THE THIRD GENDER - THE SEXUAL TRILEMMA OF THEOLOGY

One of my favorite tactics, when I argue online with a theist about the civil right issue of gay marriage , is to hit them with 'What about intersexuals? Who do they get to marry?'

Finally, one of them started asking cogent questions (the usual response is a 'fum-fah, sputter sputter, ummmm' sorta thing), such as how many actually exist, are there any studies about this, etc.

I recall many years ago, reading in a Taoist book (the title eludes me for the nonce) about how the ancient Taoists actually considered the intersexual a sort of holy creature, being composed of equal amounts of Yin and Yang.

I think this speaks to the constant badgering that those of us hear when debating this hot topic ('one man/one woman paradigm', you know the drill, and if you don't? You'll hear it soon enough, trust you me).

Thus, armed with a mission, the Internet, and an inquiring mind (no, not that of the tabloid variety, thanks much!), I went net-fishing.

Caught a few prizes along the way, to boot.

Here is an entry (and this is South Asia alone):

Hijra -

"In the culture of the Indian subcontinent a hijra (also known by a number of different names and romanised spellings) is usually considered a member of "the third sex" — neither man nor woman. Most are physically male or intersex, but some are female. Hijras usually refer to themselves as female at the language level, and usually dress as women. Census data does not exist, but estimates range from 50,000 to 5,000,000 in India alone.

Although they are usually referred to in English as "eunuchs", relatively few have any genital modifications.^[1] A third gender has existed in the subcontinent from the earliest records, and was clearly acknowledged in Vedic culture, throughout the history of Hinduism, as well as in the royal courts of Islamic rulers."

Wow. And of course, thanks to gender-phobia, many of them are forced into prostitution, and are harshly mistreated in their own country. Gee, that sounds familiar, doesn't it?

I will skip over the Kathoeys of Thailand, as they tend to have cosmetic surgery to become the third gender.

There's not a whole lot of information about the Winkte of the Native American, except that they were held in high esteem. There's even less about the Berdache.

The Arabian Khanith is apparently a transgendered (transvestitic) individual, but not hermaphroditic. The Roman Galli were priests who voluntarilly castrated themselves (brrhhh!!), and thus do not fall into this category.

For the interested reader, there's more at Wikipedia.

For an interesting article concerning self-impregnation by these individuals, see here.

Are there censuses being done? I'm making an educated guess here, but from what I've learned (about this country as well as information about others), I have the distinct impression that these folks aren't volunteering a whole lot of the time, for obvious reasons. Gender discrimination, outcasting, you know, all those wonderful things that mark the religious as a rule.

All the research having been done, it is then incumbent on us as moral beings, to approach the question: what about these individuals? It doesn't matter if there are 5 million or just five individuals. The theist (usually those of the 'the way gawd made them' variety too, I have no doubt) will do an about-face and trumpet for elective/cosmetic surgery on the child (which doesn't usually take very well: as I understand it, this accounts for a large percentile of the folks who want 'corrective' surgery later in life, i.e., a sex change).

I feel this subject puts the theologian on further shaky ground. For one thing, how would a theist judge this? Is this the Devil's doing, or God's? How do they choose? Would these 'aberrations' (that's sarcasm, by the way) qualify as a miracle? Could it be that this is actually the true image of their deity...not male, nor female, but a combination of the two? Was Plato closer to the mark, in his Symposium? And how does free will factor into this? Does the child, when grown into an adult, get the option to reverse the gender choice? If not, why not?

Is it best to kow-tow to the opinion of the majority? Is that the Christian God's will? What happened to 'His ways are mysterious, a wonder to behold'? And if no surgery is performed, then who on earth do they get to marry? While I'm guessing that one set of genitalia will take precedence over another, there may be the individual who has fully functioning sets of both - what then? Are they doomed to a life of loneliness, prostitution, deemed as 'less than human', making the odd porn film here and there? Relegated to the dim, gloomy gutters of humanity, consigned to the status of circus freak (a more terrible form of 'schadenfreude' I cannot imagine), resigned to the pointed finger, the whispered palm, viewed as something less than human?

Mind you this: I'm not blaming religion for the phenomenon of xenophobia. That's a part of the feral processes that we inherited from evolution. But somehow, religion tends to reinforce this territorial inclination in the human animal. 'Conform!' they cry, waving that evil grimoire of theirs. 'Leper, outcast, unclean!' they bellow from the pulpits, from the rooftops. Somehow, religion tends to shear away their empathy for all except those in their inner circle. While there may be some who view the issue I present here with the compassion they are called upon to display, they are by far in the minority. Prove me wrong on this, please.

The world shall be a better place, when we stop regarding what is different as evil - no harm, no foul. When the whisper of old ghosts who never were have no sway in the world of the living, the breathing, in short: reality.

Till the next post, then.