I appreciate you sharing your thoughts in such depth, and I’m very interested in the journey you’re on as it relates to gender and wholeness. I’ll be honest. I’m pretty upset about some of what you wrote. I think you’re putting your finger on an important truth— that the way we relate to gender in modern society is broken, and leaves many young men feeling disenfranchised and alone. But I disagree very strongly with some of the conclusions you’ve come to about what the root of that problem is and what the solutions are. In particular, I find it incredibly disheartening that you went from having this amazing, gender-expansive experience personally, to concluding that transgender people (who have similar gender-expansive experiences, but on the scale of a lifetime) are fake or a part of what’s broken with gender in modern society. I wonder what you think about the leadership roles transgender people have played in indigenous communities (whose gender politics you seem to be very interested in) for thousands of years. Happy to link to more information on that if you are interested and don’t already know what I’m talking about.
I don’t think I can do the best job here in this comment at articulating what my problems are with your conclusions. In place of that, I would love to offer this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, which discusses (what I see as) the same problem you are identifying— the way men in modern western society have been left behind by current gender discourse, in a way that hurts everyone and deepens the gender divide: https://youtu.be/S1xxcKCGljY. Her take on the source of that problem and the solutions to it are different from yours (though perhaps not irreconcilable! With a few tweaks), and are more respectful of trans people. I would really honestly love to hear what you think of what she has to say. She has a very particular style of humor and argument that you’ll either love or hate, but either way I hope you’ll listen to what she has to say.
I really do respect the profound thinking you’ve been doing. It’s clear it is helping you heal, which is amazing to see. But I can’t help but worry that your healing may be coming at the price of promoting rhetoric that is harmful to people who are already suffering under the current status quo (I.e. transgender people). I hope you will read this comment, watch the video (and any other of the youtuber’s videos that catch your eye— I think her video on incel culture and the one on gender critical theory might also be relevant to the conversation) with an open mind, and let me know what you think about it.
Hey Ben!! First, I want to wholeheartedly thank you for this thoughtful, respectfully challenging comment. Your earnestness allows me to clarify my views on transgenderism, which I very much want to do in light of reactions to what I wrote. Having felt so much pain around gender myself, the last thing I'd ever want to do is exacerbate gendered pain for others, e.g. trans people, who certainly do suffer under the current status quo.
I swear, even before clicking the link you shared, I had the thought to tell you about the value I've derived from "ContraPoints," one of MY favorite YouTubers. ContraPoints was a huge YouTube binge for me after my monthlong retreat in Nepal in 2018, at which point I watched every single one of her videos up until "The Aesthetic." I didn't agree with her on everything, but I absolutely loved her philosophical background, intelligence and humor. So, we're quite in sync here, although I haven't watched her for a few years, so the "Men" video you shared is new to me. I started it and already got a big laugh out of the way she says "I wanna be sooo f***ing rational for you." In that spirit, Ben, I wanna give you alllll I can of my IQ AND EQ in this reply, and hopefully clarify where I'm coming from :)
I'm guessing the writing of mine that most upset you was the criticism of language like “people with vaginas” and “people who menstruate.” I wrote that these turns of phrase are a degradation of women and of objective truth, and it sounds like you interpreted my criticism of the language as a criticism of trans people. This was never my intention, and I sincerely apologize to everyone I offended in making this point. I'd like to clarify that far from "believing that trans people are fake or a part of what's broken with gender," I believe that trans people are having a valid human experience worthy of respect, and have completely valid gender identities that also deserve respect. I do respect these identities, will always used a person's preferred pronouns, and don't take issue with trans men who still might still have vaginas or menstruate. I have no issue with saying that such people are "men with vaginas" or "men who menstruate."
However, I disagree with the notion that the above implies vaginas and menstruation aren't still characteristics of biological WOMEN. Thus, I disagree with efforts to broadly replace the term "women" with "people with vaginas" or "people who menstruate," even if those efforts are well-intentioned and in the name of inclusivity. If we can't say that having a vagina is a trait of women, then there's essentially nothing we can say IS a trait of women, and we render the term "women" meaningless. There's a sense ― the "absolute," spiritual sense of us all being one and gender being completely fluid ― in which "women" IS meaningless, but if we construct our language that way, basically ALL language will become meaningless.
Language is based on distinction. If language is to mean anything at all, we must discern that there is a difference between the "absolute" and the "relative" ― between the absolute truth of gender fluidity and the relative truth of biological sex ― and we must realize that language is relative. There is no language that will ever do the "absolute" truth justice, and if we try to create that language, all we do is degrade objective truths (insofar as absolute truth exists) of the "relative." So, RELATIVELY speaking, I'm going to say something very not-PC: We come into this world with a penis or a vagina, as a biological male or as a biological female. Many of us are feminine males or masculine females, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with feeling the need to transition one's identity based on this mismatch between biological sex and gender identity. If someone wants to say that their gender (absolutely fluid) defines there identity rather than their sex (relative and fixed, barring chemical / surgical intervention) defining it, that is also completely fine. More power to them; I respect their courage.
