Does God have a Gender?

Exploring Perspectives around the Gender Debate.

Funny thing about the term “a gender”, how close it sounds to “agenda”!

In recent times we have seen so much written and listened to so many perspectives about gender. From the ever-expanding LGBTQ+ community, to men posing as women competing in women’s sport.

Is transgenderism a real thing or is it a class of mental illness? Who in this world has the status to present an “absolute truth” answer to this question? The Pope? The Dalai Lama? Some Professor of Human Psychology? A gay activist?

Recently, on Facebook, a post by one of my “Facebook Friends” drew enormous controversy. Many opposing viewpoints were shared, and I read them with interest. I was taken aback by the rigidity of some of the perspectives, especially some that were presented by people whom I believe to be enlightened beings.

So, I guess I should start from where I view the world. I was raised a Roman Catholic, but never fully arrived in a place of certainty with my faith. I had too many questions that seemed to evade answers. When I was 21, I walked out of Mass and never returned. I was done trying to subscribe to something I just could not believe in.

Just like today, I cannot subscribe to a man choosing to be a woman because I just cannot believe in it. I do not wish to tell that man what he should and should not do. That is none of my business. But in the same breath, I reject his desire to tell me what to do, that is, to recognise him as being a woman.

So, I have contemplated this a great deal. My current belief, and it is validated by some degree of experience through deep work in consciousness, that I do have a soul, a spirit. I am a spirit occupying a body.

I do not believe that God exists “out there” or “up there”. I believe that my soul is an aspect of a greater essence that is God.

My greatest teacher talked about an infinite, definitionless awareness that permeates everything. The ancients talk of the Tao, the mother of the universe. I like those two explanations. This ethereal life force, of which we are all part, could well be what we know as God.

So, I guess the question arises. Does my aspect of this infinite and definitionless awareness, this piece of the mighty Tao, have a gender? If so, then it must carry some definition. Through my deepest explorations, I could not feel any form of definition at all.

For others, it may be different.

Where Does Gender Come From?

As we create new lives, a new aspect of awareness comes into being in the human form. Does this soul enter as a gender and then occupy a random body, hoping that body matches it’s gender? Or does it come in formless, occupy a new body and assume the biological gender of that body? I get a sense it is the latter.

I do agree that part of this journey of human life involves awareness expanding through many experiences, trying on new beliefs and experiences, evolving ever forward. We all play a part in that. Every time our perspective is challenged, we can either solidify in our viewpoint, or we can explore together, learn, grow and evolve.

Simply adopting someone else’s perspective is not growing and evolving. It is conforming, and probably has something to do with needing something.

I arrive at this place and ask myself, “How can it be that a being can arrive in a man’s body and suddenly demand that they are not a man, but in fact, are a woman?”

We can use our words to explain something in ways that confound and confuse, but we can never escape the simplicity of XX and XY chromosomes. I have heard the arguments about Will Thomas, the average American male swimmer who suddenly decided he was female and invaded the elite level of women’s elite collegiate swimming, including the women’s change rooms. Further, I have heard the arguments about Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer at the recent Olympics. For anyone who wishes to allow their eyes to go there, it was obvious to everyone that both athletes had a penis. That is just about as male as you can get.

How did we get here? I have heard several experts including Dr Jordan Peterson and Dr Camille Paglia talk of historical trends where, in past great civilizations, during the final decades of their existence, society became obsessed with gender. Are we repeating a well-tested, fatal pattern?

I get a sense that two things are happening. And both can be explained by exploring how we live and conduct our lives.

We can argue that all beings are born equal, but perhaps equal opportunity is not apparent. Some may say that the child born with physical deformity has not been born equal to the child without deformity. Or the child born to a drug addicted mother may be starting life with limitations. Perhaps these beings chose a challenging path before conception? We may never know for sure.

Following birth, the journey of life begins. Physical growth is accompanied by mental and spiritual growth. But here is where the first hurdle comes. The mind is an untamed, difficult to contain phenomena that can branch off in many directions, if it is not kept in check by a strong and aware spirit.

The Emergence of a Higher Self

In meditation, we talk of the “witness”, an aspect of us that is not the mind, but reveals itself as the watcher of the mind. With practice, it can reveal itself over time to a point where it can decide and can override the mind when it ventures into unhelpful territory. This elevation of the “Witness” is associated with an expansion of awareness.

In most traditions, spiritual growth is associated with an expansion of awareness. It can evolve to the point where a person, for the most part, conducts their life from this expanded spirit and the mind settles into the place of dutiful servant to the higher aspects of self.

It seems that when life is challenging, and physical survival is ever in question to some degree, we must strive to learn, grow, evolve and to overcome. It seems that during such times, human beings tend to work well together, caring for each other, gaining much from the opportunity to serve and be served.

The delivery of service to others from care, compassion and kindness seems to enrich the spirit, elevates our self-acceptance and delivers a calming sense of inner peace.

When societies arrive at a place of wealth and abundance, where physical survival issues fade into the background, and opportunities to serve are less apparent, beings can slip into a place of self-serving and self-absorption. No longer able to gain a stronger sense of self-worth and personal validation.

