People from the Puritan US to Putin's Russia may dislike gays, but the question is, Do they have rights? Do we not all as sentient beings, at least as human beings, have equal rights?
"Homophobia can kill you," says Discovery (news.discovery.com). So be pro-gay or neutral.
What are or were pandakas in the Buddha's day? "People of non-normative sexual natures, perhaps originally denoting a deficiency in male sexual capacity," according to Peter A. Jackson ("Non-normative Sex/Gender Categories in the Theravada Buddhist Scriptures," Australian Humanities Review, April 1996).
The best account, and one of the very few, we have ever come across concerning Buddhism and homosexuality, which is the frame for discussions of pandakas, is an academic collection of essays edited by Jose Ignacio Cabezon: Buddhism, Sexuality and Gender. Of particular interest is the contribution of Prof. Donald S. Lopez.
Buddhaghosa, apparently, put together a clinical description of pandakas -- often offensively and misleadingly translated as "eunuchs" when they are in fact non-normative individuals. Ancient sketches of transgender and cross-dressing individuals had many disparate presumptions about their character, habits, and proclivities as well as the karmic source of their condition. It cannot be asked, "What was the traditional view of homosexuality in Buddhism, Jainism, and Brahmanism?" without reference to pandakas because they were not distinguished from "perverts" and third-gender-rebels.
Ancient India with Afghanistan (Gandhara, Kamboja) and Pakistan at upper left, Burma and Thailand at lower right, Nepal and Tibet at the center top, and famous Buddhist sites on the plains of the Ganges river (wiki).
Sex in the Pali Canon
Gender of devas is fluid in Indian iconography
The Pali canon -- a ancient collection of sutras and other sacred Buddhist texts including the disciplinary code (Vinaya) and commentaries -- contains numerous references to homoerotic behavior and
to individuals who today would [today] be variously identified as
hermaphrodites, transvestites, transsexuals, and homosexuals.
However,
none of the sex/gender categories named in the canon precisely matches
any of these contemporary notions. But it combines instead elements of
these diverse physiological, gender, and sexual conditions in distinctive
formulations.
Most Buddhist canonical accounts of non-normative gender and
sexuality are found in the Vinaya, the monastic code of conduct, and they are
listed among the many explicitly described forms of sexual activity proscribed and forbidden for monks and nuns (bhikkhus and bhikkhunis).
In analyzing Theravada Buddhist accounts of sex
and gender, it is vital to keep in mind that the tradition began as
a Monastic Sangha, an order of celibate male and female renunciates, and that the Vinaya
is a monastic not a layperson's code of conduct.
Scriptural
accounts of non-normative sex and gender also need to be understood in
the context of the tradition's general disdain of sexuality and its
distrust of sensual indulgences.
Nevertheless, according to Jackson, what makes accounts of
sex and gender in these ancient Indian texts especially fascinating is
their contemporary relevance in Thailand, which together with Sri Lanka,
Burma, Laos, and Cambodia forms part of the Asian cultural sphere in
which Theravada Buddhism remains a vital cultural institution. More
Hancock just returned from seeing the wonders of India
Western Theravada nun Ayya Soma (Buddhist Insights @ Empty Cloud Monastery, New Jersey, streamed live on August 26, 2022); CC Liu, Ananda, Dhr. Seven (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Hey, Gays, come to New Jersey! We celebrate complete nonheteronormative diversity!
Wisdom Quarterly covered it years ago, focusing on the academic anthology entitled Buddhism, Sexuality, and Gender (1991, edited by the prolific author Prof. Jose Ignacio Cabezon) with an excellent Theravada contribution by Prof. Donald Lopez, Ph.D.
How are LGBTQIA+ identities viewed in Buddhism? How might one understand anatta (the teaching of all things being impersonal and not-self) in the context of transgender life stories?
The Buddha didn't judge. Why would we?
In this talk, Italian-American Theravada Buddhist nun Ayya Soma (who may have been bisexual, lesbian, questioning, gender-fluid, and/or a tomboy prior to ordination and is a celibate now) shares some reflections based on early Buddhist texts from those schools that preceded the major reformed or universalist Mahayana school (a syncretic Brahminical/Hindu tradition).
This valuable academic work, edited by University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) Professor of Tibetan Buddhism Jose Ignacio Cabezon, Ph.D., has garnered a 5.0 out of 5 stars (with 5 ratings).
The compilation explores historical, textual, and social questions relating to the position and experience of women and gay people in the Buddhist world from India and Tibet to Sri Lanka, China, and Japan.
It focuses on four key areas:
(BACK COVER)
Buddhist history,
contemporary culture,
Buddhist symbols, and
homosexuality.