It is possible for an absolute truth of gender and a relative truth of biological sex to both exist at the same time. They aren't contradictory; we don't have to choose one over the other. In fact, I think that to choose one over the other is incorrect. It is incorrect to pretend biological sex isn't a reality for us (hence my controversial statements), and it is also incorrect to ignore gender fluidity or insist on rigid gender roles defined by biological sex. I believe we must hold both truths simultaneously, just as we must restore the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine principles simultaneously. You seem to have interpreted men's issues as being the main problem I identify and write about in this piece, but rather, the issue I'm addressing is our estrangement from both our Divine Masculine AND our Divine Feminine. Our estrangement from the former has made the discernment (a more masculine quality) of biological sex taboo, and our estrangement from the latter... well, that explains a multitude of problems in the modern world. When I speak of the feminine and the masculine, or of yin energy and yang energy, I'm never equating them with women and men. My essential point in "The Heterarchy" is that we all have yin and yang within us, and are free to express whatever is true to us. The polarity of masculine and feminine is real, and biological sex is also real, but neither defines who we are.
This is the essence of my view. I hope it offers clarity and assuages hurt feelings. Once again, thank you for taking the time to write a sincere comment and be a voice for many people who were hurt by what I wrote.
And as an aside, I'd be very interested in seeing anything you'd like to share regarding the leadership roles of trans people in indigenous communities.
This clarification still relies on a very facile interpretation of biological sex and how it works - there's more than two options for genotypical sex (X0, XX, XY, XXY, etc.) and the phenotypical expressions range far beyond "penis or vagina". It can be both or neither, and those are fairly common sex expressions - people naturally have many other sexual expressions that aren't just XY/penis/testes or XX/vagina/ovaries.
Roughly 1.5% of people worldwide are born intersex, so when you say you're getting non-politically correct you're actually just repeating false information generally talked about by people who wish to harm trans people (even though intersex people and trans people are different groups that occasionally intersect) while ignoring a population estimated to be around one hundred million people.
I do think there's some grounds for reflection on why you correctly identify that gender exists on a spectrum, not a binary, yet simultaneously seem to need to see biological sex as a binary when there are many examples of how it's not - particularly given treating it as one has resulted in a great deal of harm to intersex people worldwide who are forced into unnecessary 'normalizing' procedures so they can fit into the box of either biologically male or female. You don't seem to have many concepts you aren't willing to dig deeper on or explore further, so I'm not sure why this is one you can't get past.
Thanks for the comment Jordan. I'm certainly willing to dig deeper and reflect on how I might be wrong about biological sex, and I do admit that on a genotypical level, I was oversimplifying in portraying it as a binary. This thought (what about cases of intersex people?) occurred to me while writing, but I ultimately didn't delve into it because it seems so rare. I seriously question the 1.5% number you throw out, and would read and appreciate data backing that up.
Even if indeed 1.5% of people are X0, XXY or something else, though, does that really undermine the core of what I'm saying? It's still categorical, and biological sex is still a different thing from gender identity ― a thing with its own relative truth, by which people are born biologically male (XY), female (XX) or non-binary (other).
But the point you don't seem to be taking is that what you think of as biological sex isn't one specific thing, it's multiple - and they are heavily correlated but not completely linked.
Taking from Dr. Katrina Karkasis' article in the Lancet, The misuses of "biological sex" (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext), the US army's formal definition of biological sex consists of four factors "chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and genitals", and when those four don't line up, which takes precedence? We know that 46,xy people who have female gonads and female genitals exist - are they biologically male or biologically female? We know from sports testing that there are 46,xx women with female genitals and gonads who have naturally elevated testosterone - a male sex hormone. Are they biologically male or biologically female?
The need to generalize categories makes you deliberately inaccurate when talking about millions of people, while the targeted language you're objecting to averts that problem in specific situations where that accuracy is important.
I take in your point that biological sex encompasses many facets, and has more possibilities than a binary. Let's take Dr. Karkasis's framework as true for the sake of argument:
From my perspective, you aren't taking in my essential point, which is that biological sex is real and categorical, whether it's a binary or it has 2^4 (16) possible categorizations. We could throw out the terms "biological man" and "biological woman" and use those 16 categories, and my point would still stand. Gender is a spectrum, sex is categories, and both are real.
That said, I view it as far more efficient to use the categories of male, female and non-binary. We don't need to say that any of Karkasis's factors take precedence, and we can just label this 0.05%-1.7% of people as non-binary. If they don't like that label, they can make their own that accounts for as much categorical expansion as you / they like. I have no problem with using language like "person with a vagina" or "man who menstruates" in particular situations where accuracy is important. In the broad and general sense, saying "women" is more efficient than saying "people with vaginas," because the vast majority of people with vaginas identify as women, but I don't want to get into a semantic argument that dilutes my main points.
