A common statement we hear from many people who have chosen to be transgender goes something like this:
"Inside I feel like I am a ____ [the opposite gender]."This is stating that regardless of their body's gender, inside they feel they are the opposite gender. This brings us to the appropriate question: Who is the person "inside" who feels they are a different gender than the gender given at birth?
What is gender confusion?
When confronted by someone with gender confusion or transgenderism, some might ask: 'Why do they want to be the opposite gender?'Every year, thousands of people undergo surgery - called sex reassignment surgery - and/or hormone therapy in an attempt to change their body’s gender. Transgender procedures such as sex organ replacement combined with hormone injections have become commonplace in medical centers.
One recent report estimated as many as three million children in the U.S. have gender confusion. In an attempt to accommodate this confusion and postpone the decision, many of these children are prescribed hormone blockers to prevent puberty development. The concept is that hormone-blocking will allow them to make a decision after they turn eighteen as to which gender they want to be—allowing them to more easily undergo gender change surgery.
Until that decision is made - and often even afterward - there is confusion. Did the choice resolve their confusion - their identity crisis? Many will state they feel more comfortable with the new gender they chose: But is this their real identity? As this ability to make this gender change illustrates - and as we've shown scientifically throughout this publication - unfortunately the answer is no.
Nevertheless, a change to another gender is often done at the risk of criticism and ridicule, not to mention practical concerns like public bathrooms and dressing rooms. Thus in order to make such a change in gender status, one must be either very confused about their gender or very convinced they are not the gender of their current physical body.
What does this mean about who we are?
Transgenderism and gender confusion are simply confirmations that we are not these physical bodies. If we were the physical body, there would be no capacity to question our body's gender. If we were these physical bodies, there would never be any question about our gender. There would be no mechanism allowing someone to consider their gender to be any different than their body's birth gender.Simply the capacity to question the gender of the body requires us to be distinct from the physical body. The same goes for the ability to change the body's gender. We must be distinct from the physical body - and that body's gender - in order to seek to change it.
This logic would apply to, for example, someone who decides to purchase a car. As they drive the car off the lot, they might question whether they bought the right car. Perhaps they should have bought a different sort of car - or a different color. The capacity to question their car purchase comes from the reality that the car is a changeable possession rather than their very self. As a result, there is an opportunity to change cars.
This would mean by necessity that the person who bought the car is not the car. The car driver is distinct from the car. They weren't the car before they bought it. And they aren't the car after buying it. The only way they have the capability to question whether this is the right car for them is if they are distinct from their car.
This is the same with the capacity to sell the car. The only way a person could have the capacity to sell their car and buy a new one is if they are not that car. If they were their car, they could not sell one car and buy another car.
In the same way, the only mechanism that could conceivably offer a person the ability to question their body's gender and then change it means the person is distinct from that body. Conversely, if we were the body, then we would always be the gender our body was born with. There would be no way we could question it. And there would be no way we could change it.
Thus, the only scientific explanation for a person questioning or changing the gender of their body is if we are not these physical bodies. One cannot be the physical body and at the same time reject the gender of that body.
Who is the person "inside"?
Remember the statement above - where a transgender person may say, "inside I feel like I am a woman [or man]."This very statement indicates the existence of two elements: The body - of the gender given at birth - and the self or person "inside" who identifies with a different gender. The mention of "inside" means the person questioning their gender identity has a different identity than the physical body. Furthermore, the self or person "inside" who feels they are another gender cannot logically be that physical body - because their current physical body has a different gender.
For example, Caitlyn Jenner (previously known as Bruce Jenner) gave an interview to ABC's Diane Sayer, summarized by Newsweek magazine. One of Jenner's statements was:
"I've always been very confused with my gender identity. For all intents and purposes, I am a woman."Yet the body that Jenner was born into was obviously male. This is why Jenner had won the gold medal in the Men's Olympic decathlon. But because the self - the person occupying Jenner's body is not that male physical body - this person "inside" has the capacity to feel the gender of that body doesn't match the identity of the self within.
This can only mean one thing: That the self or person inside - is not the physical body.
What about children recalling a former life?
Over fifty years of research by Professors Ian Stevenson, M.D. and Jim Tucker, M.D., along with associates from the University of Virginia has confirmed a link between transgenderism and former lives.The documented research assembled over 2,500 cases of children who recalled their former lives in a different body. The researchers individually investigated each of these cases. In an overwhelming majority of cases, the researchers independently corroborated the past-life recall of the children. The children were accurately describing the names, places and family relatives of their former lives in detail.
This included details the children could not otherwise have known unless they were that person in their former life.
In many of these cases, when the former life was of the opposite sex, the children also behaved as if they were of the opposite sex. In one series of cases where the children recalled former lives in an opposite sex, the researchers found 62 percent of the children had early behavior typical of that opposite sex.
In other words, when a male child recalled a former life as a woman, in most cases the boy also exhibited the early behavior of a girl - which we would now refer to as a transgender tendency.
Doesn't gender confusion indicate a deeper identity?
Many of these cases, along with Jenner's and others' statements also indicate the self is different than the body. While media attention may to some degree influence gender confusion, a person who becomes confused about their gender is actually attempting to reconcile their deeper inner person - their self or spirit-person - with their temporary physical body.And this reconciliation can be difficult: Because the self or spirit-person is not the physical body.
Again, just the ability to be confused about one's gender confirms that one's gender - and thus one's physical body - is distinct from one's self.
While many suggest transgenderism is some sort of moral or psychological issue, it is actually simply a symptom of our society's misidentification with the body. Modern society today is immersed in the assumption that we are these physical bodies - and happiness is derived by satisfying these physical bodies.
When a person finds they are not happy even when the physical body is satisfied, a conflict can arise from within.
A person who questions their gender is by default trying to reconcile this conflict and the fact that deep within they do not feel they are their physical body.
This attempt to reconcile one's self with the physical body is not a bad thing. It is not something to condemn. It is something that should make us consider our own identity. Such a search to reconcile our identity is useful when it leads to a greater understanding of our ultimate spiritual identity:
Our spiritual identity doesn't change when our physical body changes.