It also covers Buddhism's entire history, from its origins to the present day. The result of original and innovative research, the editor offers new perspectives on the history of the attitudes toward, and of the self-perception of, women in both ancient and modern Buddhist societies.
UC Santa Barbara Prof. Jose Ignacio Cabezon
Prof. Cabezon explores key social issues such as abortion and examines the use of rhetoric and symbols in Buddhist texts and cultures.
This anthology discusses the neglected subject of Buddhism and homosexuality.
"It fills an important gap in the field -- a serious, textually close reading of gender's influence on Buddhist thought and vice versa." - Anne Klein
Gender panel at Empty Cloud Monastery
The unbearable nervous laughter of [gay?] Ayya Soma and Ven. Suddhaso
Biological "sex" is not simple, and psychological "gender" is even more messy, more ambiguous, more fluid and up for debate. One influences the other as they interact and play upon attraction and orientation. They result from past karma but are influenced by present karma. Biology is not destiny, but its effects are so profound as to make it seem so. Add something to the water (like xenoestrogenic compounds) and no one should be surprised that feelings stop matching with expectations and biases. The fluid becomes more fluid. But there is still male and female not only at the level of the cell but at the level of particles ("atoms") according to Buddhist physics Consider the freakshow called House.
Sex, gender, and orientation
Wisdom Quarterly is working on a "simple" answer to define "woman." It is more fundamental than biology's chromosomes because sex is set somewhere more deeply than molecules in the human body yet still within the physical. There are, of course, psychological components. However, these are fluid and flexible, changing and socially constructed. They are no basis for making a distinction between males and females. If a distinction is to be made, might we found it on something more stable and unchanging than ambiguous factors? Might its foundation be set at birth (conception) rather than post-partum? Looking at Buddhist physics (yes, there is such a thing in the Abhidhamma), we think the answer is yes. This will not settle the social upheaval now in motion because, whatever a "woman" is, what "womanhood" or "femininity" mean is left to human construction. For example, are women "naturally" (innately, by nature) killers or nurturers? While the answer may seem obvious, it is actually open to interpretation because, when a momma bear is protecting its cubs, it becomes a killing machine to any threat it perceives. Does that killing make it less female? (See "The Female of the Species"). When a man stereotypically goes off to work every morning in a previous version of Western society, is it less nurturing than a female staying at home to do that direct care? Is he less of a male for providing support? Psychology and physiology, mind and body, function and form, use and equipment, ideas and tools, humans are very adaptable. We interpret, we define, we make labels, and we do it based on something. Is it mutable? It is. No, but it can be based on an absolute or largely unchanging consideration. What could that be? That will be revealed in the next installment of this debate.
Scientists claim there is not a ‘simple' answer to define ‘woman'
Will this become the int'l symbol of BTQIA+?
What is a "woman"? Or rather, what defines someone as a "woman"?
Ask 100 women, and you might get 100 different answers. [Ask your Uncle Bob and you're likely to get just one.]
This is because there are a variety of contexts in which one could define a woman, and within each of these contexts, there will still not be one straight answer but lots of bent ones.
Socially or biologically, there is much variation. This is the problem Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ran into in her Supreme Court Confirmation hearing. Senator Marsha Blackburn asked her to define the word "woman."
[Buddhism has an answer, a simple answer, and modern people may not like it. There is a book of Buddhist physics and psychology known as the Abhidhamma, and the definitions it contains are clear cut. What it means to be a "woman" may well be a social construct, but it is not arbitrary. At the moment of birth, we become one or the other. This is a biological fact, a binary, at the particle level beyond what science seems to currently be aware of. This does not mean that there is nothing else to be; there is another category for everything else (or two other categories condensed into one, the female P and the male P, which would include hermaphrodites, eunuchs, pansexuals, asexuals, intersexuals, pansexuals, transsexuals, homosexuals, bisexuals, crossdressers, and other "two spirit" individuals of all descriptions). This catchall term, P (pandaka), has long been regarded as a third gender, though it has often been dismissed as anyone engaging in any non-normative sexual behavior or with regard to physical anomalies and ambiguities of how one presents -- genotype vs. phenotype -- and certainly of how someone feels in terms of assigned sex, gender role, sexual orientation, and other similar social factors.
Something in the water? - Ya'think?