My essential point is that categorization underlies sex, whereas gender is a spectrum. Because I view the masculine (yang) and the feminine (yin) as a salient polarity (not binary), I view the categories of male and female as useful for the vast majority of people. But by all means, make as many other categories as you like; I don't believe we actually disagree here.
Thank you so much for this thoughtful reply— it means a lot, and it definitely quiets some of the hurt feelings I was having. The thing you said about “people with vaginas” is definitely where I got the impression you maybe weren’t supportive of trans people. That type of rhetoric, while it CAN come up in a harmless philosophical debate about language, in my experience, often is actually a dogwhistle for a larger anti-trans ideology that actively hurts trans people. For instance when JK Rowling tweeted about “people with vaginas” (https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=21), and then later went on to publish statements which were used by politicians to fight against the political rights of transgender people (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1231569)— to give just one, very prominent example, where this type of statement was a precursor to actual tangible harm to trans people. Reiman, I don’t care that much what you think about what words we should use to talk about things, as long as we are on the same page about the rights of trans people. I reacted as strongly as I did, because my experience has shown me that I (as a trans person) am in danger with people who make statements such as the one you made. But I think and hope in this instance, that is not the case, and I’m glad to have cleared that up.
That’s the most important thing to me. As contrapoints says in a different video— the rah rah anthem of the trans community and its allies shouldn’t be about asserting the validity of trans people’s identities (debating various linguistic distinctions). It should be about winning political rights and freedom for trans people— who undeniably exist as a category of people, regardless of what your philosophy of gender says about our experience. So, if you’re on the same page with me about that (that trans people deserve healthcare, protection under the law to live as our authentic selves, and freedom from violence and oppression), we should get along fine.
That said, shall we have a harmless philosophical debate about language anyways, haha? I’m very interested in the points you are making about meaning in language. Here’s my take (not exactly a direct rebuttal, just some thoughts):
I get your point that making language more inclusive sometimes comes with costs, and is not always the right move. I am reminded of a conversation I once had with another queer person about the acronym LGBTQ, and whether adding more letters to it was productive— for instance I for Intersex. Although this would make the acronym inclusive of more people who have experiences outside of the typical cis-hetero experience, it would actually make the acronym less USEFUL, because the experiences of intersex people are so different from the experiences of, say, cis lesbians. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking about intersex people, it just means we should talk about them SPECIFICALLY, rather than grouping them in with everyone else. Making a term more inclusive shouldn’t always be the goal— the goal should be to use language that is as accurate as possible. Another example I can think of is when people use the term “people of color,” which is a very wide encompassing term, when the group they really mean to pinpoint is Black people. Sometimes you need to be specific, sometimes you need to be inclusive— and it’s important to use the right language at the right time.
So, I agree that it would be improper and kind of whack to talk about “people who menstruate” or “people with vaginas” when what you mean is “women.” In most contexts, I agree with you, we should probably be talking about women, not “people with vaginas.” “People with vaginas” is a particular group, that it’s only appropriate/meaningful to reference at certain times— e.g. when discussing gynecology, or the accessibility of menstrual products. But in those contexts, I would argue, that is the MOST meaningful or accurate term to use. If we’re talking about the health risks of a certain type of tampon and who that poses a danger to and we say, “women,” that not only fails to include trans people who also use tampons, but it falsely includes, say, women who have gone through menopause (as well as of course trans women). Why would we use a term that didnt specify and point out the group we actually want to talk about? Isn’t that a less meaningful term? Instead, in that case, I think it would be more meaningful to say “people who menstruate.”
It would also be not only dehumanizing, but also inaccurate, to say “people with vaginas” in contexts where what you really mean to say is: women (or even CIS women). When you’re talking about a social phenomenon (like the pay gap, or catcalling, or sexual assault rates) and not a biological one (like periods, pregnancy, or sexual health) the relevant group who is affected is WOMEN. And that includes trans women, it includes women who have gone through menopause, it includes women who are infertile, it may even include girls who haven’t gotten their period yet. These groups are biologically quite different from each other, but they are grouped SOCIALLY. The reason we don’t use a biological term to single out the group we’re talking about, is because biology is not what’s relevant here. When a cis woman is paid less than a man for the same job or is catcalled in the street, does that happen because she has a vagina or certain chromosomes? Are the people who are behaving that way towards her somehow using X-ray vision to see under her skirt, or doing dna analysis of her? If so— why do the same things happen to trans women? (I don’t know if you know any trans women, Reiman, but believe me— these things do happen to them, and often in a context where no one has any idea they’re trans). It’s because these are social phenomena, and they happen to people based on how they dress and look and carry themselves, and what their name is and what gendered language is used for them. In my understanding (and I know this is contestable), gender is a social phenomenon— it doesn’t happen in your pants, it happens out in the world.
So… in the system I’ve just outlined for when to use the term “people with vaginas” and when to use the term “women”, has the term “women” still become meaningless? I know what I mean by it. To be a bit cheeky, I mean… women. Maybe more specifically, I mean that what is essential to being a woman is a particular internal and social experience that is shared across the social group of women. Just because I can’t tell you in words here and now what exactly that experience IS (and frankly… as a man I don’t think I should), doesn’t mean that I’m not identifying a real, meaningful category with the word.
