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The gender debate

Kristopher

Kristopher

Senior Registered
It seems commonly accepted that we only have a sex type during our incarnations and we are sexless as souls. But souls in male bodies act like males and souls in female bodies act like females. If we really are completely sexless as souls then that means that our brains play a huge part in who we are right now, personality wise.

Also, if we are sexless as souls, it would be unlikely that we would have people saying they were born in the wrong body. Yes, they may choose to be born a female, for example. Yet they are positive they're really actually male. If we didn't have some degree of a sex in their soul, people wouldn't have this problem. What I'm saying is maybe sex is in our soul and not the brain/body. This backs up my first point. Females and males act like females and males becuase they really are, not becuase their brains are.
 
I really don't think men and women are that different, I think a lot of us only seem so on the outside, but really deep down we're the same. Growing up, we adopt certain personality traits based on how we think we're supposed to act based on our gender, and then there is scientific proof that the male brain and female brain our different, but in the end of things I really do think we're very much alike.


But maybe I feel that way because I have a very 'half/half' brain. I tend to think like both men and women.
 
I personally disagree Red Night. I think in general there are big differences between males and females. I think males have more of a social connection with other males, like females have with other females.


I'm not saying I'm right on any of this. I just think its a strong possibility.
 
I'm in a weird position here, in the sense that I get along MUCH better with women than men, and I am a man. So, I don't really know. It's possible that I have a female soul, I guess if there is such a thing.
 
Red Night, I was having this coversation with another believer in reincarnation. This is part of his reply. He has the view that the soul can contain both male and female. This does make more sense than the possibility of having one sex as a soul, but he also explains that he believes we have a sex we like better than the other over the course of many incarnations.

the brain is a pass-through mechanism, a focusing mechanism which enables consciousness to function in the physical world. It dampens down and focuses consciousness, acting like a lens. Personality is in the mind. It persists after death and before birth, very much the same as it is in life, except broader. In physical incarnation, the personality is narrowed down and focused on a narrower range of attributes and tendencies. After death, one remains essentially the same person, including sex. But sex is of the mind, not of the body. This is how you can have a person in a male body who feels female, and vice-versa. The mind actually contains both male and female. But a person will tend to identify with one or the other sex for several lifetimes, then flop over. It is the "flop" lifetime which gets especially confusing sometimes
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I like that, it makes sense. Thanks for sharing. I've always thought that I've had more female than male lives, or at least that I enjoy my female ones more.
 
I identify completely as female.. I'm not unhappy as a male in this life, but I always knew something wasn't adding up. knowing I was female in my last life helped me make sense of it all.


there is most likely a learning experience in my being male in this life and I'm not 100% sure what it is yet. i do know though that I can't wait to get back to being a female again lol.
 
I feel "right at home" being a male. I can't remember any of my previous lives so obviously can't comment on how I felt being a female, but I just have a feeling that I will be a male for most of my lives.
 
Preference


Perhaps our spirit/soul carries a sort of memory of lives and incidents therein that creates a preference. However, if we are to continue to rise, we may need to choose the sex which We percieve the best to facilitate that growth. I had said in my first post that I am only aware of one carnation prior to the present, and that was a male who had a bent on deeming marriage and women as often foolish. In my reading of his/our works he did not come across as putting either down in a chauvinistic manner but seemed to carry the idea that men are more rational and intelligent. This was the 16th century so I suppose he may have been leaning for the era that it was in. When I have thought about what it would be like to be a woman, it has somewhat scared me. One of my friends in the Navy who came across as the 'all-male' type once said privately, " This may seem strange but I am sure I should have been born a woman." It did seem strange because he was in a seemingly happy heterosexual relationship. I have never had a similar thought, but I am now a stay at home father and am doing much of the nurturing and tucking in that my wife pretty much did fully when I was a traveling contractor. I think we both have the capacity to do what needs to be done whether it is typically considered to be somewhat isolated to gender. I do have a question about your start. If our souls have a gender, how do they present?
 
