NoctemAeternus wrote:This is an interesting topic and it would be cool to see some more discussion and knowledgeable contributions/opinions here.

Caiyros - seems like you might have some interesting insights on the subject.

Gender is unique in that it is largely a social construction. The Hopi Native Americans see 16 different forms of gender, the Western Culture sees only 2 different forms of gender. One researcher has made a case for 60-some-odd genders...and so it goes.

In 1979, I spent 6 months travelling and living in the Australian Outback with my then girlfriend who was a post-op transexual with a PhD is organizational psychology and had been born in the Outback. From this experience I became involved in gender studies and created a transgender organization called AXA that was social & educational.

To switch gears for a moment, one should know that there are 3 basic physical sexualities not 2. Note: a sexuality refers only to the form of the physical gentials - nothing more - nothing less.

These are:
Female - Vagina
Intersexual (aka Hermaphrodite) - a number of different combinations of aspects of Vagina & Penis
Male - Penis

So lets say conservatively, there are 3 categories. It used to be that babies when born in hospitals - if seen as intergenderal, would be surgically changed to what looked like "the dominant genitality" - approximately 1 out 30 babies are Intersexual = Hermaphrodite. It is not rare and ihas gone from being dealt with as an abnormality that is automatically altered - as legal cases and lawsuits have been successfully won.

Most Males are XY chromosomes and Most Females are XX chromosomes...but sometimes it is different, JAmie Lee Curtis has the chromosome makeup (XY) of a male.

The subtle levels of difference due to chromosomes leaves a lot unknown and may have an impect on sexual orientation. We all know thant Men can be straight, bisexual, gay, or celbate and that women can be straight, bisexual, lesbian, or celebate - and in all cases can lead successful lives if not harrassed or intimidated.

The same thing is true in "Gender-Land' .

First of all how many forms of transgender?

Draq Queen - Feminine presentation - gay or bisexual sexuality.

Transvestite - Feminine PResentation - gay, bisexual, or straight sexuality

SheMale - body transformation through hormones but remaining with a functioning penis - bisexual or gay sexuality

Transgender - living in the social presentauion and "dress code" opposite to the dress/presentation code that our society imposes on the "genital social rules".

Pre-Op Transexual - a male or female that has taken hormones and either grown breasts (male) or had their breasts surgically removed (female) but still have a vagina (women) or a penis (men).

Posr-Op Transgender - a male culturally presents as a woman, hormones used, penis split open and surgically a vagina is built - a female culturally presents as a man, hormones used, breasts removed, vagina reconfigured as a penis.

What about Desire (as in Non-Sexual Desires) , Attitude, Focus, and Sexual Preference (Sexual Desire)?

Well now we go into the Animus & Anima of Dr Carl Jung. But I suggest you read ONLY what Carl Jung wrote HIMSELF and Joe Campbell....It is a lot more complicated and mystical than "Male" or "Female" - they are the forces that control, balance, change, rebalance most of what are individuality is and this includes sexual prefence as well as all other aspects of the human personal makeup.


It is our culture that has wrecked havoc with all this....

Now my guess is that the Sumerian texts are not entirely perfectly translated....but we cannot really check this out as Dr. Samuel Noah Kramer is now dead...and no one has come along yet (that I know of, who could replace him).....anyway...I think the "Sumerian Transvestites" could easily have been Hermaphrodites with a specific balance of Animus and Anima and thus to learen about this go to the alchemical texts of the 16th-18th centuries where they mention the Divine Hermaphrodite and the Divine Androgeny (basically a celebate Hermaphrodite) and see the mention of the mystical poweres...Also reference THrice Greatest Hermes (3 vols) trans. by G.R.S. Mead.

Also, as a question to ponder: How many people who collect Immortals has some form of binding of and/or to the Greek Immortal Hermaphrodite - amazing experiences....I have a binding (also Cupid is badly overlook and considered a Baby w/Bow & Arrow on greeting crads....Cupid is something else!). The onlt person I know of that has written about Hermaphrodite is Aleister Crowley.

Also, remaining unanswered are the questions:
What is sexual energy?
What are the limits of Sexual Energy?
What can be done that awaits so far undiscovered with Sexual Energy?
What are the limits of power with sexual energy?
How is Shapeshifting a part of sexual energy?
Is Sexual Energy Itself - A Portal that we have yet to fully enter and understand.
Is Sexual Energy beyond Time Itself?
Does Opposite-Sex Sexual Energy create closure?
Does Same-Sex Sexual Energy create opening?

That's just a start,
Caiyros

PS Having talked and smoozed with Dr MArjorie Garber many times, I can endorse all her books, including:

Vested Interests: Cross Dressing and Cultural Anxiety

Vice Versa: Bisexuality and the Erotocism of Everyday Life

Coming of Age in Shakespeare

I personally believe spiritual or soul androgyny is a higher level of power and enlightenment one can attain. The highest, I believe, is a state of perfect equilibrium between not just male and female, but god and beast, plant and sky, fire and water, microcosm/macrocosm and so on.

