What broader issues has the trans (lack of) debate opened your eyes to?

I think problems happen when patterns are mistaken for more than patterns. So, for example, there is a pattern associated with motherhood, and we will all recognise stories based on that. But I personally think that when we start talking about that pattern as a Jungian archetype, we end up confusing matters, and talking about it as if it has causal power beyond that which it actually has.

It's mean to give us a language to talk about things that are difficult to discuss otherwise.

I think maybe you are imagining a sort of separate existence for the archetypes, but really they are completely united to our physical and material reality. The archetypes don't cause sexed bodies and all the manifestations of that, rather, they exist because our material reality is as it is. And that does happen within certain parameters. We are all men or woen. We all have mothers. We all begin as children and have to be cared for. We all begin knowing little and learn from our elders. The language Jung developed was meant to let us communicate about and understand our own experiece as the kinds of animals we are.

One of the things the Jungians are typically quite concerned about is people using the archetypes as what you might call identities. These types are part of who we are, but we sometimes choose to wear them as masks, and can begin to believe they are who we are and that's it. We then depend on that for our sense of self and security, but it isn't stable - you aren't a whole person this way. People also hang these types on other people, you see your mother perhaps, or your wife, only through this archetype of motherhood, which no one can live up to and isn't enough for anyone.

So it's not about some sort of effort to make yourself fit a pattern.

Mermoose
Sorry, I got mixed up.

I think you're over complicating what motivates most AGP males.

I don't want to be purposefully unkind and lacking in compassion.....but for a man to say he is a woman, or that he" identifies as a woman", would be like me saying I was Indian or identified as Indian ( even though White European) - because I loved yoga; followed a guru; and loved everything ( well, a lot of things, anyway, about Indian culture and society). I could live in India; learn the language, but I would still to a large extent be 'other'.And I must add that I think sex differences are probably far more powerful & rudimentary than racial/national/cultural differences.

My question was to Justhadathought, who was explaining her belief in Jungian archetypes. I don't believe there is anything to being male or female other than the biological aspect

Yes, but that aspect is profound. Likewise for men living in a male body.The body is not just an add on. It is the root of male and female differences.

But to believe that, they have to believe that there is a part to being male or female other than the physical, biological aspect. As do you, no

I would honestly say that the feeling of 'essential femaleness' arises through an intense involvement with the female body and its biological processes. So, for example, when I was younger I kept a menstrual/ovulatory diary ( A We'Moon diary). I noted my patterns; my deep urges; my dreams; my 'instincts', at different parts of my cycle. I noted my periods of creativity; my periods of withdrawal and so on.......This connected me to a larger, deeper 'feminine' power and experience, very much rooted in the body.

Likewise the experience of pregnancy and giving birth. The experience of sexuality and sexual response in a female body. For a woman the experience of the female is primary. It is elemental. It is not in any way a sublimation.

They believe there's something else - something that makes them essentially male or female (or non-binary, etc). But it seems like Jungians believe in that too

Well, yes, Jungians would perceive/detect archetypal imagery/ archetypes which are active in the human psyche......but that is not the same as 'identifying' with those archetypes, or 'being' those archetypes.

When you identify with something archetypal you tend to be 'taken over' by it. It possesses you; and for that moment you are almost a divine/perfected incarnation. This can sometimes manifest as a form of madness - totally alienated from earthly reality. Contents of the psyche can possess you ( very recently watched a very interesting documentary on the serial killer Ted Bundy on Netflix).

Jung was very much about sublimation...where human instincts and urges transmute into divine or 'higher' drives - towards 'individuation' and the spiritual. His teacher, Freud, would have seen these drives in a far more instinctual/physical way. The drives originate from the body, from biology, from the instinctive urges. I'm imagining Freud would have seen transgenderism as a malfunction or adaptational difficulty?

A woman is a an adult human female. Although an adult human male may well be fixated on, or possessed by, or identified with, female/feminine archetypes (for a time).

Goosefoot I think problems happen when patterns are mistaken for more than patterns. So, for example, there is a pattern associated with motherhood, and we will all recognise stories based on that. But I personally think that when we start talking about that pattern as a Jungian archetype, we end up confusing matters, and talking about it as if it has causal power beyond that which it actually has.

