Hi, thanks for the article. I've shared it with a couple of friends who I think it will help. Would you mind sharing your sources for the cultures you brought up that have third, fourth, fifth "gender" groups? Any other material on ancient tribal treatments of trans, non-binary or homosexual folks would be very helpful. I read a lot about ancient cultures, Mircea Eliade, Frazer, etc. and have yet to come across anything regarding it. Thanks again for the great article.
The people with five genders still exist and are called the Bugis. They are the indigenous people of one the islands of Indonesia, and the fifth gender people are their spiritual leaders. Here is a good write up about them, but the original research is in Sharyn Graham Davies, "Gender Diversity in Indonesia."
Also note that First Nations in the United States often now call their many different third and fourth gender people "two-spirit," but this is a recent creation. Each of those specific categories of people have their own names and don't translate across each culture.
I think that two-spirit is a highly productive idea--yet it comes from the specific experience of the Native American peoples, involves obligations as well as privileges, and isn't "socially constructed" in the academic way that U.S. thinking favors these days.
Yes, it’s super important to see that these are roles not just identities. Western secularism tends to try to divorce these ideas from their context and then re-apply them elsewhere in places they do not apply or have no context.
I'd also add to my notes here that many of the articles you will find online about such groups usually say that these are "transgender" or "non-binary" people (for instance, several online articles about the Bugis), but this a Western term, not the indigenous understanding. So it's best to look for anthropological articles or first-hand accounts from or about each of these people, rather than online new articles because many of them use these people to "prove" the western model is just like theirs. It isn't at all.
"-but as long as the left is so hostile to the concept of the sacred and so desperate to prove itself the true inheritors of “progress,” this will never happen."
This is very interesting: "Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and a titaness named Dione (sometimes thought to be Diana)." Zeus was the main god resident in the oracular oak tree at Dodona, which was likely the main oracle after Delphi in Greece. Dodona was more remote and somewhat simpler--so it didn't have splendors like the treasuries at Delphi. Yet the goddess Dione was also resident at Dodona--and it may have been that she prophesied first at Dodona. The name Dione means simply Goddess, much as Zeus means God. Paired gods, oracles, oak trees--highly productive and worth further contemplation.
Yes! Thank you, I really resonate with this. I remember years ago a friend agonizing over whether they were a "man" or a "woman," and feeling so alienated and even ashamed. I told them that I thought they were unique and beautiful and exotic, actually a wonderful thing unlike anyone else. I don't know if that was the right or wrong thing to say, but I do know that it felt so limiting to have to force someone to fit into the category of either "man" or "woman." I think it's very unfortunate that the trans activists seem to have bought into this so fully. It would seem to be so much more liberating to break free of all the strictures. I used to think we were all on some sort of continuum, but now I wonder whether we're just randomly spectacular in our own unique ways.
I've had a couple of friends, one close and another more peripheral, who faced similar personal crises over the male/female identity. I can't even imagine how crushing that must be to one's psyche. My heart went out to them but I always struggled finding assuring words to say. Like you, I found my current inventory of language very limiting. It also felt inadequate to call them unique or beautiful souls, at best, because it was a kind of psycho-babble filler since I had no other well to draw from (I hope that makes sense). At worst, that kind of phrasing sounds patronizing since it didn't really speak to the true circumstances behind their deep discontent. What I love about Rhyd's article here is that it provides a context beyond our very limited Western biological scope. I come from a poor and violent background. I feel like the insecurity that results from trauma, certainly in my case, leads to binary ways of approaching reality, especially when it comes to something as sensitive as gender and sexuality. I also think that material Western metaphysics is a very cold-hearted ideology. It's deeply traumatizing in many ways to people of all financial backgrounds. So many of us are raised stuck with this unsophisticated understanding of gender and our collective trauma actually sanctions the reinforcement of such crude ideas and categorizations leading to rivers of needless shame. My life would've been enriched immeasurably without this stupid framework of gender essentialism clamped down upon me. It's a very judgmental framework that makes cruelty all too accessible. It took me a long time for even the concept of a continuum to dawn on me. That alone was a breakthrough. Indeed, we are spectacular, random or by design, I don't know. But this article unlocked a latent knowledge we share with all cultures and all times. For one, it's nice to feel free from those heavy chains of judgment that weigh down one's soul. Secondly, I feel like I can provide people I know with a better, healthier, more true-to-life perspective.
