Preface: (In ALL the articles of the Transgender Corner, it is necessary to read “Transgenderism and ‘God’” first before reading any other articles because you won’t understand this one or the others without the foundational understanding of a “god” and why this author refuses to even use the term “God” because of the extreme prejudice that has arisen around the usage of that terminology)

In this segment of Transgenderism, we will explore one of the most Universal concepts that frustrates Transgender people: Dualism or a Binary-oriented world. Why is it so? Is there a way to explain it? Is it human prejudice as I suggested in the foundational article “Transgenderism and ‘God’”??

There is a simple answer to this and a long one. Usually, one states the simple up front but I will begin with the long one because it will answer many questions at once.

The Natural World

From ancient times, Philosophers tried to figure out the Nature of the World we live in. Not surprisingly, since our philosophers go back to ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle defined the World in “Dualistic” terms, especially Plato’s Theory of Forms. He came up with the Subject and Object. Other philosophers later refined this into Epistemological Dualism such as Being and Thought as well as Plato’s Subject and Object; the other Dualism was Metaphysical Dualism: Body and Spirit, Mind and Matter, Good and Evil (Irony here: even Dualism is split into “two”!)

Later on, other Philosophers came along (Christian ones) and defined both the World and Metaphysical in a trinitarian manner: the sun, moon and stars; God, devil and Mankind; body, mind and spirit. This was not a hard leap to make since pre-Catholic priests on forward saw the Godhead as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. (How they make a 3-person God into a monotheistic religion, don’t ask because even this Believer can’t explain it to you!)

And if that wasn’t an end to mathematical philosophy, the Greeks (once again) saw the World as comprising of Four Basic Elements: fire, water, earth and air. Even in this, one can see a form of “multi dualism” (my wording).

Or how about the Four corners of the Earth (whence comes the term “four winds of heaven”)? We all know that the World is not a 2 dimensional world yet we speak of the earth as if it were 2 dimensional. It is 3 dimensional – or should we say 4 dimensional, as Einstein taught??

In all of this, we see that the world can be thought of as binary, trinary or quaternary, which brings us back to a heavily weighted binary pattern since quaternary is only a multi-dualistic form.

What shall we say then? Is Humanity hopelessly prejudiced??

Is Gender only binary??

The Star Trek world

Let us take a look at a parallel world to answer these things. Fiction is a great invention of Mankind because we can look at the “real world” in ways we couldn’t otherwise, which is why people love a good story.

The world I grew up in since youth was the Star Trek series and Star Wars universe. Both were and are great but the characters I loved most from the Star Trek universe were the Security officers. Military is in my nature but the one who stood head and shoulders above the rest was the character Odo from Deep Space Nine series. It was not even close to my favourite Star Trek series but Odo made it worthwhile watching.

Odo was a very special being. Out of all the characters from Star Trek and Star Wars who had superhuman powers, no one but NO ONE could pull anything past Odo when it came to judicial issues! If you saw it, he was a “shape-shifter” whose genetics allowed him to morph into another being or even non-living being!

This series is SO worth watching if you will spend time in sci-fi!

Odo’s Identity

If you did see this series, you will recognize Odo as the professional, intelligent yet prickly, killjoy introvert who was often a hero in most episodes because of his character and his superhuman ability. The writers chose a good role for him and it is amazing he didn’t become jaded because of his unique ability to shape-shift. But I digress…

What you might wonder, as the “audience”, after watching this series is what gender do you think Odo was?? Was he really male, as his character inclined towards? If one is a shape-shifter, technically – TECHNICALLY, he was transgender because that is the nature of a shape-shifter! Right?!

But here is where I would ask the reader, especially if you identify as Transgender: how do you know who Odo is if he could shape-shift into any being at any moment in time??? If you are honest, the answer is “I don’t know”!

We don’t know who Odo is unless he presents himself in the same body to the audience!

That would be true for any flesh and blood Being; we cannot know who Uncle Bob or Grandma Maria is unless they looked the same to us all the time! You doubt that statement?? Go and dig up the grave of someone who has no headstone and tell me who that person is/was then….!

You don’t know who is who unless they look the same to you when you get up the next day! Otherwise you couldn’t function!

The same with the Creator

The reason I will keep referring back to the article “Transgenderism and ‘God’” is because Transgender people keep saying they were created that way or made that way. Doesn’t matter how you phrase it; the point is that Transgenders are people too but don’t know which god to refer to because they feel separated, estranged from religious people.

The most prominent God (or as I thoroughly explained in that article, the most prominent “Elohim”) of the Western world is Y-H-V-H Elohim (without vowels). You won’t hear Christians talk of him but if you pin them down, they will admit to it and say “oh, he’s the Father”. Christians don’t know the relationship of YHVH to Yeshua/Jesus and the Jews will deny there is any relationship but that is neither here nor there! My point to bringing in YHVH Elohim is to establish a hotly debated concept between Biblical believers and the transgender world:

As with Odo, so with YHVH.

As I stated in the flagship article, YHVH Elohim is a transgender Elohim. Even if you don’t believe that (and why wouldn’t you since I pointed out the inference right from their scriptures?), you can accept the concept that there are Beings that are more advanced than Humanity and that they live in another dimension. If we can make it true for a fictional person, how much more so is it real for the one called Y-H-V-H. YHVH is for all practical purposes, a shape-shifter. S/he can become anyone at any moment in time!

And if the question hasn’t come to you already, I will answer once and for all: why do biblical Believers call YHVH “HE”??

Answer: because the Elohim of the Bible never presented “himself” to the ancient Hebrews or Christians as anyone but a male! That is why Judeo-Christianity-Messianism ALL are such “patriarchal” religions!! Like Odo, if He didn’t, no one would recognize that Being!!

The short answer

Now we can answer the question “why is the world so binary”?

Because: while there may be multiple genders, there are only two sexes, as science teaches: an X and Y chromosome. If one isn’t a boy, then you’re a girl or vice versa. This is the short answer for why the world is Binary. The long one, we just discussed.

And finally, to cut off at the pass those Biologists who will dispute there only being two sexes fact:

Yes, it is true that a human can be born with the genes XYY or XXY and yes, they would technically be a transsexual but that has been such a rarity in all of human history, why would we create a separate category from the primal reality? A girl or boy is the norm (sexually speaking). What point would there be to say there is more than two sexes? That would be like saying an American penny can be made of something other than Copper. It is true and a historical fact that we didn’t have a copper penny in 1943 because of the war effort but to say that there are more than 2 types of pennies when no one has seen one and they aren’t in circulation anymore, would be to obfuscate the fact. An American penny is copper and worth one cent.

Because there are people in our nation trying to politicize Science, I think it would be good to get back to basic Science. Look for that article next…