TehBewilderness My question was to Justhadathought, who was explaining her belief in Jungian archetypes. I don't believe there is anything to being male or female other than the biological aspect.

But to believe that, they have to believe that there is a part to being male or female other than the physical, biological aspect. As do you, no?
No.
Biological sex is a fact not a belief.
We have no way of sorting out which aspects of the gender hierarchy behavior stereotypes are nature or nurture, because we have no record of life outside the dominance/submission paradigm that permeates all aspects of our lives.

Does anyone really "identify as cis"? Surely the 'cis' adjective arises from the ideology of transgenderism. You have to embrace the ideology in order to embrace 'cis' as an identity.

Yes, it does of course arise from the belief in gender identity. That's what I'm saying, is that they believe they have a gender identity (male/female) in line with their biological sex. But to believe that, they have to believe that there is a part to being male or female other than the physical, biological aspect. As do you, no?

But, in fairness, many trans people (or people who identify as 'cis') would reject this, and say they don't base their identity on stereotypes. And indeed, a lot of people who believe they have a gender identity (cis or trans) don't behave as stereotypes

Does anyone really "identify as cis"? Surely the 'cis' adjective arises from the ideology of transgenderism. You have to embrace the ideology in order to embrace 'cis' as an identity.

My feeling is that if one has to adopt an identity, it is almost like an artificial construct. People tend to identify with things, not as things most of the time, and most of those identifications are unconscious. Although, I guess we do develop 'identities' over time, as we associate ourselves with particular things that reflect our passion, our feelings, our values and so on.

It's the way the sexual body and the material correlates of that manifest in the personality, in relationships, in culture, in the mind.

"Gender identity" is one reductive way to talk about that, and stereotypes are another. So a stereotpe of a mother is maybe an image of someone who cradles an infant, or bakes bread to feed her family, or protects her children from harm, teaches them, whatever. But it's just going through the motions if you think those things are motherhood.

Those images however are a reflection of something real, the fact of motherhood - we recognise them when we see them because it's something we know, it has a pattern. If mammals reproduced through division like amoebas, there would not be a recognisable pattern of human motherhood because it wouldn't be a thing. You couldn't have a story about a made up mother that seemed authentic or compelling because no one would have any real reference for it.

This might be a clue to part of the problem that's arisen with male/masculinity - female/femininity - when the pattern is no longer recognised as having a root or being an reflection of something real, it becomes a kind of zombie image, unattached to anything, and not only that, it can begin to degrade the sense of the material thing it is meant to be a reflection of.

I mean, that's the whole puzzle - when I talk to someone who believes in gender identity, I say to them, if it's not sex, and it's not stereotypes, what is it? They believe there's something else - something that makes them essentially male or female (or non-binary, etc). But it seems like Jungians believe in that too.

I'd say that a fixed 'gender identity' is a kind of bastardised form of an 'essential essence'; a sterile persona - which is made up of stereotyped traits, behaviours and mannerisms........which is why they don't flow naturally; are often highly stilted or practised......they are cut off from real roots. They are a performance of gender.

But, in fairness, many trans people (or people who identify as 'cis') would reject this, and say they don't base their identity on stereotypes. And indeed, a lot of people who believe they have a gender identity (cis or trans) don't behave as stereotypes.

But to me, this sounds like a belief in gender identity - in a male or female essence

I'd say that a fixed 'gender identity' is a kind of bastardised form of an 'essential essence'; a sterile persona - which is made up of stereotyped traits, behaviours and mannerisms........which is why they don't flow naturally; are often highly stilted or practised......they are cut off from real roots. They are a performance of gender.

So just like a woman who hasn't really made friends with these archetypes might on the one hand resort to trying to live up to the most overt and superficial image of the anima, another expression of the same problem would be to reject the expression of the anima and try and live as an image of the animus

Yes, and some of this may stem from relational difficulties with either parent, or with male /female personifications and representations.

The way that some of us very much identify ourselves as 'our father's daughter', and some of us are very much tied to or identified with our mother. And even if we reject one paren/parental image, than it still constellates itself in our unconscious and exerts a pull and a power over us.