THE UNBELIEVABLE PART: However one feels, dysphoric or euphoric, biological "sex" is imprinted at the minute level of the kalāpa ("particle," "corporeal unit," "produced corporeality"). Not only is it there in a physical individual, but it can also be seen and confirmed by those who develop the ability to see it. What it means, indeed, that is a social construct. For example, "We are Vikings, and Viking men do not cry! If one cries, it is not a man, so kill it, imprison it, marry it, rape it, impale it with a horn helmet, or raise it up, call it 'shaman-queen,' and obey it. That's the rule." Then later in time, with the exact same DNA on the exact same beach: "We are Swedes, and men do cry but it makes other men around them uncomfortable. So if one cries, it is a man, but call it 'crybaby,' 'sissy,' 'wuss,' 'metro,' 'dergooberfarfignewtonpandacoot,' promote it to a position in Human Resources, and leave him be with no romantic date to the big Lutefisk Festival, but he can bring his mother." End of example. This becomes problematic because although it is an objective binary, it is perceived subjectively. Individuals can see it, but unlike showing genes or alleles on a DNA test, it is not yet possible to show what such minute particles look like to others. Strangely, it is not immutable. An individual, wandering on through rebirths, changes sex -- and neither gender nor sex are certain, fixed, and permanent. If that were not hard enough to accept, it gets stranger. There is at least one case of a human who changes from one sex to the other and back. This is a miraculous and extraordinarily rare occurrence, but that it can occurs cautions us not to make hard and fast distinctions about the meaning of our natural sex, assigned sex, sex roles, and genders. Obviously, this is a controversial issue. To make any comment sounds as if Buddhism is dictating sex assignment. Buddhism is not doing that. Karma (the fruition of our former deeds) is doing that. But karma is complex and also accounts for gender (the social construct or set of gendered expectations about an individual, and this gets very messy and complex, particularly how it was understood by scholars in ancient times. There is something more remarkable than the strange occurrence of a sex change during one human life, and that is the power of transformation, which is far more common. Devas possess this power, as do many other categories of beings in Buddhist cosmology, and even some humans develop this power. So what is the power? It is the power to shapeshift, to adopt a sex or appearance as one wishes. Consider what it does not mean: Although one wills to temporarily adopt the form or physical appearance of something else, it is still done while being one thing or the other and not both. A male may temporarily adopt the form of a functional female, and a female the form of a functional male -- assuming that person possesses this special power or knowledge (abhinna, siddhi), but it will not stick. For example, a reptilian (naga) creature may shapeshift and appear as a human male or female but when not sustaining that determination will revert back to its usual form and appearance. One may argue if this is an "illusion" (maya), as it is sometimes described, because such a creature really does temporarily take the physical form of what it wills. Shapeshifters exist. The argument would be that if one is bound to revert to the original form, is the temporary manifestation as something else not therefore a temporary illusion? It becomes a matter of semantics. Yes, it is an illusion because one will rebound and revert, though one wills not to, to what one was originally. No, it is not an illusion because, for the time being, one really has metamorphosed into the form one willed. This power is very rare among humans. It otherwise seems quite common among other beings. Even animals can camouflage. Ghosts shapeshift, as do demons and ghouls (d'jinn, yakshas, rakshasas, maras, asuras), reptilians (nagas), trolls, goblins (kumbhandas), and light beings (devas).]
Jackson's response was rather controversial and has sparked a debate on how to define a woman.
[The future justice became a defiant moron (or very cunning and manipulative, politically correct speaker) at that moment, unable to make any sensible statement about a definition other than the equivalent of it could be anything.]
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson struggles and can't define "woman"
Lost in Trans Nation (Grossman)
Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's Supreme Court confirmation hearing was a long, grueling affair. It lasted more than 13 hours and was full of extremely tough and at times harsh questions. One of the toughest, however, was when Senator Marsha Blackburn asked the judge to define the word "woman."
"Well how the F am I supposed to know?" one wishes she would have answered. Instead, she said: "Not in this context, I'm not a biologist," Judge Jackson responded. "In my work as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. If there's a dispute about a definition, people make arguments, and I look at the law, and I decide."
Sen. Blackburn was not at all impressed with this answer. She chastised Jackson immediately: “the fact that you can't give me a straight answer about something as fundamental as what a woman is underscores the dangers of the kind of progressive education that we are hearing about.” Sen. Blackburn stated in the hearing.
The grand debate: What defines a woman?
The End of Gender (Dr. Debra Soh)
Readers may be wondering why Jackson's answer and why learning how a potential Supreme Court judge defines a "woman" is so important. It is because, as a Supreme Court judge, Jackson will most definitely preside over cases involving trans rights and gender politics.
Gender politics in the United States of America is a hot topic currently. This is especially so with several trans rights issues currently in debate. Senators on both sides have since used Jackson's response to talk about their own issues with the debate (2)'
Related video: The Gender Divide: Conditions That Affect Women More Than Men (Ivanhoe)
Scientists can't define "woman" either
Buddhism, Sexuality, & Gender
Many scientists, biologists, and gender law scholars have commended Jackson for her response. They agree that her response might be slightly misleading, but still it wasn't a bad one. This is because while they agree that science and biology could help create a definition for the word, it can't create a conclusive answer, either.