Thanks for continuing the conversation. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks for following up and philosophizing with me :)
My reply will be relatively short, largely because we don't disagree about much, but I've very much appreciated the conversation.
I'm all for using particular language when / if appropriate, and was only ever objecting to the idea that such language must be extended to the whole of our gendered discourse. Your characterization of womanhood as a social experience seems apt. Of course, that social experience has an extremely strong correlation with biological underpinnings, but I'm with you that we'd be inaccurate to equate the two, and that we need flexibility in our language to speak accurately about both. I'm all for striving for situational accuracy while not losing our ability to speak meaningfully about women, about men, about the feminine and about the masculine.
Above all, I'm completely with you that trans people deserve healthcare and protection from violence. One of my greatest values is that all people ― trans people certainly included ― are free to exist as their authentic selves.
Once again, thanks for this conversation that has supported my own reflection. I respect that, rather than just writing me off as many other people did, you came to me sincerely and enabled this refining of views. Muchas gracias, and be well!
What are your thoughts on Carl Jung? I find his ideas both compelling and strangely difficult to access. But a lot of this blog reminded me of his writing on encountering, synthesizing, and developing the feminine "anima" and masculine "animus" within the psyche.
I haven't read any Jung directly, but doing spiritual work and having huge interests in psychology and philosophy have exposed me to many of his ideas (including the anima and animus), and I think he was somewhat of a genius. I'm probably completely butchering this like the pseudo-intellectual I am, but I think he had a concept of "anima (or animus) possession," whereby suppressing one's anima results in a shadow side of the anima sort of hijacking the person. This seems like a fair way to characterize me before I embraced / awakened my feminine.
This is beautifully written, mate. It gives words to half-thoughts and fleeting feelings that I’ve never grabbed hold for long enough to properly experience, let alone articulate. It makes me long for something I’m not sure I’ll ever get - maybe due to cowardice or unintelligence or malaise, or all three. Much to investigate, process and determine… a second or seventh read will help. Maybe I agree or disagree with most or all of it, but that doesn’t really seem like the point right now. Left me in a bizarre state of being. Kudos.
Pleasure. And, I hope I can too. I can barely acknowledge my longing, though. Recovering addict, copywriting as a doldrum job while attempting to escape a Groundhog Day of self-hate, regret, unnecessary isolation, and the absence of creativity that once kept me alive. I don’t even know where to start when it comes to moving towards a brighter and more open bit of earth, but as soon as I feel it might be in sight, night comes and sleep returns me to default. Boring stuff, huh?
I don't think anyone's internal world is boring. I feel for everyone who struggles to reconcile those internal calls of the heart or soul with their external life, which seems to be many people these days. Godspeed <3
It is good to see that many people are waking up to the atrocities that these elites ("the dominator system") are trying to commit against humanity. I come from France and I can see the dictatorship in which I live (maybe you have already seen the videos of the protests in the city of Toulouse, which went around the world). You have matured a lot, I remember you on Survivor, you were young, resented the world you lived in.
Now I see what you're doing (outside of Survivor) and I think it's great that you've come to the conclusion that I've come to, which is to rise spiritually in the world and be a better version of yourself. I wish you all the best in your life, if I have anyone to recommend regarding these topics, it's Rodney from Survivor Worlds Apart, he does great content on nutrition, health, forbidden history.
Amour grand back! I actually spent three weeks in Toulouse in high school doing a foreign exchange, and loved the city. I didn't see the protests there, but I'm glad they're standing up. I can't say I "know" who's behind the dominator system, or what "elites" we're dealing with, but there's no doubt about the importance of us rising spiritually and coming together as one human family.
I am so tuned in. I (believe I) am only in the very early stages of a conscious spiritual journey and I love hearing about experiences and gained insights from others. This is very well written, and it resonated with me. Thank you, Reiman.
So much wisdom here. And so much truth. I appreciate your eloquence and deep dive into concepts not often explored so honestly. Moving forward, I shall eschew the feminine victimhood I've too often donned and will work toward the heterarchy.
P.S. I think it's funny that such a furor erupted over at Reddit about the bit shared here regarding the vaccine (though I thank those drones-of-the-Matrix for alerting me to your new blog). How can they not see that they are fully under the Control you warn about?
That control runs deeper than you can imagine. I'm not fully free of it myself ― just free enough to recognize it. Yay for eschewing the victim mentality which so many men and women are stuck in. <3
It's just honestly hard to take much of what you say seriously when it is evident from very early on in this piece that your actions are still woefully divorced from your words. Vaccination is not a personal choice; it is a choice to protect those around you who are medically incapable of being vaccinated and so cannot make that choice themselves. This is literally hundreds of millions of people around the world: transplant patients, the immunosuppressed, children, and more groups besides. Your willingness to embrace death-- which I generally agree with-- does not give you license to make that choice for other people. The virus does not have a 99.7% survival rate among these groups. Your decision to remain unvaccinated makes you a danger to them, they who may wish to remain alive. I cannot square this with your insistence that you love everyone and only wish to be helpful. Disseminating unscientific justifications-- unironically and apparently unknowingly steeped in American ideas of what is a personal vs. communal choice-- for remaining a threat to the already-afflicted around you is even more harmful than your selfish (not "personal") decision-making, no matter how limited the audience for those justifications may be.
