Trans-Buddhism - A Case for Paradoxical Spiritual Identity

FEATURE | WAIRUATANGA / SPIRITUALITY

Written by Stu Paul (any pronouns) | Contributing Writer

I considered myself a Buddhist long before I ever realised that I was transgender. I grew up within the confines of mainstream Christianity in a family that was not particularly religious, but with a worldview that I would describe as culturally Catholic. This was a world where men were men, women were women, and queerness was an abnormality to be quietly tolerated but never celebrated. 

I rejected Christianity as a child (my first distinct memory of doing so was praying to God for a Blastoise in the Pokémon trading card pack I got for my birthday - receiving a bunch of weak cards instead was the beginning of the end for my faith in a monotheistic creator). As I got older, I found myself being drawn to Eastern philosophies such as Buddhism, Daoism, and Advaita Vedanta. Of all these spiritual traditions, Buddhism resonated with me the most, particularly the concept of ‘anattā’ or “non-self”. This is an idea that carries with it an enormous level of nuance and complexity, with literally thousands of years of expansion and commentary on the subject by countless Buddhist scholars over the centuries. For most in the West, it is an idea entirely foreign to us and in direct contrast to most of the history of Western thought and psychology, which focuses on (and claims as fact) the unitary reality of the indivisible Self and its attributes. One God, one Self. To put it simply, Buddhism is a philosophy of No God, no Self. 

Without getting into the weeds of modern neuroscience (and the fact that most scientists studying the brain have observed that the traditional Eastern view of mind is more accurate than the traditional Western view), it became apparent to me as the years went by that there was something deeply, metaphysically True (capital T) about the concept of anattā. Who am I? What is “I”? Who is asking the question? Meditation is a technique for observing the truth about ourselves and the relationship between mind and body; when all mental activities cease, there is only awareness - the observer. This observer is non-self - anattā. This is an extremely simplified take on the idea, from a layperson with no formal study or training in Buddhism - but for the purposes of this article I think it will suffice. The Buddha taught to explicitly not identify with the self, to see it as illusion - a falsity perpetuated by one’s craving and clinging to personal, material, and environmental circumstances. 

Time went by, I got older, and while remaining engaged with Buddhism and learning much, I focused on other key elements of the teaching, such as impermanence, suffering, and dependent origination. Anattā seemed less important a concept to me at that time; I thought I understood it well and actively practised non-identification with the self. How to alleviate suffering for myself and my loved ones was a more pressing and significant train of thought to follow within my own personal Buddhism. I studied at university, worked jobs, had relationships, read books about psychology, history, religion, and Western philosophy (as well as a lot of great fiction). In time, I almost forgot about anattā altogether. Then I started to realise that I was transgender. At first, this wasn’t a problem. It made a lot of sense to me, and re-contextualised a lot of my thoughts and memories about myself and my gender identity throughout my life. But then an uncomfortable thought struck me - if identity is an illusion and the self non-existent, how can I truly be both Buddhist and transgender? 

This would prove to be a bit of a prickly issue the more I thought about it. I could either be truly Buddhist, and therefore not transgender (instead identifying with the gender-less non-self of observing awareness) - or truly transgender, and therefore not Buddhist (instead accepting my gender identity as essential and true and not an illusion). I was mentally stuck in a philosophical paradox. Thankfully, I was not the first confused transgender Buddhist to encounter this problem. Very quickly, I found a wealth of information and discussion about this issue on the internet, what it means for one’s identity, and how to make sense of being both transgender and Buddhist. At its core, it seemed to me that most takes on the issue were that although gender is indeed illusory (like all elements of identity), in a practical sense, we DO live our lives within the context of these illusions. As one online commenter put succinctly, “you cannot meditate your way out of gender dysphoria”. Summarily - it doesn’t matter. I was a boy who became a woman - this, in fact, highlights an alternate view of the incongruity between the gendered self and Buddhism - it doesn’t matter because it’s all illusion, therefore I might as well have fun with it, all right? 

These days, I don’t see as much of a clash between these two identities as I once did. Actually, I have found them to complement and reinforce one another in interesting and surprising ways. The fluidity of gender identity is in line with Buddhism’s teachings on impermanence and the constant, dynamic changing of physical reality. There are no Buddhist texts that condemn queer people to suffering or punishment for their mere existence. Although some figures in various schools of Buddhism have expressed misogynistic views at times (including the view that a woman must be reborn as a man in order to attain enlightenment), others have made the claim that gender is irrelevant to Buddhist practice, and others still have declared that women are actually of a superior nature to understand and enact the teachings of Buddhism in comparison to men. 

Regardless of one’s opinion, this here transgender Buddhist thinks that Brian Tamaki and JK Rowling should, at the very least, shut the fuck up and read about the Buddha’s teachings. Compassionate, loving-kindness, and empathy for their fellow human beings might be a good start - who knows, they might just learn something.