There are billions of women on the planet. Each woman is unique and different, both in a social context and a biological one. Most scientists agree that there is too much variation to be able to clearly, scientifically, define what is a woman (1).
Rebecca Jordan-Young is a scientists and gender studies scholar. In her work, she explores the relationship between science and the social side of gender and sexuality. She says that while biology is a part of what makes a woman a woman and a man a man, it cannot offer a complete definition.
“I don’t want to see this question punted to biology as if science can offer a simple, definitive answer,” she said.
“The rest of her answer was more interesting and important. She said ‘as a judge, what I do is I address disputes. If there’s a dispute about a definition, people make arguments, and I look at the law, and I decide.’ In other words, she said context matters – which is true in both biology and society. I think that’s a pretty good answer for a judge.”
After the hearing, Blackburn tweeted that her question to define the word "woman" was a simple one. She said that the fact that Jackson couldn't answer it was a major red flag. Many scientists, however, say that it's true: It really is not a simple question.
The answer is not as binary as we once used to say. It used to be, "If you are born with a penis, you are a boy and identify as one. If you are born with a vagina, you are a woman and identify as one." As gender experts point out, however, it is much more complex than that.
In terms of biology, there are at least six different markers for "sex." This includes genitals, gonads, chromosomes, internal reproductive organs, hormones, and their levels, and secondary sex characteristics.
These markers don't always align, however, and aren't necessarily opposite or completely different. Therefore, according to biologists, it is nearly impossible to define a woman based on biology alone.
Dr. House, can you explain this mysterious case of the girl who's a boy?
It is a social question and needs to be answered on a contextual basis
While there are biological markers that exist for sex, we can't completely hinge the definition of male or female in science. In the terms of the law and the judicial system, each case involving this debate needs to take into account both the biological and the social context of the debate.
“As is so often the case, science cannot settle what are really social questions,” said Sarah Richardson, a Harvard scholar, historian, and philosopher of biology who focuses on the sciences of sex and gender and their policy dimensions.
“In any particular case of sex categorization, whether in law or in science, it is necessary to build a definition of sex particular to context.”
Gender studies Professor Kate Mason says that in many cases, judges have to recognize that gender [unlike sex] is not a binary thing. It is fluid. Many people will have their own idea of what gender, or a gender, is, and with what and how they identify.
“I do think that judges and justices sometimes have to make determinations about who is meant by ‘man’ or ‘woman’ in written statutes – and they may have to acknowledge the reality that sex and gender are not binary,” Mason said. “I think Blackburn would prefer a world in which reality was much simpler.”
Tara (Sanskrit तारा, tārā, Standard Tibetan སྒྲོལ་མ, dölma), Ārya Tārā ("Noble Tara") is also known as Jetsün Dölma (Tibetan rje btsun sgrol ma, "Venerable Mother of Liberation"). She is an important female buddha in Vajrayana and Mahayana Buddhism.
Our reading of Mahayana Buddhism, of which Vajrayana is a sub-school, suggests that the MOST powerful Buddhist goddess is actually Kwan Yin (Guanyin, a female manifestation of Avalokiteśvara) Bodhisattva. She is queen or in any case certainly the most powerful, for she looks on and hears the cries of the world with utmost compassion, a kind of Virg Yin Mary(not Jewish or Essene Miriam so much as the ultimate goddess in Gnostic Christianity, Mary Magdalene).
If Theravada Buddhism made much of personifying qualities through transcendent goddesses (devis), our vote for the Ultimate Goddess right alongside Kwan Yin (Guanyin) would certainly be the glorious Prajnaparamita of Java, Gnostic Sophia, the personification of the Perfection of Wisdom. And we wouldn't stop there. Maha Pajapati Gotami, Yasodhara (aka Bimba Devi, Rahulamata, Bhaddha Kaccana, Sundari Kaccana, etc.), Khema Theri, Uppalavanna Theri, and Queen of [Tusita] Heaven Maya would serve as the raw basis for building up goddesses, venerable enlightened Buddhist women in history.
[Earlier traditions hold to the view, one of five niyamas, that while females are of course equally capable of arahantship, full enlightenment, as well as many other accomplishments, literal buddhas only arise as males. Why this would be, or why any of the niyamas are true in and of themselves, is not explained. 5. dhamma-niyāma "the constraint of dhammas (things, phenomena)," namely, such events as the quaking of the 10,000 world-systems at the conception of a bodhisatta conception in his mother's womb and again at his birth (partition from that womb). At the end of the discussion Sumaṅgalavilāsinī passage, the Commentary states that dhamma-niyāma explains the term dhammatā in the text of the Mahāpadāna Sutta (DN ii.12) (Cf. S 12.20 for a discussion of the use of the word dhamma-niyamatā in the Pali canon sutras.