If this comes across as harsh, that is because it is difficult to garner respect for someone who affords so little to others-- in particular those without the fortune of good health-- through his actions.
There is a reason you may not be able to travel as a result of your decisions and it is a good one. If only you would not voluntarily stay a danger to the most vulnerable people still stuck around you.
I'm sorry you perceive me as not respecting others, as that's far from the reality. I respect that you took the time to write this and actually come to my blog and engage with my ideas, rather than just firing off an insulting tweet. I view getting the covid shot as a personal choice in which protecting others (the communal choice you speak of) might be one important factor. The shot doesn't stop transmission, and most people getting the Omicron variant are fully vaccinated, so for me it's not a persuasive factor, but I appreciate the concern for others driving your perspective. Ultimately, everything is a personal choice. Murder is a personal choice. It's a personal choice I find repugnant, and it rightly has grave consequences; I totally agree with you that I don't have a right to make the choice of embracing death for others.
However, if we can agree that various risky behaviors are on a spectrum in this regard, and that deciding not to get the covid shot is certainly "making this choice for others" to a much, much, much lesser extent than murder, I have some questions for you regarding that spectrum:
1. Where is smoking on it? Should we mandate that it's illegal to smoke outdoors in public?
2. Would you agree with mandating that everyone exercise daily and take vitamins? What about mandating therapeutics, or mandating supplements like turmeric that are known to support the immune system?
3. Should we close all fast food establishments immediately, and mandate that no one is allowed to open a restaurant serving unhealthy food? You might argue people can choose to avoid these restaurants, but what about the influence of advertising / marketing on people's cravings and addictions to junk food? What about people in extremely poor areas who can't afford to buy organic groceries?
4. In your view, should those of us with natural immunity ― shown to be 13-27x more effective than the "vaccines" ― still be compelled to get the vaccines, for which there are no longitudinal data? Does the fact that the definition of herd immunity was changed to no longer accept natural immunity make you at all concerned that perhaps the push for "vaccines" is not entirely about health?
5. Where does the reasoning for restricting the unvaccinated end? Travel is one thing, but do you agree with European countries imposing lockdowns only for the unvaccinated? Do you agree with Australia putting unvaccinated people into camps?
I ask these questions in earnest, with respect and, believe it or not, with love. Even if we strongly disagree about these issues, I wish you well, ZD.
I think your view of what constitutes a personal choice is extraordinarily myopic but that your comparison to murder is helpfully apt. Not that I am equating you to a murderer; bear with me.
The more people your actions potentially affect, the less of a personal choice those actions really are. It could easily be argued that nearly every action we take affects others to some degree, often in ways we cannot anticipate. However, that there is a difference between the "personal choice" to grow one's hair long versus the "personal choice" to commit murder should be obvious. The former largely affects the hair-grower and whoever is missing out on the money cutting hair. The latter is a deliberate choice to destroy a family and/or community and to irrevocably alter the course of many other lives in the process of taking one. To the extent it is a personal choice, it is one person choosing the fate of many others, which hardly seems to jibe with the worldview stated in your post.
That is the aptness of your example and line to be drawn between it and your own position and status. Both actions have the potential to greatly impact-- harm-- the lives of many other people, even end those lives. It is not just the risk of infection and death, but chronic illness from long COVID. Vaccination does not stop transmission, but it does lower viral loads and make you less contagious for less time. Should you get sick once vaccinated, you would be sick (and less sick) for a shorter period, taking fewer resources from others who need them-- possibly for reasons completely unrelated to COVID. I think it comes from a place of tremendous and oblivious privilege to voluntarily not take the vaccine when you are aware that the brunt of the virus' effects globally are falling on the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and I think it is all the worse when you are a guest in a country that is not your own.
Your questions contain a number of logical fallacies (a statement which in itself is not meant as an ad hominen) but I will still do my best to answer them while pointing out what I see as the fallacy.
1. I do believe smoking should be banned in public places, including outdoors, for essentially the same reasons of a "personal choice" becoming everyone's problem. However, I also believe it is a strawman, as a single exposure to secondhand smoke is incredibly less likely to kill someone than a single exposure to COVID. I am not going to make up numbers, but I'm not sure a single exposure to secondhand smoke could kill anybody at all. A single exposure to COVID might. Regardless, I do not believe anyone should be subjected to someone else's poison when there is a simple remedy to help avoid it: ban smoking in public places, get vaccinated. Neither is foolproof. Both are better than the alternatives.