Yes, I didn't feel that my response actually provided any comfort at all. And sadly, this kind and gentle person died of colon cancer in their mid-20s. It was all so unfair, such a profoundly shitty luck of the draw. I still think about them all the time, remembering our last phone conversation, when I made another mistake and told them I didn't think the cancer was going to kill them. No comfort there either, and no truth to boot.
Even the Judeo-Christian god has radically different roles and expressions of the masculine and feminine, described particularly in the wisdom and poetry writings of the Old Testament. A holdover from ancient polytheism, I’d say, but contemporaries just consider it metaphoric or poetic. Which is kind of funny, as though the whole book isn’t completely metaphoric and poetic. But I digress.
I always thought it super amusing when the Hebrew god told them not to have any other gods besides him because he was jealous, and yet this all later became the basis for the idea that there are no other gods despite the fact that he is constantly complaining that the others are tempting his people away...
On the Q thing, I read the article, and I'm not sure how i feel about this, but i also definitely do not like the alphabet soup designation. One thing I've found particularly difficult to wrap my head around is why asexual is included, since there are absolutely no laws against not having sex and I can think of no society that punished people for not being sexually active.
I think there's something to be said about those differences that a singular term would undermine, but also the problem here really is the struggle for political power. Tying all those groups together (either in Q or LGBTQA+) is useful for political organizing if you are a non-profit trying to gain funding to represent everyone, but culturally it's causing a lot of problems.
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing your insights! It also reminded me of Plato's Symposion, where Socrates states that Original Man had four legs or something like that, and gay people were somewhat better because one loves what is similar in the higher realms. Also your point on penetration and social hierarchy is mentioned in the Symposion. Interestingly, the Greek did invent a lot of stuff and lots of ideologies, but a gay marriage was not something they thought about. As a hetero, I guess gays who marry want to be something they are not, and they would be better of in the long run if they would stick to a unique gay identity. But I have no stake there.
Now your "blaming" of Capitalism intrigued me because many blame (cultural) Marxism or at least left-wing ideology for some of the problems you mention, especially the (social) constructivism. I'm not denying the arguments you make, but it seems both modern Marxism and modern Capitalism share some responsibility. Also note how both (extreme) leftist politicians and companies are promoting this trend at the moment. It would be nice to have some kind of unified theory on this.
Do you know the jungian theory on uroboric incest? It seems some of it applies to the current situation, where young people haven't fully developed their sexual identity (polarity) yet but already become fluid-gendered, which is very different from such a development _after_ one has fully matured and explored one's main gender.
This article has inspired me to move from a free to paid subscriber. The war against body and nature (what I am now tentatively calling “the 3rd dimension”) must be exposed and digested if we are to have any hope of changing the path of destruction we are on. My current pondering is whether we fight against nature because we can not stand the idea that we are not in “control” of our pain. Rather than accept a world in which we must make sacrifices and offerings to the spirits that are beyond our complete understanding, we try to subjugate the great mystery, not by eliminating the resulting pain (climate change for example), but to give ourselves the illusion that at least we “control” the type and timing of the pain, or are at least willing to put up with it in exchange for the “goods” we get by destroying the wild and the natural. When I quit smoking, I realized that the addiction had served a similar service (if I couldn’t end external infliction of pain, I could at least deliver relief to my self inflicted or chosen cravings every time I lit up and be in control of my “pain” in this way). I don’t have the same grace with words as you. The above is an effort to say that what you clarify here is important in so many far reaching ways. Thank you!
Hi, thanks for the article. I've shared it with a couple of friends who I think it will help. Would you mind sharing your sources for the cultures you brought up that have third, fourth, fifth "gender" groups? Any other material on ancient tribal treatments of trans, non-binary or homosexual folks would be very helpful. I read a lot about ancient cultures, Mircea Eliade, Frazer, etc. and have yet to come across anything regarding it. Thanks again for the great article.