Without these powerful ingredients for self-approval, the being may begin to strategize ways to gain approval from others. Creating a sense of being “special” can be a powerful tool for such an agenda.

Descending into Self Absorption.

Further, a being may have isolated themselves so profoundly separate from their familial clan that they seek out another group to be part of. We see this over and over with teenagers forming into groups like rockers, skinheads, punks, goths, etc. Trans might just be another of those groups where the inspiration comes from an “us against the rest” mindset.  

In a modern world dominated by commerce and transactions, many people find selflessness to be a challenging concept. We are reminded by social media posts that tell us that life is about giving. Proverbs like, “We create a living by what we receive, and we create a life by what we give!” But it does seem that in our most selfless moments, when we give of ourselves purely for the grace of giving, we discover a stronger sense of who we are, and we find renewed levels of inner peace and acceptance.

When our intention is to take, we will always feel an “emptiness”. Often times this take can simply be a demand for attention from others. What better way to demand such attention than to classify ourselves as “special” in some way.

Narcissism is the demand for unearned attention. In a wealthy society, when people feel they are losing in a competitive race, losing the race for attention, narcissism can take over as a pathway to power.

It is common now for people to define themselves as victims, blaming a person or circumstance for their lot, demanding the world give them a break. This victim strategy can be alarmingly powerful as it drags the kindhearted into a quest to relieve their suffering. Of course, the narcissist will never have an interest in healing because ‘the suffering’ is where all the power is.

When a group of victims get together, they form an alliance to attack. Often this is done by waging a battle on behalf of other victims. The LGBTQ+ community have recently taken on the Palestinians of Gaza as their quest. The irony is a that Gaza is a place where people who identify with the LGBTQ+ community would never be tolerated. In fact, they would be killed.

Moral Compass or Virtue Signaling?

I have talked a lot about developing a strong moral compass. My podcast about Healthy Masculinity explores a strong personal moral code as a vital ingredient of healthy masculinity.

Our own moral code does not come from a religion or someone’s rules. These things can be helpful roadmaps, but it emergence as an inner knowing of what is right and what is not right. It can be a moment-to-moment thing.

It can be very challenging when what you feel opposes what a group is asserting. This can lead to moments of courage or periods of regret.

There was a time when young people strove to become better people, to develop a strong sense of personal morality, to become someone who others could trust and depend on. I get a sense that in the 80’s, this changed, and the quest shifted to wealth and status. In the blink of an eye, people moved away from living cooperatively to living competitively. Soon, moral codes were abandoned as shortcuts promised big prizes.

Justification became a well-practiced skill for many. But the challenge arises when we avoid the work that populates the roadway toward personal morality. An emptiness exists in the core of our being where our well-formed moral compass would normally reside. The urge, driven by a desire for status, is to demonstrate our morality to others. The quick fix here is to climb on board some obvious social cause and become a vocal supporter.

In essence, we are just joining a mob. We bind ourselves to an ideal that is often insane and without substance. To defend our failures, we attack those who question us or our cause. It is astounding to watch. The gulf between righteous virtue signaling and genuine personal morality is vast.

For the record: The dictionary meaning of the word Bigot is:

A person who regards his own faith and views in matters of religion as unquestionably right, and any belief or opinion opposed to or differing from them as unreasonable or wicked. In an extended sense, a person who is intolerant of opinions which conflict with his own, as in politics or morals; one obstinately and blindly devoted to his own church, party, belief, or opinion.

American Heritage Dictionary

So, the irony is that the people supporting the LGBTQ+ community, who label the non-believers as bigots, are themselves the bigots. Their intolerance destroys their capacity of compassion and reasonable dialogue.

Gender Dysphoria and the Rise of Female Transgenderism.

Until about 10 or 15 years ago, gender dysphoria (A profound and persistent unhappiness related to one's physical sex.) was limited to about one in 10,000 and seemed to always appear in very young boys.

In recent years, there has been an explosion in what appears to be gender dysphoria in young and teenage girls. Some argue that it has always been there but now it is safe for them to express it. If so, where are all the 50-, 60- and 70-year-old women who wish to identify as men. Given the current statistics among young girls, there should be hundreds of thousands of them.

Many things have changed that have impacted young girls. It is well documented that young girls, especially around puberty, experience anxiety. Perhaps it is because they now carry the responsibility of pregnancy. But other factors enter the equation.

1.     Young girls, looking at “influencers” on social media and comparing themselves, arriving at a point of feeling their body is not womanly enough to be socially acceptable.

2.     Some experience an attraction to their own sex. Instead of feeling okay to explore their sexual preferences, it can be easier to blame being in the wrong body. This happens to many young men experiencing gender dysphoria, who with the right support, involve into living happily as gay males.

3.     Climate alarmists have entrenched the belief in young people that the earth is being destroyed and it is because there are too many people. The thought of giving birth frightens some young girls as they fear they will be cast as evil, so they further reject their femininity.