2. This is at least a half-strawman. While obesity and poor general health put strain on the medical system, you cannot catch obesity by socializing with someone, and we are discussing COVID and vaccination.
3. This is a variation on your question #2, and my answer is essentially the same. In a perfect world, everyone should have better access to nutritious food. We don't live in that world. People need food, even poor food, to survive. The same cannot be said about catching COVID, which is what this conversation is about.
4. Yes, I believe you should still be compelled to get the vaccine. Are you aware that a number of studies looking at "natural immunity" effectiveness against reinfection were retracted, not to mention a whole bunch of those looking at the kind of fringe treatments Joe Rogan hawks? In fairness, there have been at least a couple of studies supporting my views retracted, too. Short answer, though: yes, particularly in the face of new variants. And frankly, if you want to start talking papers and even after retractions, there is overwhelmingly more scientific evidence to support my view on this than yours, including emerging evidence that natural immunity does very little against Omicron.
5. Are those who cannot be medically vaccinated included in these restrictions? If not, then offensive as it may be to your sensibilities, I have absolutely no problem with any of them. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated as a group have shown a shocking lack of restraint and propensity for sensationalism and even violence. This may not be you, but the people assaulting flight attendants and threatening health care officials are your bedfellows in this. I do not have a problem with elected officials taking steps to protect large vaccine-supporting majorities from this vocal and dangerous minority of people making a choice and I do not buy in to slippery slope arguments. If this eventuality is something a person is afraid of, the solution is to get vaccinated. If you want the freedom to make a choice on this, then you should be ready to accept the consequences of that choice, just like any other law or mandate one chooses to ignore. The consequence for breaking the law is often detainment. That these are new laws does not change much. Furthermore, at this late date I support basically anything that might convince an unvaccinated person to change their mind, including the threat of detention. We tried carrots. It's past time for the sticks.
This question really gets at the heart of why I have vanishingly little respect for this position. You are so concerned with the potential consequences the voluntarily unvaccinated may face for their choice-- a choice you defend as a personal decision-- yet nowhere in your words or actions do I see that level of concern for the vulnerable people whose lives are affected by the collective choice you and others are making to remain unvaccinated. If you do not have concern for those people, why would you think that those people or others who think like I do harbor any worry that your actions may have consequences for *you*?
I did my best to answer your questions and in turn, I ask of you:
1. What are you afraid of here, what is your actual fear in getting the vaccine? You claim to have embraced death, so surely it is not fear of dying from myocarditis. Why is it so important to you to remain more dangerous than necessary to vulnerable populations?
2. What, if anything, would convince you to get the vaccine?
3. If the answer to the above is "nothing," how is that not anti-science? If it's not "nothing," feel free to ignore.
4. You talked about risk spectrum. Does it give you any pause at all to know that your decisions contribute to creating a more dangerous environment than necessary for the medically compromised and other vulnerable populations, who must make different risk calculations than a generally healthy individual? For as long as there are people like you who are smart enough to know better but too stubborn to change their mind, the medically fragile must assume everyone they don't personally know is unvaccinated against a disease that has already killed over 5 million people worldwide (surely a severe undercount).
5. You talk of medical tyranny but seem comfortable both participating in and propagating a stance that says "I am relatively healthy, so I don't need the vaccine, and the medically fragile-- including those who are not sick through any fault of their own-- can just suck up the excess risk people like me create by remaining unvaccinated." Allowing the old, sick, and otherwise "less useful" (hard quotes) people to fend for themselves has always been a feature of a medical system you claim to abhor.
6. Why should a person believe you have genuine love for everyone when the above is what your actions say?
7. What is the difference to you between a "personal choice" and a "selfish choice," if any?
8. Do you know anybody who is an organ transplant patient, immunosuppressed, on chemotherapy, etc.? If so, how do they feel about this?
It's a true cliche: actions speak louder than words and I'm still just finding it hard to circle the square when there appears to be a big gulf between yours.
I will swing back around to finding your comparison to murder as "personal choice" to be apt in ways I don't think you even realized when you made it. Every choice we make may ultimately be personal, but some of those choices reverberate around us much further than others. When your choices have the potential to greatly alter and potentially end someone's life-- especially those less fortunate than you-- they cease to be truly personal choices.
If I may be particularly blunt (like I haven't been already), your response to my comment comes off very much like you know you're wrong but are trying to convince yourself you are somehow right. But that's just how it comes off, of course I can't think for you.
I wish you well, too, both for yourself and for the sake of those around you.
Thanks for this very thorough follow-up, and for broaching our evidently enormous disagreement with thoughtfulness and earnestness. I’m on my phone right now, about to eat dinner, and not convinced we will bridge the gap between our perspectives, so this will likely be my last reply, but I’ll do my best to leave it somewhere that respects each of our perspectives.