The people with five genders still exist and are called the Bugis. They are the indigenous people of one the islands of Indonesia, and the fifth gender people are their spiritual leaders. Here is a good write up about them, but the original research is in Sharyn Graham Davies, "Gender Diversity in Indonesia."
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20210411-asias-isle-of-five-separate-genders
A few more examples:
-the muxes in the Zapotec region of Mexico.
-the hijra in Hindu India
-the nadleh in Diné culture
Also note that First Nations in the United States often now call their many different third and fourth gender people "two-spirit," but this is a recent creation. Each of those specific categories of people have their own names and don't translate across each culture.
I think that two-spirit is a highly productive idea--yet it comes from the specific experience of the Native American peoples, involves obligations as well as privileges, and isn't "socially constructed" in the academic way that U.S. thinking favors these days.
Yes, it’s super important to see that these are roles not just identities. Western secularism tends to try to divorce these ideas from their context and then re-apply them elsewhere in places they do not apply or have no context.
I'd also add to my notes here that many of the articles you will find online about such groups usually say that these are "transgender" or "non-binary" people (for instance, several online articles about the Bugis), but this a Western term, not the indigenous understanding. So it's best to look for anthropological articles or first-hand accounts from or about each of these people, rather than online new articles because many of them use these people to "prove" the western model is just like theirs. It isn't at all.
"-but as long as the left is so hostile to the concept of the sacred and so desperate to prove itself the true inheritors of “progress,” this will never happen."
That has the ring of truth.
This is very interesting: "Aphrodite was the daughter of Zeus and a titaness named Dione (sometimes thought to be Diana)." Zeus was the main god resident in the oracular oak tree at Dodona, which was likely the main oracle after Delphi in Greece. Dodona was more remote and somewhat simpler--so it didn't have splendors like the treasuries at Delphi. Yet the goddess Dione was also resident at Dodona--and it may have been that she prophesied first at Dodona. The name Dione means simply Goddess, much as Zeus means God. Paired gods, oracles, oak trees--highly productive and worth further contemplation.
Yes! Thank you, I really resonate with this. I remember years ago a friend agonizing over whether they were a "man" or a "woman," and feeling so alienated and even ashamed. I told them that I thought they were unique and beautiful and exotic, actually a wonderful thing unlike anyone else. I don't know if that was the right or wrong thing to say, but I do know that it felt so limiting to have to force someone to fit into the category of either "man" or "woman." I think it's very unfortunate that the trans activists seem to have bought into this so fully. It would seem to be so much more liberating to break free of all the strictures. I used to think we were all on some sort of continuum, but now I wonder whether we're just randomly spectacular in our own unique ways.
I've had a couple of friends, one close and another more peripheral, who faced similar personal crises over the male/female identity. I can't even imagine how crushing that must be to one's psyche. My heart went out to them but I always struggled finding assuring words to say. Like you, I found my current inventory of language very limiting. It also felt inadequate to call them unique or beautiful souls, at best, because it was a kind of psycho-babble filler since I had no other well to draw from (I hope that makes sense). At worst, that kind of phrasing sounds patronizing since it didn't really speak to the true circumstances behind their deep discontent. What I love about Rhyd's article here is that it provides a context beyond our very limited Western biological scope. I come from a poor and violent background. I feel like the insecurity that results from trauma, certainly in my case, leads to binary ways of approaching reality, especially when it comes to something as sensitive as gender and sexuality. I also think that material Western metaphysics is a very cold-hearted ideology. It's deeply traumatizing in many ways to people of all financial backgrounds. So many of us are raised stuck with this unsophisticated understanding of gender and our collective trauma actually sanctions the reinforcement of such crude ideas and categorizations leading to rivers of needless shame. My life would've been enriched immeasurably without this stupid framework of gender essentialism clamped down upon me. It's a very judgmental framework that makes cruelty all too accessible. It took me a long time for even the concept of a continuum to dawn on me. That alone was a breakthrough. Indeed, we are spectacular, random or by design, I don't know. But this article unlocked a latent knowledge we share with all cultures and all times. For one, it's nice to feel free from those heavy chains of judgment that weigh down one's soul. Secondly, I feel like I can provide people I know with a better, healthier, more true-to-life perspective.