It should always be borne in mind that no individual is an actual sex but fluid because one can be reborn as any of the three genders -- male, female, pandaka. How many genders are there? The answer could easily be more than three because pandaka can be variously defined as pervert, eunuch (pansexual as the word is understood in the East not as we use it in the West), hermaphrodite, bi, gay, asexual, intersex, transgender, transsexual, crossdresser, etc.)
The Dalai Lama, who is Tibetan Vajrayana joked about this in one of his PR movies, declaring something like: "Of course a woman can become a buddha...she just has to be reborn as a man first" then laughing. People popularly regard him as the "Pope of Vajrayana Buddhism," though he is not; he's not even the pope of Tibetan Buddhism because the non-Gelug schools do not regard him as the pontiff but rather a useful political leader, a kind of temporal king who made it to the world stage with more than a little help from the CIA. This topic of gender should be questioned, debated, and explored as it seems awfully unfair and denigrating to femalehood, but might it be the case, as a Hindu priest once told our college Comparative Religion class that the reason a being, a gandhabba seeking rebirth in a human body, is reborn as a female rather than a male at any given rebirth is due to the level of attachment, affection, and clinging present in that relinking moment. If that is the case, we have all been and will all be females, so placing femininity one down from masculinity is a bad strategy that will turn around and bite us. Likewise, all females reborn as humans, as rare and difficult as it is to ever secure a human rebirth, will also experience what it's like to be a male. And we say with no confusion, it's not all it's cracked up to be.]
Humans love to carve ideal attributes in stone.
She may appear as a female bodhisattva (a "being bent on full or supreme enlightenment," the two not being the same thing, one being an arhat, the other a buddha) in Mahayana Buddhism [1].
In Vajrayana Buddhism, Green Tara is a female buddha who is a consort of the Cosmic Buddha Amoghasiddhi.
Tārā is also known as a savioress who hears the cries of beings in saṃsāra (the interminable round of rebirth and suffering) and saves them from worldly and spiritual danger [2].
In Vajrayana, she is considered to be a buddha, and the Tārā Tantra describes her as "a mother who gives birth to the buddhas of the three times [past, present, and future]" who is also "beyond saṃsāra and nirvāṇa" [3].
Earlier tradition distinguishes nirvana as being nothing like samsara, and since all we have ever known is the latter, anything else could be considered nirvana. Some do not like this definition as it seems to define nirvana, which many feel is ineffable, indescribable, and incomparable even though the historical Buddha Siddhartha Gautama did indeed define and describe it.
Tārā is one of the most important female deities in Vajrayana (Esoteric Buddhism) and is found in apocryphal sources like the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa and the Guhyasamāja Tantra [4].
Key Indic Vajrayana texts that focus on Tārā include the Tantra Which Is the Source for All the Functions of Tārā, Mother of All the Tathagatas (Sanskrit Sarva-tathāgata-mātṛtārā-viśva-karma-bhavanāma-tantra) and Tārā's Fundamental Ritual Text (Tārāmūlakalpa) [5, 3].
Both Green and White Tārā remain popular meditation deities or yidams in Tibetan Buddhism, and Tara is also revered in Newar Buddhism.
Tārā is considered to take on many forms or emanations, while Green Tara emanates 21 Tārās, each with different attributes—colors, implements, and activities such as pacifying (śānti), increasing (pauṣṭika), enthralling (vaśīkaraṇa), and wrathful (abhicāra) [2].
Green Tara (or "blue-green," Sanskrit Samayatara or śyāmatārā) remains the most important form of the deity in Tibetan Buddhism [6, 7].
A practice text entitled Praises to the 21 Taras is a well known text on Tara in Tibetan Buddhism within Tibet, recited by children and adults, and is the textual source for the 21 forms of Green Tārā.
The main Tārā mantra is the same for Buddhists and Hindus: oṃ tāre tuttāre ture svāhā. It is uttered by Tibetans and Buddhists who follow Tibetan culture as oṃ tāre tu tāre ture soha. The literal translation would be "Oṃ O Tārā, I pray O Tārā, O Swift One, So Be It!" More
People are suddenly confused about a stable definition for "woman" (female biological sex)? This is understandable because we confuse and conflate words like sex (biology), gender (psychology), and orientation (sexuality). These things are all social constructs (categories defined by humans); nevertheless, they are not arbitrary. They have a basis. They are not assigned at birth (partition) and carried out post-partum, but during conception or gestation (pregnancy).
They did not arise from nothing, nor by chance, nor by some doctor or doula's whim. There really is a binary of females and males and even another category (pandakas) extending or derived from those two in Buddhism and the other Dharmic religions of Asia.