First, when I say everything is a personal choice, that doesn’t mean I believe in everyone doing whatever they want regardless of impact. Obviously there’s a vast difference in hairstyle and murder. You seem to view the decision to not take this Covid shot as way, way, way closer to murder than I do. Given how wildly wrong the experts have been thus far about the shot’s effectiveness, I’m just not convinced it helps more than do natural remedies. I’m also not convinced there don’t exist serious and unforeseen side-effects beyond myocarditis that could actually make the decision to take it the decision that is more harmful toward others. Our differing views on the shot’s effectiveness probably underpin 99% of the vast divide we’re seeing in our perspectives, and I don’t believe we can resolve that here. All I can tell you is this:
Every single day I question whether I’m wrong, and if I become convinced that the vaccine is indeed a good solution, I will take it. That’s as good a segue as any into your questions:
1. Unforeseen long-term effects of a medical procedure unlike any vaccine in the past. I’m still human, and embracing death in an Aya ceremony doesn’t mean I’m willy-nilly with my health. There’s also quality of life — a point you mention re: long-covid, but that seems relevant to me considering:
2. We have no longitudinal data on the shot’s effects. Multiple years of solid longitudinal data would convince me.
4. I don’t know that, but if it turns out to be true, then I’ll be deeply sorry. I regularly consider that it could be true, but I’m not convinced.
5. This isn’t a question, but it is a huge misrepresentation of my attitude.
6. Actions say different things to different people. I’m at peace with people having extremely varying interpretations of who I am, because I know who I am.
7. Good Q honestly. I don’t see much difference. I actually think you could construe everything we do as selfish in some sense; even “selfless” acts come from the values of the self, e.g. getting fulfillment from others’ well-being.
8. No, not personally.
Be well, and know that should I realize I’m wrong, I’ll change course. I hope you can say the same. I believe we’re all just doing our best based on our perspectives, and I also believe that there are people with big perspectives and with small perspectives on both sides of this issue.
I stopped thinking in terms of right and left a long time ago. People seem to forget that my Cagayan bio was stuff a 19-year-old wrote on a reality TV show application with the goal of getting cast.
Can't be sure, but seems very plausible that Google would suppress Substack in its results because Substack doesn't censor / conform to the big tech groupthink.
i’m grabbed by by the gender focus of this piece. these are issues i didn’t know you faced and spent so much time thinking about - and i am right there with you, which can be comforting knowing that the silent (to me) difficulties others face are similar to mine. i’m a male struggling with gender as well, though i’ve taken far different steps in deciding to transition. the focus on masculine/male and feminine/female energy, it made me think about how too much of my time is spent caught up in those thoughts - the binds i’ve felt enforced on me from society and even within. where creating a holistic self not tied to either but to all, while still recognizing facts about myself, is the path. these characterizations we attach to gender, i found myself completely jaded from the masculine and rejected it - for a lot of reasons but this isn’t my blog post. society definitely plays a large part. when i understand, rejecting is not the answer. a mutual love of masculine + feminine, it desires to exist within myself, but i have not always been kind to the war waging within me.
like you i am throwing a hailmary every time i apply for survivor, maybe in hopes it will do something for me. thank you for writing this, i did enjoy reading it :)
So glad to hear you enjoyed it, and that knowing I've struggled with very similar things can offer some comfort.
I'm wishing you the best with your transition, and I hope that going forward you find less and less internal pain stemming from our societal notions and characterizations of the sexes. May mutual love of yin and yang in their proper balance spring up from the ashes of the internal war you've faced. I have so much compassion for people waging that internal war, and caught in these painful thought loops and boxes.
Hi Reiman!
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts in such depth, and I’m very interested in the journey you’re on as it relates to gender and wholeness. I’ll be honest. I’m pretty upset about some of what you wrote. I think you’re putting your finger on an important truth— that the way we relate to gender in modern society is broken, and leaves many young men feeling disenfranchised and alone. But I disagree very strongly with some of the conclusions you’ve come to about what the root of that problem is and what the solutions are. In particular, I find it incredibly disheartening that you went from having this amazing, gender-expansive experience personally, to concluding that transgender people (who have similar gender-expansive experiences, but on the scale of a lifetime) are fake or a part of what’s broken with gender in modern society. I wonder what you think about the leadership roles transgender people have played in indigenous communities (whose gender politics you seem to be very interested in) for thousands of years. Happy to link to more information on that if you are interested and don’t already know what I’m talking about.
I don’t think I can do the best job here in this comment at articulating what my problems are with your conclusions. In place of that, I would love to offer this video by one of my favorite YouTubers, which discusses (what I see as) the same problem you are identifying— the way men in modern western society have been left behind by current gender discourse, in a way that hurts everyone and deepens the gender divide: https://youtu.be/S1xxcKCGljY. Her take on the source of that problem and the solutions to it are different from yours (though perhaps not irreconcilable! With a few tweaks), and are more respectful of trans people. I would really honestly love to hear what you think of what she has to say. She has a very particular style of humor and argument that you’ll either love or hate, but either way I hope you’ll listen to what she has to say.