Yes, I didn't feel that my response actually provided any comfort at all. And sadly, this kind and gentle person died of colon cancer in their mid-20s. It was all so unfair, such a profoundly shitty luck of the draw. I still think about them all the time, remembering our last phone conversation, when I made another mistake and told them I didn't think the cancer was going to kill them. No comfort there either, and no truth to boot.
I read an article a while back where a gay man suggested “Q” as an all-encompassing designation for sexually and gender variant people. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/dont-call-me-lgbtq/576388/
Even the Judeo-Christian god has radically different roles and expressions of the masculine and feminine, described particularly in the wisdom and poetry writings of the Old Testament. A holdover from ancient polytheism, I’d say, but contemporaries just consider it metaphoric or poetic. Which is kind of funny, as though the whole book isn’t completely metaphoric and poetic. But I digress.
I always thought it super amusing when the Hebrew god told them not to have any other gods besides him because he was jealous, and yet this all later became the basis for the idea that there are no other gods despite the fact that he is constantly complaining that the others are tempting his people away...
On the Q thing, I read the article, and I'm not sure how i feel about this, but i also definitely do not like the alphabet soup designation. One thing I've found particularly difficult to wrap my head around is why asexual is included, since there are absolutely no laws against not having sex and I can think of no society that punished people for not being sexually active.
I think there's something to be said about those differences that a singular term would undermine, but also the problem here really is the struggle for political power. Tying all those groups together (either in Q or LGBTQA+) is useful for political organizing if you are a non-profit trying to gain funding to represent everyone, but culturally it's causing a lot of problems.
Very interesting article, thanks for sharing your insights! It also reminded me of Plato's Symposion, where Socrates states that Original Man had four legs or something like that, and gay people were somewhat better because one loves what is similar in the higher realms. Also your point on penetration and social hierarchy is mentioned in the Symposion. Interestingly, the Greek did invent a lot of stuff and lots of ideologies, but a gay marriage was not something they thought about. As a hetero, I guess gays who marry want to be something they are not, and they would be better of in the long run if they would stick to a unique gay identity. But I have no stake there.
Now your "blaming" of Capitalism intrigued me because many blame (cultural) Marxism or at least left-wing ideology for some of the problems you mention, especially the (social) constructivism. I'm not denying the arguments you make, but it seems both modern Marxism and modern Capitalism share some responsibility. Also note how both (extreme) leftist politicians and companies are promoting this trend at the moment. It would be nice to have some kind of unified theory on this.
Do you know the jungian theory on uroboric incest? It seems some of it applies to the current situation, where young people haven't fully developed their sexual identity (polarity) yet but already become fluid-gendered, which is very different from such a development _after_ one has fully matured and explored one's main gender.
This article has inspired me to move from a free to paid subscriber. The war against body and nature (what I am now tentatively calling “the 3rd dimension”) must be exposed and digested if we are to have any hope of changing the path of destruction we are on. My current pondering is whether we fight against nature because we can not stand the idea that we are not in “control” of our pain. Rather than accept a world in which we must make sacrifices and offerings to the spirits that are beyond our complete understanding, we try to subjugate the great mystery, not by eliminating the resulting pain (climate change for example), but to give ourselves the illusion that at least we “control” the type and timing of the pain, or are at least willing to put up with it in exchange for the “goods” we get by destroying the wild and the natural. When I quit smoking, I realized that the addiction had served a similar service (if I couldn’t end external infliction of pain, I could at least deliver relief to my self inflicted or chosen cravings every time I lit up and be in control of my “pain” in this way). I don’t have the same grace with words as you. The above is an effort to say that what you clarify here is important in so many far reaching ways. Thank you!