It is unclear if our long held Western biological distinction (XX or XY) in the West has now failed.
It would seem so if neither scientists nor right wing commentators can win an argument with color-tinted, left-leaning college students wishing to expand our minds and sensitize our hearts to the plight of LGBTQIA+ groups.
It is time to be more sensitive, more inclusive, more openminded. Nevertheless, there is a binary and in addition a recognized exception. The exception (P) is blurry and muddled and confounded with flexible societal norms. There may be no ultimate biological basis for the exception (P). But biology, like everything else, is interdependent.
Beloved LGBT Nemo (Eurovision 2024)
In Buddhism and other Dharmic religions, nama-rupa (name-and-form or body-and-mind) is the name of the distinction and analysis of what are understood to be interdependent categories.
While we debate the old nature/nurture dichotomy, there has always been a third category of gender recognized (and not in a flattering or equal way). The third category is called pandaka.
While most modern people nowadays may want to avoid recognizing this binary, it is nevertheless possible to make a clear distinction between what are biological males and biological females, men and women and the other.
This is a serious response to this very funny satire by The Babylon Bee.
Our post title was inspired by a mainstream media article that scientists
give in and say they have no 'simple' definition for what a 'woman' is.
DEFINITION
In Buddhist physics (Abhidhamma), What is a "woman"? A "woman" is an adult female, a "female" being a person (gandhabba) reborn through karma in a body (rupa, kaya) with the presence or propensity of itthindriya(femininity, bhava).
More study (learning, hearting, suta) and investigation (bhāvanā) is necessary. Why? With regard to the condition of wisdom (paññā) arising in Buddhism, one distinguishes three kinds of knowledge: (1) knowledge based on thinking (cintā-mayā-paññā), knowledge based on [study and] learning (suta-mayā-paññā), and knowledge based on [meditation] mental development (bhāvanā-mayā-paññā) (Saṅgīti Sutra, DN 33).
DISCUSSION
Is this a serious answer? Yes. If it is serious, how does it advance the discussion? Just as in the West we argue for the words (social constructs) "male" and "female" to mean XY or XX chromosomes (a biological basis), if we can accept that definition as sufficient, Buddhism says something deeper is going on.
We do not become male or female (or "other," pandaka = pan, hermaphroditic, asexual, trans(itioning), fluid, ambiguous, confusing, perverted, non-normative, bent, queer, intersex, neuter, eunuch) without a biological/physical basis. Admittedly, this is interdependent not independent of social factors (behavior, culture, training and physical interventions whether intentional or unintentional). This basis has karma-result (vipaka, phala) as its cause and basis.
Intentional or unintentional interventions? Dr. Joel Wallach claims to have scientific proof and abundant clinical experience for the PHYSICAL basis for sex and gender confusion, which is currently on the rise. The cause, according to Dr. Wallach? A micronutrient deficiency during gestation, that is, during pregnancy the mother does not have a trace mineral or similar essential nutrient and this has a considerable subsequent effect. This is unintentional, and it is not limited to biological sex, gender expression, or sexuality/sexual orientation. A biologically female body in gestation or infancy may be exposed to an excess of androgens or estrogens (more likely plastic xenoestrogens), and this has an effect. A biologically male body in gestation or infancy may be exposed to an excess of androgens or estrogens (and for all we know there may be another class of compounds that in the future will be termed "pandakogens" such as Atrazine).
An interesting question is, What happens to a male who takes The Pill (female birth control)? Males can take it just as water can be put in a gas tank. It will not prevent pregnancy. But it may cause hormonal disruptions, mood changes, cancer, toxicity, erectile dysfunction, or feminization.
The interesting part is, If there is no biological difference between males and females, why then do substances like The Pill affect males and females differently? There are individual differences, of course, but the point is that there are general differences as well, and that should not be the case if everything is arbitrary and without a biological basis.
Moreover, there are intentional interventions (administered hormones, hormone blockers, traumas, molestations, surgeries such as female and male genital mutilation called FGM or common circumcision, abuse, exposure to environmental toxins, substances, drugs, etc.)
Having thought about this, it seems aggressive lesbians and academic sophists may be right: there is no binary so much as a trinary or trinity: male, female, and pandaka (everything else, blends, absences, permutations). Sadly, however, this is not well defined or studied and was subject to a great deal of sexism, sexist assumptions, and cultural prejudices. Definitions change, but the original definitions are not "arbitrary" simply because they depend on changing social conditions.
One can imagine the needs of a community of humans to perpetuate itself and control its members and their multiplications, combinations, and behaviors. Then the society, because of changing climate or other external circumstance (coming under attack or sudden prosperity) changes from active hunting and gathering to sedentary farming or business dealing, or whatever. Now the needs of that community are different, change, and fluid or more polarized.