Instead of nurturing young girls through this period, virtue signaling adults jump on board, affirm their doubts about their gender, and sentence the fragile young person into some catastrophic decisions to sculpt their body into something it is not. Once need only watch the hundreds of videos from “de-transitioners” on YouTube to realise how serious this is.

Where Does the Mind Play its Role?

If we were to accept that our beingness, our soul, our essence, has no gender, then movements away from the gender of the body must surely be a creation of the mind.

I recall all too well some of the things my mind got up to when I was a teenager. Fantasy was often much stronger than reality. But the hurdles I crashed into on these journeys, whilst they may have brought me humiliation and a fair dose of resentment, they were also my teachers and played their part in my journey to a strong personal moral code.

The mind is tricky. Many set off on a quest toward enlightenment and find themselves down a blind alley, created by the mind. A dear friend sent this to me recently. It is titled, “What is Enlightenment”. I do not know the name of the author.

“Enlightenment is here, now and forever. If you have no concepts, you know this directly and indubitably. But if you are attached to any concepts, you are not aware of this. In this ignorant state you think that you have to attain enlightenment because you are not aware that you are already free, that you have always been free. You therefore set up a goal for yourself, call it enlightenment, and then make great efforts to attain it. If you seek enlightenment in this way, you must have some idea of what it will be like. The mind is very clever and very tricky. If you put an enormous amount of energy into attaining and experiencing this goal, the mind will create this desired experience for you and allow you to enjoy it. But it will not be the experience of enlightenment; it will be the experience of your concept of what enlightenment is. When this happens, you will think that you are enlightened because your experience will correspond exactly to your preconceived idea of what enlightenment is. These mind-induced experiences are not the permanent, natural state. They are temporary mental experiences that will come and go in time.”

Similarly, feelings are just feelings. They tend to arise from our deeper essence. An emotion is a response to a feeling. They are not the same. An emotion is triggered by the mind’s response to a feeling. Now that does not mean a person should not feel emotion. I love experiencing emotions. 

But there is a little blind spot we can become aware of. Sometimes we have a thought, and we create a feeling in response to it. This can then descend into an emotional reaction.

For example, the thought might be, “People don’t like me!” The feeling may be sadness. This could result in an emotional response that reveals itself as trauma, anger or self-loathing. Thoughts are just thoughts. They are not real.

I get a sense that in this social media age, people are spending too much time alone, lost in their thoughts and creating the most tragic of mental operas. Soon they are online seeking allies and attacking faceless foes, locked in a self-righteous war for some imagined supremacy.

What is Mental Illness?

There are people in the world who suffer from a clinically diagnosed condition like schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder. These people need ongoing care. There are others who have been so deeply affected by trauma that their mind is frozen in past events, and they cannot seem to escape. These folks also need much care and support.

There are others who have lost control of their mind to some extent and may be experiencing depression, anxiety, antisocial behaviors, and delusion. Often, these people can be helped by supporting them to regain control of their mind. Counselling with a skilled therapist can be very helpful.

In the modern market-based economies, some big corporations have attempted to elevate some of these to “clinical” so that drugs can be prescribed. There are a frightening number of fundamentally “mentally well” people who take psychotropic drugs daily to deal with “my depression” or “My anxiety”.

In a general sense, excluding serious mental conditions, most mental health conditions are the product of a mind in delusion or self-absorption. People in this place are experiencing mental ill-health. I have a strong sense that a huge proportion of the “trans” community belong in this category.

However, they are being blocked from getting help because the virtue signaling bigots are doing all they can to shut down the conversation. These people, in their own quest for status, are doing all they can to trap these people in their delusions, on a quest to normalize mental illness.

It Takes Courage:

When a friend or family member is slipping into delusion, it is crucial that we summon the courage to stand strong and work with them, to explore with them, and to help them keep navigating through many perspectives, to find their way back to who they really are.

This act of courage may also mean supporting the person to seek external support. But this too can be a trap if the counsellor happens to be a card-carrying member of the virtue signaling mob.

We must hang in there. Your friend or loved one has entered a challenging mental terrain. They need a friend to help them remain anchored to reality. Curiosity, interest and questions that invite exploration are great tools. Telling someone what you think can be unhelpful and, at times, brutal.

A student once said to me, “You know. My mind is a dangerous neighborhood, and I should not go in there alone.”

But, if we let fear of judgement take hold of us, we may be inclined to back away and abandon our friend when they need us most.

So, does God have a Gender? For centuries, God has been referred to in the masculine. Feminists, in good humor, have referred to God in the feminine. IT seems though that gender is not part of the deity we see God as.

So perhaps too, our own essence, maybe it is an aspect of God, does not have a gender. Gender seems to only be definable as the body a person is born into.

Any variation to that must be a creation of the mind and should be treated as such.

So perhaps, instead of focusing on Gender, we should be focusing on the Agenda!

Note: Much of my exploration comes from a lot of reading, listening to podcasts and open discussions and debates with others. Many of my reference points for the workings of human consciousness come from my years of work studying and working with the Avatar® Materials. All expressed viewpoints are my own and not intended to reflect the viewpoints of any other person involved with or connected to Avatar.

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