I often see that many gay men are taken over by their own anima, as they identify or fixate on the mother/anima image: hence the drag; hence the mother attachments; hence the hyper feminised mannerisms and camp'ness that some express.

I guess that gender is the very outward manifestation of essential maleness or femaleness

But to me, this sounds like a belief in gender identity - in a male or female essence? I don't believe in gender identity because I think we're just male or female, and then that carries a statistical likelihood of having certain behavioural characteristics. I don't think there's anything else 'there' - like a female or male soul, or male or female archetypes (except in the sense of stereotypes - whether fair or unfair stereotypes).

Can I just add that the anima/animus figures are not uniform and the same in all of us...they do differ...although along a spectrum of feminine/masculine archetypes.

So for example....the Puer is one possible dominant female animus: the youthful, sprightly male, of quicksilver responses to the world - but who also resists commitment to the world of mother and home. Beautiful and romantic, but unreliable/unfaithful. The senex would be the older, wise man/father figure.....who provides safety, security and knowledge, but who on the flip side stifles and imprisons..and so on.....

Ive seen some interesting Jungian analysis of gender theory/transgenderism that see manifestations of gender issues as related to a failure to integrate the anima and animus in a mature way. So just like a woman who hasn't really made friends with these archetypes might on the one hand resort to trying to live up to the most overt and superficial image of the anima, another expression of the same problem would be to reject the expression of the anima and try and live as an image of the animus.

But I think that the conflation of femininity with femaleness and masculinity with maleness is foundational to the belief in gender. So I'm wondering if you intended to say 'femaleness/femininity'

I guess that gender is the very outward manifestation of essential maleness or femaleness......which has become calcified into a rigid form....which is then applied in rigid ways. That is what I'd call a stereotype, as opposed to an archetype. A stereotype is devoid of real life. It is cut off from its roots.....and is a like a mask or costume.

The funny thing is, I think if I believed in Jungianism I'd probably be much more likely to believe in a gender identity, because it seems to involve a belief in male and female 'essences'. Maybe I've got the wrong impression? Just very interested in understanding this better because I've noticed a lot of gender critical people are into Jung, and I'd expect the opposite

Jung would have said that we all contain an element of the opposite sex within us, in the form of the anima ( for men), and the animus ( for women). It is the archetypal pattern/impression of the essential female/masculine that resides in each of us.

An archetype has very deep and powerful roots......and resides in the imaginal life; in the dream life; the religious life; in the shape of symbols.I don't think it is quite the same as saying that there is such a thing as a 'gender identity', though, although people can become fixated on anima or animus images.

I'm also just wondering if you can explain what you mean by 'archetype' - do you just mean stereotype (possibly based on statistically correct traits) or do you mean it the way it's used in Jungianism

Yes, archetype in Jungian terms...Archetype as the deeper root/form of stereotype..which has its foundations in the collective unconscious.....which itself has roots not just in the collective memory, but in the deeper biological roots; and in the roles which arise out of the biological functions and differences.

I think it's very likely that claims that women are physically as strong as men, for example, has helped create the idea that it doesn't much matter who is classed as male and who is classed as female.
A lot of sex-based rights are only necessary because there are differences between men and women.

I've said this earlier in the thread so sorry for repeating, but I think there are two strands to the gender movement: one is the belief that feminine men are really female; the other is the belief that it doesn't matter if they are or not. So I think that aspects of feminism have certainly contributed to the second strand, but if they've contributed to the first (maybe they have), it's not clear to me how. But I agree with you that the outcome to things we do is often unforeseeable, and that it's a bad idea to assert things that aren't true even when we'd like them to be true.

I don't think it's a logical chain.

But there is a sort of principle...? I guess you'd call it, where if you fail to acknowledge something basic or inherent, it's still there - it will just assert itself in a different way. And another related idea where you often find opposite ideas present in a society that pull against each other, and the more extreme one becomes the more extreme the other becomes.

It seems like when we try and make very basic changes in belief or language, the unanticipated effects are often significant, and sometimes almost seem the opposite of what you'd expect.