There is normative male, normative female, and everything else (pan-daka), which by definition gets the label nonnormative. Not yet taking the third category into consideration, is there a difference
Note: The ancient rendering, translation, definition of pandaka as "eunuch" is very misleading but not without explanation. To us in modern times a eunuch would seem to be someone with removed genitalia, but in ancient times it was understood that those deprived of ordinary equipment (testicles, penis, clitoris, labia, vaginal canal, hormone, pituitary gland, pineal gland, other gland, or any part of the body) nevertheless found ways to be sexual, and these behaviors got them the label "eunuch," which often meant "pervert," "weirdo," "gay," "hypersexual," "flamboyant," "depraved," "pansexual," "nonnormative"... So it is not the lack of equipment that made one a "eunuch" but the subsequent increase of unusual (nonnormative) behavior associated or correlated with that lack.
Indeed, in India where this term originated (probably in ancient proto-India or the Indus Valley Civilization), there is even today a "Pandaka Festival" and it is NOT a bunch of Italian choir singers coming together and having tea, academic discussions, and a fashion show. What is it then? It is a pansexual, flamboyant, usually drunken or otherwise intoxicated, perverted, hypersexual "Pride Fest" of debauchery and depravity of all of the molested, neglected, abused, shamed, constrained, disciplined, forsaken, and exploited folks along with the healthy, well adjusted, questioning, and curious folks out to see the days long spectacle. It is considered dangerous, just as West Hollywood, Key West, San Francisco, or New York pride fests would be if public drunkenness, mass intoxication, and lawlessness were the norm. But in the US, we tamp it down so that these are nice, family-friendly entertainments.
Pandaka Festivals are little understood annual events in India. It is a time of debauchery, cross-dressing, homosexual revelry, alcohol and drug abuse, adultery, sodomy, and all manner of societally-condemned behavior. The event is certainly not limited to the reviled modern pandaka (a widely feared amalgam of "pervert, criminal, heartless male prostitute, bully, and panderer") but to any curious person full of shame and repression or shameless attempts to come to terms with impulses and urges.
Further in S. XXII, 95: "Suppose a person who is able to see were to behold many bubbles on the river Ganges as they were floating along. And suppose that person were to watch them and carefully examine them. Carefully examining them, they will appear empty, unreal, and insubstantial.
"In exactly the same way does the meditator behold all corporeal phenomena (body, form, ultimate materiality)... feelings... perceptions... mental formations... states of consciousness, whether of the past, present, or future...far or near. And one watches them and examines them carefully.
"After carefully examining them, they appear empty, unreal and insubstantial."
The Five Aggregates clung to as self are compared, respectively, to
a lump of froth,
a bubble,
a mirage,
a coreless plantain stem, and
a conjuring trick (S. XXII, 95).
See the Khandha Samyutta (S. XXII), The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XIV).
If we seek a "self" (an atta or atman, asoul, ego, personality, essence), what we find is not an eternal soul but a collection of aggregate factors: form (Four Elements, corporeality, materiality); feelings, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousnesses. These are categories of heaps or groups. The first category is fourfold and constitutes the body; the remaining four categories is fourfold and constitutes the mind. These eight are reduced to five and should never be thought of as five things but rather five categories or aggregations of things. There is not one feeling but many feelings, countless feelings, uncountable instances of pleasant, painful, and neutral sensations associated with perceptions, formations, and consciousnesses (of each of the six senses). While referred to as things, this might be misleading. They are dynamic processes rather than anything tangible, stable, reliable, or fixed.
A. UNDERIVED(no-upādā): Four Elements [characteristics of matter]: solidity or earth-element (pathavī-dhātu), cohesive or water-element (āpo-dhātu), temperature or fire-element (tejo-dhātu), and motion or wind-element (vāyo-dhātu)
B. DERIVED(upādā): 24 secondary phenomena:
physical sense-organs of: seeing [not the eye but the sensitive portion within the eye that discerns forms],
hearing [not the ear but the sensitive material that discerns sounds],
smelling [not the nose...],
tasting [not the tongue...],
body [not the body but tactile sensation able to discern impression/pressure, temperature, etc.]
physical sense-objects of: form (body),
sound,
scent,
taste; ["bodily impacts" (photthabba) are generally omitted from this list because these physical objects of body-sensitivity are identical with the aforementioned solid, temperature, and motion elements; hence, their inclusion under "derived corporeality" would be a duplication.]
