want to know how you came up with this!

Peace,
Taylor

Hi Tayler there is a fine line between characteristics with some gender women and men. Instinctively one gender is is designed by nature to respond one way and the other in another way. I suppose it all depends a lot on what we are predisposed to instinctively, but not necessarily for all. Women can have more male qualities then female and vice- versa. The soul or our life forces are which ever gender of the body they inhabit during it's life time. Souls are returned to the universal oneness once the body dies.

The gender female brain differs from males males biologically but there are many characteristic that can be different or can overlap on how one sees, understands and react  that appear to be more of the behavioral characteristics for one or the other. Like for myself I loved babies and children and looking after the home and and also cared for the home. This came more natural for me then it did my ex, *polar opposites.* We have both male and female energy one can be more predominant from the other depending on the circumstances that draws one characteristic to come out more then the other.

Cin   

Quote from: Jessica on August 29, 2006, 11:43:39 AM
Is the soul inhabiting a male body fundamentally different? functionally different? charactaristically different? than a soul inhabiting a female body?

If I should give an answer based on my culture (I am catholic) I should affirm that soul is sure genderless.

But if I think to myself I have to say the opposite. I am not sure about the best definition of 'soul', but it is for me the emotional and intellectual, immaterial part of a person, it is were my self-awareness lives.
Now, it is my self-awareness to tell me that I am 100% female even if my body state the opposite, and from my point of view self-awareness and soul are just the same.
Since my gender (and my disphorya) come the soul, my soul is sure gender-biased.
I do not like very much this answer. It raises other questions to my faith, that at the moment is far to be solid, but I do not see alternatives.

Exactly we follow instinctively the feelings and awareness of the innerself. This has nothing to do with the outside physicality of the body but what is within.  Even though I worked darn hard to emulate what was supposed to be the outside physicality in order that I could fit in with the rest of society or what I thought society would approve of but my feelings and thoughts just were not in harmony with the outside thus the constant inner battle.  I was raised Catholic but quit the church when I was 16 because I thought that what was inside was in conflict with my religious beliefs and surely was damned to go to Hell anyway. Today I have found a spiritual way of life that is in harmony with my other heritage, native spirituality. I am part French and Iroquoi.

My mate grew up in the Catholic church and although she is not a practicing Catholic I have learned much from her as she did from me. But then I still feel sometime so very different from the rest of society that I still have bouts of feeling alienated. Nothing to do with my gender, all believe me to be as what I present, which is female. It is my inner strength that some feel either  attracted to this energy or some feel intimidated. I am a healer and seer.

Love

Cin