Personally I believe we are sexless as souls, we are a balance of both male & female on the other side.


However, I think we can develop preferences as we incarnate over and over again. For example, if someone was a male for their last 4 lives and are then born as a female, they may feel they are born 'into the wrong body' as you put it. But it isn't wrong at all as we plan what sex we are to be born as (I believe).


We must experience the world from both points of view, that is certain at least.
 
I would counter argue to that that gender is a psychological construct in that it's a measure of one aspect of personality as measured on a spectrum.


If personality traits can carry over through lifetimes, I think then so can gender. The preference for a physical body may be because the one chosen is a best fit for the individuals sense of personal expression. On that point i agree with you. Obviously its possible to chose one or the other as well for desired experiences.
 
Let's not dismiss hormones in determining how we feel inside. Under normal circumstances, a male body produces more testosterone and a female body produces more estrogen. If a male body produces more estrogen, that male may have that "woman trapped in a man's body" feeling, and vice versa. It will be at varying degrees. Some may be women who just never outgrew their tomboy stage, but other women may have a bit of an overload that manifests in various ways including, say, lesbianism.


Some women may identify more with men because they grew up in a "man's environment". If a girl has the personality of a go-getter and has only male role-models around, she may wind up taking her cues from those men. I was one such girl. All my life, men were the doers while the women sat back and clapped then made some sandwiches so the guys could eat lunch. Docility has never been a strong point for me, and I took on a swaggering, decidedly male personality. I have never outgrown it. At one point I was mistaken for a lesbian because I walked and talked like I "had a pair". (Heh, ask my husband. I am 100% hetero! ;) )


However, some may have a spiritual reason behind the hormonal imbalance. Perhaps a soul tweaks a body's development while it can to adjust what it wants. An Apache medicine man whom I knew as an acquaintance told me that spirits have genders that may not match the body. He told me that I had a strong male spirit, and if we were living in the old days I would be a warrior for the tribe regardless what my gender was. (He was the first place I had heard of the Indian tribes having female warriors, a fact I confirmed later in contemporary accounts from the early days of the Old West.) Such gender-crossing, he said, was rare, but it happened. In his tribe I would not have been forced into a "proper woman's role", though he added that not every tribe had that belief, and a woman with a male spirit or a man with a female spirit in some tribes would be suspect and run out or put to death.
 
How?


Kristopher, I asked you before without malice how gender would present in an (probably) invisible soul. You have not answered so I propose again that if we are truly traveling toward the ultimate light in eternity that we choose according to which will try us more; challenge us; or open us to the use of our talents for the betterment of all. It is the only reason that I could think of that gender would be chosen. Foxy
 
He may not be online, he's somewhere in the UK I think. He'll get back to you, don't sweat it :)
 
Foxy Houligan said:
...if we are truly traveling toward the ultimate light in eternity that we choose according to which will try us more; challenge us; or open us to the use of our talents for the betterment of all. It is the only reason that I could think of that gender would be chosen.
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Foxy, I hope you won't mind me offering possible answers to your questions until Kris comes back online:


Those who have read much of the research done by Dr. Ian Stevenson would suggest that sexual identity seems to follow us into the next life. At the same time, most reports of after death communication seems to suggest the same. Add to this the many volumes written involving near-death experiences, mediums, clairvoyance and even between death memories; one might get the impression that sexual identity seems to follow us well into the spiritual world and back again, even when we sometimes come back as a different sex.


So, I would venture a guess that we don't necessarily shed our sexual identity immediately after we die. But, in most cases in which our sex changes in the next life for some reason, we generally learn to adjust to our new identity with the profound assistance of hormones. One might note that throughout history until recent times, all infants were treated as female.


On the other hand, I have read the possibly enlightened theory that our souls go through several stages during our collective sojourns in what we commonly call Heaven. These stages are said to cover a range from the first stage in which our spirits relate most closely with our earthly experience, wherein we live, eat and exist just as we did on earth, sexual identity and all; to an ultimate stage in which we no longer have bodies nor sexual identities.