A male-born, female-presenting pandaka
femininity (itthindriya)
virility (purisindriya)
physical base of 'mind' (consciousness, not the heart itself but the sensitive material in or near the heart, hadaya-vatthu)
We began with an audacious idea, that we could easily define "woman" with a biological/physical basis. If sex were a binary (on/off, 1/0, male/female, black/white, yes/no), there would be present in the DNA, genome, chromosomes or alleles of the individual either itthindriya or purisindriya, and this would be a simple way of determining who is a woman and who a man. This may still be possible, but it does not easily explain the existence of spontaneous hermaphrodites, intersexuals, and asexuals (neutered). All of this is separate from gender, gender roles, sexual orientation, or how one presents. If modern Western science had XX and XY chromosomes to rely on, Buddhism thousands of years earlier (and the Old Vedic Religion thousands of years before that) had a better, more minute marker. It may even be the same marker. For at the level of the particle (kalapa) there are discernible aspects and components one cannot imagine being present in the West -- odor, color, and so on. There are propensities of the various elements (maha dhatus). Therefore, one with the power to discern them internally could, in theory, discern them (externally) in someone else and would know, "This being is a male or female."
Unravelling the Mysteries of Mind and Body through Abhidhamma (Inward Wisdom)
.
Abhidhamma (Sayalay Susila and Dhr. Seven)
However, there are a number of problems. Problem 1: Would a shapeshifter (a being possessing the iddhi called the "power of transformation") exhibit femininity or masculinity, and would that remain constant throughout the transformation? It would likely change with the shift and revert to what it usually is, making it a viable marker only in the long run. This is impossible; no one can shape shift. Problem 2: If it is not discernible externally, we would only have self-report and not an objective measure. This is impossible; no one can discern particles (kalapas). Problem 3: What if everyone has both indriyas in varying measures, making not a binary but a propensity or predominance of one or the other? This is impossible; no one has indriyas (faculties). Problem 4: If it is not one OR the other but a combination of both, then it becomes a social construct as to what we mean by it, and if it is that everyone has "masculine" and "feminine" biological and psychological components (which is almost certainly the case) then there is instantly the possibility of a third construct, a blend resulting from a more or less equal level of both. This is impossible; no one has faculties. Problem 5: Once one is able to discern particles and sees the characteristics of femaleness and maleness, does it change in a single lifetime? It can, although this is extremely rare, or it can seem to change, which is common. This is impossible. No one does anything nor can they do anything. This applies to humans, which is a very rare kind of birth, but would it to devas or ghosts and animals. This is impossible; no one is reborn as a human, deva, animal, or anything else. So, as Douglas Adams would say, if you've already done six impossible things, could you call us so we can discuss a seventh: nailing this definition down and determining if this is a reliable basis for a stable definition of "sex."
FOR FURTHER READING
Indriya: 22 phenomenological faculties, femininity (itth-indriya), masculinity (puris-indriya), life faculty or vitality (jīvit-indriya)
wisdomlib.org 4.1. The Meaning of Indriya (Faculties) — femininity, masculinity, vitality, the first two material qualities designated as bhāvarūpa determine...
jstor.orgNĀMARŪPA IN BUDDHAGHOSA'S PHENOMENOLOGY (name-and-form):
taste (rasa), the feminine faculty (itthindriya), the masculine faculty (purusindriya), life faculty (jīvitindriya), the heart-substance (hadayavatthu)...
budsas.org BUDDHIST DICTIONARY: Explained in Pug. 55. itthindriya: 'femininity'; see bhāva.
dhammawheel.comWhat karma (Pali kamma) relates to gender differentiation? - Dhamma Wheel... Weak wholesome karma (kusala kamma) generates the female controlling faculty (itthindriya). Strong unwholesome karma (akusala kamma) causes the male controlling faculty to...
wisdomlib.org 22 Phenomenological Faculties: 1 definition... mind faculty (man indriya). Three physical faculties: femininity (itth-indriya); masculinity (puris-indriya); life or vitality (jivit indriya)
philpapers.org/rec/NGATAB
Towards a Buddhist Metaphysics of Gender (PhilPapers, Sept. 25, 2023) Buddhist tradition, the Buddha is depicted as claiming that there is something called woman-faculty or power (itth-indriya) and something called man-faculty or power...
discourse.suttacentral.net Pali glossary for Ven. Bodhi and Ven. Sujato (SuttaCentral.net, Feb. 6, 2019) itthindriya, [faculty of] femininity. idappaccayatā, specific conditionality. iddhābhisaṅkhāra, feat of psychic potency, used his psychic...
themindingcentre.org The Body in Buddhism: femininity (itth'indriya); masculinity. (puris'indriya); physical base of the mind (hadaya, vatthu); 35 bodily intimations (k ya,vi atti), verbal intimation (vac ,vi ...)
budinoucenje.wordpress.com What does dhamma mean in Theravada Abhidhamma?
Aug. 13, 2020... For example, a property of femininity (itthindriya) was added for the description of the matter or the physical mind-base (hadaya-vatthu)
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