The inherent physical beauty of many hermaphrodites I have seen is truly fascinating to me.

There is not too much written on spiritual androgyny, the sacred alchemical marriage, etc. but it is a topic always in the back of my mind and perhaps one day I will have done enough research to write something on it myself.

DragonScribe wrote:I personally believe spiritual or soul androgyny is a higher level of power and enlightenment one can attain. The highest, I believe, is a state of perfect equilibrium between not just male and female, but god and beast, plant and sky, fire and water, microcosm/macrocosm and so on.

The inherent physical beauty of many hermaphrodites I have seen is truly fascinating to me.

There is not too much written on spiritual androgyny, the sacred alchemical marriage, etc. but it is a topic always in the back of my mind and perhaps one day I will have done enough research to write something on it myself.

In my opinion what both you and I are saying here (it is a very wide avenue) is of the utmost importance.
C-

NoctemAeternus wrote:This is an interesting topic and it would be cool to see some more discussion and knowledgeable contributions/opinions here.

Caiyros - seems like you might have some interesting insights on the subject.

Back in the late 1970s, I lived and travelled with a transexual (M-F post op) nickname "Jen"...we even lived and travelled in the Australian Outback for 5 months. To be blunt: She was beautiful, brilliant, and it was a rather torrid sexual relationship... Also, she had a doctorate in Psychology and was mystically inclined.

In my opinion, there is only one way to understand the Transexual World or "Genderland" (including TVs, DQs, SMs, and so on)...and that is ...it is in the category that philosopher Michel Foucault called "social construction". If we look a male & female physically the both have breasts, the both have vaginas (males have a partial vagina (sorry guys...you do), and both some form of penis...and yest there are physical differences, obviously. Sexuality is a fact, Gender is a social convention; since the first century AD, civilization has tried to emulate the CHimps and have male domination. And so have more than 50% of all tribes - anywhere ane everywhere. MAle & female are physical; man & woman are conceptual.

The best way to remove yourself from all the male-female cultural garbage is to read 2 sources....all & everything written by Dr. Carl Jung on Animus & Anima....also ready Alchemy by Titus Burckhardt and read about The Divine Androgyny...and then perhaps be bold and get a binding of the Greek God/Goddess Hermaphroditos / Hermaphrodite... but when I just mentioned that I wonder how many of you shuddered (ifonly for a moment) and then (if this just happened) you ask yourself "Why?" you will learn a H&ll of a lot about social construction....

The Hermaphrodite is also, as symbol, a balance...A Hermaphrodite cannot be straight or gay, male or female...A Hermaphrodite cannot be polar as he/she embraces all..or both poles at once. Either way...all common conceptions fall apart. And I suggest that a much better way of looking at gender is to see only one Gner and that is Hermaphroditism with at least 16 major variations, perhaps more. The Hopi NAtive Americans recognize 16 separate genders, the traditional Lakota recognize 4 genders.

I met a transgenders Lakota Woman Warrior who was lesbian - Oti - not only was she a wonderful person, but also, the toughest warrior I have ever met....

ALso, according to various statistics about 1 out of every 20-100 "males" (stats vary), 1 "male "is basically hermaphroditic and 1 out of 10,000 "women" are basically hermaphrodtic and there are over 100 psyhical variations.. There is some arguement about exact numbers, but these numbers are in the ball park.

But back to Animus & Anima.,..these are the 2 forms of all-level conciousness, and it makes sense as everything in the universe is binary...

There is a species of frog, that during its lifetime changes its genitals from male to female or from female to male and can imprignate or be impregnated by the other. Sometimes these frogs go back and forth - so to speak between being male or female.

I buy and sell art and artifacts besides being in finance & marketing and an artist...I have an original Warhol watercolor painting of Sir Mick Jagger as a very fashionable & conservative looking woman. I have to wonder if Sir Mick posed for the painting.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLddJ1WceHQ

Caiyros (or is it Caiyrae) LOL

Aside from my social work grad program where budding social workers are trained to examine these issues, gender as a social construct is something that the mainstream still doesn't quite understand and probably never will. Gender itself runs on a fluid continuum and many problems of social identity have to do with the inability by intersexed (people born with two sets of genitals) and LGBT people to fit into these societally proscribed boxes.

I've never heard of transsexual priestesses of Sumeria... but it's no surprise, considering other cultures even today still embrace the concept of multiple genders as described by Caiyros, particularly with the native cultures. I blame Christianity for the stringent constructs we've created today with its emphasis on masculine males and feminine females and opposite sex relationships as somehow the predominant and ruling paradigm for relations between the sexes.