One wonders why we would need a sexual identity in a place where procreation is no longer necessary. But, when we realize how sexual orientation is so much a part of personality and behavior, even without benefit of hormones, we may realize that there is more to sex than just procreation. I, therefore, tend to agree with your proposal that sex provides us with yet another door with which we may gain additional challenges that will bring us closer to the light.
 
Shiftkitty said:
Let's not dismiss hormones in determining how we feel inside. Under normal circumstances, a male body produces more testosterone and a female body produces more estrogen. If a male body produces more estrogen, that male may have that "woman trapped in a man's body" feeling, and vice versa. It will be at varying degrees. Some may be women who just never outgrew their tomboy stage, but other women may have a bit of an overload that manifests in various ways including, say, lesbianism.
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Without disrespect I can tell you there is absolutely no truth to any of this. Do you know who Chaz Bono is? He did not feel any different inside regardless of his hormone levels, in fact he said he felt he was becoming more of himself after he starting having weekly testosterone shots.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU7YMTJ8ntE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9lDuZ-KVvU&feature=related


My own take would be that the gender can change from life to life, the body is only plumbing and is not a constant. We each have our own unique combination of male and female energy (yin and yang), very few people (probably none) are 100% yin or 100% yang, and I feel this yin/yang energy may be more constant from lifetime to lifetime.
 
Totoro said:
I identify completely as female.. I'm not unhappy as a male in this life, but I always knew something wasn't adding up. knowing I was female in my last life helped me make sense of it all.
there is most likely a learning experience in my being male in this life and I'm not 100% sure what it is yet. i do know though that I can't wait to get back to being a female again lol.
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To elaborate on my previous post, I believe that we each fit in somewhere on the gradient of masculine and feminine, if where we are on the gradient is somewhere close to or on either side of the middle, we may be able to change gender without it causing any problems in life, such as yourself. However if the feminine/masculine energy is too close to either polarity we may find it impossible being the opposite gender, such as Chaz Bono.
 
How can the physical body not affect how we feel about ourselves? No disrespect meant (and none taken from your post), but sometimes we (myself included) hone in so intensely on the spiritual that we forget about the physical or other mundane influences. My own parents got so hung up on reincarnation that anything that couldn't be explained in an immediate context must have had something to do with reincarnation My masculine behavior, they felt, was because I was male in my most previous incarnation, and not because of strong masculine influences in my development years in this life.
 
hormones effect the physical drives and processes, and the physical development of the body, sex drive, etc. I had a hormone imbalance from birth, too much estrogen among a number of non-sex hormones, once I had it fixed I suffered no identity crisis or change in gender identity afterwards due to normal hormone levels which I had never experienced before.
 
Without disrespect I can tell you there is absolutely no truth to any of this. Do you know who Chaz Bono is? He did not feel any different inside regardless of his hormone levels, in fact he said he felt he was becoming more of himself after he starting having weekly testosterone shots.
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I think to an extent (and maybe what shiftkitty was getting at) is that they can certainly have a mood altering affect though.


As I was saying though, gender is merely a point on a spectrum and has little to do with with physical sex. So in that sense it's entirely possible for a woman to like football and beer or for a man to be more concerned with domestic matters and to also be completely happy with their physical sex.


I'd also like to point out the famous case of the women East German Olympic athletes that were given testosterone shots without their knowledge. Many of them went on to commit suicide or had female to male sex changes because the damage had been done and was irreversible.


So I think we come with our core pre-programming that can't be changed and for those of us closer to the Male / Female line, it's easier to flip back and forth. And as Green pointed out, it may not be for others.


For me, I know I'm a bit more into the female than I am closer to the dividing line. However I also think I have something to learn through being male in this life, so I'm ok with it. Briefly though, I think it's to learn to relate to my dad, whom most of my self esteem issues have been affected by for two lifetimes.


