The Male/Female Dichotomy

In these days of such discussion and debate over LGBTQIA+ issues, I feel I ought to offer my slant on the topic.

First of all, as many of you might already know, I believe we are all metaphysical beings. This makes it tempting to say that sexuality and gender are physical attributes, but it is not so. Sexuality is a physical attribute – in most cases (there are known exceptions). However, gender is a metaphysical trait.

Physically, all of us are, generally speaking, born male or female. And most of us are comfortable with it . . . or more accurately, most of us are resigned to that.

On the other hand, metaphysically, we are all born human, which involves components both male and female.

The physical differences tend to be obvious, whereas the metaphysical differences tend not to be so obvious, at least to others. Many people have spent much time with psychoanalysts trying to come to terms with the presence of the female or male side of their psychic being.

This is still true, only today there is a tendency to be both more open and honest about it, even while medical technology has complicated the dynamics of the considerations.

It is vitally important, however, to not loose sight of the fact that (a) we are in essence, ALL, each and every one of us, human, (b) with both male and female aspects to our souls.

Physically, the male and female traits are obvious. Metaphysically, however, they are not. There are many ways to look at this. 

For me, however, I feel the most relevant traits are that the male part of the psyche tends to be more judgmental, while the female side tends to embody more wisdom, being more compassionate. There is a reason that the symbol of justice are the scales of justice, which weigh not only the code of law, but other factors as well, including mercy.

There are no absolutes here, but this seems to reflect tendencies in everyone of us, stronger in some, weaker in others on both sides of the equation. Both aspects are, significantly, essential to our functioning and identity as a human being. One cannot judge (however flawed) without wisdom (however flawed) entering in to that judgment.

Given this dichotomy and the nebulous nature of its components, is it surprising that individuals struggle with defining its role in the nature of their identity? Influences, both external and internal, set up a struggle in most of us concerning who exactly we are.

We also cannot help but sense that this struggle has to do with the nature of our gender. In the past the choice was one of the degree to which we embodied a gender: girly-girls and manly-men, or manly-girls and girly-men, usually ignoring the fact that there are vast gradations in the spectrum beyond those mentioned.

Today, however, with the capacity of medical science to alter the body to align better with the gender, it is more complicated. It is vitally important to remember that this has begun to place on the shoulders of our youth a burden of choice accentuating the burdensome struggles accompanying changes in the spectrum of puberty and adolescence.

Prepubescent children have much of their gender identity imposed on them by others around them. Aside from that influence, they tend to be simply young humans, although there are often indications of gender critical thinking – of independent and cross-gender thinking. Boys who give primacy to feelings of what others might think over obvious judgmental issues, or girls who might think self-judgment primary over emotional thinking. All of this simply increases the difficulty of this struggle in our children.

Then, in adolescence, there arises a need to reconcile external sex with internal, emotional gender mandates.

My view is that unless these issues are the source of life-threatening struggle, I, as a Christian, am called to accept people for who they are, as they present themselves, in the context of their raison d'être.

I must also keep in mind that such issues present, for most people, lifelong struggles, whether or not they have settled on a gender identity. Even the most “stable” of people often have difficulty with the anima and animus struggle, which must be reconciled during an entire lifetime.

My role in other people's struggles with these things is simply to be sensitive to them, and not to attempt to direct the outcome of such struggles – within limits of course, such as when such a struggle tends towards suicide, for example. 

If they are struggling, it is essentially a struggle between themself and God who gave them their raison d'être, and between them and themselves in their struggle of trying to determine the nature of their raison d'être; I cannot help, unless invited to. It is not a thing that I, nor anyone else, am capable of reconciling for them. Simply being there for them must suffice.