But I think had I some serious regret or something just "happened" and wham I was male, I think I would have some issue with it.


What's funny though is my wife hates being a woman. She has no interest in anything that goes along with it. Jokingly one day I told her, well next time you can be the guy!
 
Green26 said:
hormones effect the physical drives and processes, and the physical development of the body, sex drive, etc. I had a hormone imbalance from birth, too much estrogen among a number of non-sex hormones, once I had it fixed I suffered no identity crisis or change in gender identity afterwards due to normal hormone levels which I had never experienced before.
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But isn't it possible that some can feel awkward in their own genders because of it? I did not mean to paint with a broad brush
 
I think it would depend on their initial predisposition though. A male body builder taking testosterone may feel "enhanced" whereas someone else may feel that the pendulum has swung to far in one direction of the other.
 
Foxy Houligan said:
Kristopher, I asked you before without malice how gender would present in an (probably) invisible soul. You have not answered so I propose again that if we are truly traveling toward the ultimate light in eternity that we choose according to which will try us more; challenge us; or open us to the use of our talents for the betterment of all. It is the only reason that I could think of that gender would be chosen. Foxy
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I'm not saying that we should always be male or always be female. I'm actually meaning that, as Nightrain pointed out, our Identity as souls can be and probably is a result of our incarnations. Sex type being the most obvious factor. Obviously, as souls, there is no physical attachment that would label our souls female or male, but, IMO, psychologically we are. So just becuase a sexless soul has incarnate into a female body, it doesn't mean that they won't feel strongly that they are male.


Our Identity as a soul may then be strong enough to cause problems when we're incarnated into a body that is out of our comfort zone. For example, its a bit like being a biologist for 20years and all of a sudden your job has been switch to a psychologist. You're still a biologist in the wrong job. Therefore you still identify yourself with something you're no longer part of. It would take a number of years of studying to feel comfortable in your new job.


I agree that we will try out the opposite sex a number of times in order to grow and gain experience from different situations. The same as we will be born into different cultures, families, lifestyles and anything that would give us new experiences. However, just because its all part of our soul development, it doesn't mean we wont take a long time to adjust to it.
 
This is an interesting topic. I believe we have chosen the body we are in to fulfill the plan for the lifetime to be lived; to enhance the experiences we intended to undergo and to provide the greatest number of opportunities. While it is my understanding that the soul controls the body to a large degree, I do not know to what extent gender is soully (? made up word), culturally, hormonally or dna directed, and it may well be sourced through each to some extent.


I also believe as souls we strive over lifetimes to experience both the feminine and the masculine in order to obtain a balance. I do not feel in the least bit feminine, although I do find myself sympathetic with and almost able to "read the mind" of some women I have been close to regarding specific events which defined some very clear gaps between male and female perception and activity. Likewise, I have been able to see the feminine in some overtly masculine men. As in all things, a balance is key, and between the masculine and the feminine, very basic.
 
Very interesting. It is also interesting to me that when we are conceived we start out as female and eventually we develop into a specific gender due to a gene on the Y-chromosone if I understand it right.


I haven't much to offer but you've got me thinking now.


It would seem to me that physical and psychological influences may have some bearing on how we feel and operate through our gender, but it also seems to me that it is more that some unexplained phenomena had affected our DNA before our birth. That which I've always thought of as a form of colllective memory but now you have me wondering if it isn't the soul that we may be carrying through many lives determining which genes will become our make up.
 
Leesea said:
Very interesting. It is also interesting to me that when we are conceived we start out as female and eventually we develop into a specific gender due to a gene on the Y-chromosone if I understand it right.
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Yes, that's correct Leesea. That's supposedly why males have niples. Our bodies all start as female. Although there are people who think, in the womb, we don't start off as male or female.
 
Shiftkitty said:
Some women may identify more with men because they grew up in a "man's environment".
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I’ve grown up with three brothers and I’ve always felt closer to men than women, but I doubt the reason for this is only environmental. I look quite feminine, I’ve had all kind of girlish toys while I was a child, I never had a problem being a woman, but I used to argue with my mum because I felt she put much more pressure on me when there was a house task to do like ironing or cooking. I always was treated like a girl, I had my girl friends, I wasn’t with boys all the time, but since childhood I’ve felt different somehow to another women, in fact I think my mum is a bit disappointed with me, as she had a lot of hopes on me being her only girl, but I’ve never had the same interests or behaviour typically considered as “female”. (I’m the only one who didn’t marry in a church and doesn’t have children).


Not too clear memories, but in most lives I remember I was a man. I’d say I don’t have any preference, I agree with Kristopher and Usetawuz: the choice must be related to what we want to accomplish in each life or the experiences we want to have. As a female I feel more limited and I’ve missed the independence, the strength and the freedom of a man, but that doesn’t mean being a man is easier… it’s just different.

Leesea said:
Very interesting. It is also interesting to me that when we are conceived we start out as female and eventually we develop into a specific gender due to a gene on the Y-chromosone if I understand it right.
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I believe hormones have a doubtless influence in the development of the brain. Yes, at an early stage in the embryo, we all are female, and endocrine glands are essential to determine the sex of the person. Androgens are secreted by fetal testicular tissue a few weeks after conception. As a vet, I know that if we take out the sexual organs (testicles or uterus and ova), the differences between male and female almost disappear. I have no doubt that hormones transform our bodies and make us act like a man or a woman… but there must be more factors influencing our personalities and probably one of them is past life related. I don’t know why these characteristics should remain in our souls when we are in the other side, but if we still maintain certain traits in this life as a result of having a certain profession or certain abilities in past lives, why wouldn’t we maintain those relating to our sex? After all, it’s a essential part of our identities…
 
Much like Green26 mentioned, I see the soul as being much like the yin-yang possessing both male and female components. I personally do believe that the soul ordinarily does have a tendency to prefer one gender over the other. I remember reading in one of Michael Newton’s books that over the years in his work he has found that most of his clients tend to incarnate as one gender or the other on average about 75% of the time. That shows me that there is favoritism involved.


Much like when a talent can be cultivated over many lifetimes, I think that it is highly likely that if a soul is used to a particular gender that the energy associated with that gender is cultivated and expanded over time, and that energy is carried lifetime to lifetime. If the soul who has demonstrated a clear preference for one gender over the other, it stands to reason that it would feel uncomfortable or have a hard time shaking the feelings opposite sex. I have met heterosexual women that I have felt put off a strong masculine energy, and I’ve met hetero males that have a feminine vibe. I can’t help but wonder if they are a cross-gender incarnation. Some souls seem to deal with it and adjust easier than others.


Gender is hard to grasp and hard to define and there are so many variables involved such as hormones, upbringing, social conditions, etc. However, I think it's clear that there seems to be a preexisting factor that goes beyond the conditions of the current incarnation. I come from a family of very strong male personalities. They are interested in most of the things that go along with what would be considered "guy stuff." But I've always felt out of step with them and always felt out of my element when I was around them. Obviously that environment didn't rub off on me very much. It just isn't who I am.


I now know that I have been female in the majority of my past lives. Yes, I feel more at ease with being in a feminine role, but at the same time at this point I have a good idea of my reasoning for being male, so I'm taking it for what its worth. I'll get the experience I need from living this life as a male and carry it forward.
 
Concerning gender switching, it's also interesting to note that more less the birthrate between male and female has always been 50%, more or less.


So maybe a majority do have a preference where it's the few that don't or don't mind switching that account for the variance.
 
Totoro said:
Concerning gender switching, it's also interesting to note that more less the birthrate between male and female has always been 50%, more or less.
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The birth rate as always slightly favoured males with the rate being 105 males to 100 females. This does even out over time due to a higher death rate among young males presumably due to factors such as a more dare devil nature and war.
 
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