I really do respect the profound thinking you’ve been doing. It’s clear it is helping you heal, which is amazing to see. But I can’t help but worry that your healing may be coming at the price of promoting rhetoric that is harmful to people who are already suffering under the current status quo (I.e. transgender people). I hope you will read this comment, watch the video (and any other of the youtuber’s videos that catch your eye— I think her video on incel culture and the one on gender critical theory might also be relevant to the conversation) with an open mind, and let me know what you think about it.
Thanks for reading!
Ben
Hey Ben!! First, I want to wholeheartedly thank you for this thoughtful, respectfully challenging comment. Your earnestness allows me to clarify my views on transgenderism, which I very much want to do in light of reactions to what I wrote. Having felt so much pain around gender myself, the last thing I'd ever want to do is exacerbate gendered pain for others, e.g. trans people, who certainly do suffer under the current status quo.
I swear, even before clicking the link you shared, I had the thought to tell you about the value I've derived from "ContraPoints," one of MY favorite YouTubers. ContraPoints was a huge YouTube binge for me after my monthlong retreat in Nepal in 2018, at which point I watched every single one of her videos up until "The Aesthetic." I didn't agree with her on everything, but I absolutely loved her philosophical background, intelligence and humor. So, we're quite in sync here, although I haven't watched her for a few years, so the "Men" video you shared is new to me. I started it and already got a big laugh out of the way she says "I wanna be sooo f***ing rational for you." In that spirit, Ben, I wanna give you alllll I can of my IQ AND EQ in this reply, and hopefully clarify where I'm coming from :)
I'm guessing the writing of mine that most upset you was the criticism of language like “people with vaginas” and “people who menstruate.” I wrote that these turns of phrase are a degradation of women and of objective truth, and it sounds like you interpreted my criticism of the language as a criticism of trans people. This was never my intention, and I sincerely apologize to everyone I offended in making this point. I'd like to clarify that far from "believing that trans people are fake or a part of what's broken with gender," I believe that trans people are having a valid human experience worthy of respect, and have completely valid gender identities that also deserve respect. I do respect these identities, will always used a person's preferred pronouns, and don't take issue with trans men who still might still have vaginas or menstruate. I have no issue with saying that such people are "men with vaginas" or "men who menstruate."
However, I disagree with the notion that the above implies vaginas and menstruation aren't still characteristics of biological WOMEN. Thus, I disagree with efforts to broadly replace the term "women" with "people with vaginas" or "people who menstruate," even if those efforts are well-intentioned and in the name of inclusivity. If we can't say that having a vagina is a trait of women, then there's essentially nothing we can say IS a trait of women, and we render the term "women" meaningless. There's a sense ― the "absolute," spiritual sense of us all being one and gender being completely fluid ― in which "women" IS meaningless, but if we construct our language that way, basically ALL language will become meaningless.
Language is based on distinction. If language is to mean anything at all, we must discern that there is a difference between the "absolute" and the "relative" ― between the absolute truth of gender fluidity and the relative truth of biological sex ― and we must realize that language is relative. There is no language that will ever do the "absolute" truth justice, and if we try to create that language, all we do is degrade objective truths (insofar as absolute truth exists) of the "relative." So, RELATIVELY speaking, I'm going to say something very not-PC: We come into this world with a penis or a vagina, as a biological male or as a biological female. Many of us are feminine males or masculine females, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with feeling the need to transition one's identity based on this mismatch between biological sex and gender identity. If someone wants to say that their gender (absolutely fluid) defines there identity rather than their sex (relative and fixed, barring chemical / surgical intervention) defining it, that is also completely fine. More power to them; I respect their courage.
It is possible for an absolute truth of gender and a relative truth of biological sex to both exist at the same time. They aren't contradictory; we don't have to choose one over the other. In fact, I think that to choose one over the other is incorrect. It is incorrect to pretend biological sex isn't a reality for us (hence my controversial statements), and it is also incorrect to ignore gender fluidity or insist on rigid gender roles defined by biological sex. I believe we must hold both truths simultaneously, just as we must restore the Divine Masculine and Divine Feminine principles simultaneously. You seem to have interpreted men's issues as being the main problem I identify and write about in this piece, but rather, the issue I'm addressing is our estrangement from both our Divine Masculine AND our Divine Feminine. Our estrangement from the former has made the discernment (a more masculine quality) of biological sex taboo, and our estrangement from the latter... well, that explains a multitude of problems in the modern world. When I speak of the feminine and the masculine, or of yin energy and yang energy, I'm never equating them with women and men. My essential point in "The Heterarchy" is that we all have yin and yang within us, and are free to express whatever is true to us. The polarity of masculine and feminine is real, and biological sex is also real, but neither defines who we are.
This is the essence of my view. I hope it offers clarity and assuages hurt feelings. Once again, thank you for taking the time to write a sincere comment and be a voice for many people who were hurt by what I wrote.
And as an aside, I'd be very interested in seeing anything you'd like to share regarding the leadership roles of trans people in indigenous communities.
This clarification still relies on a very facile interpretation of biological sex and how it works - there's more than two options for genotypical sex (X0, XX, XY, XXY, etc.) and the phenotypical expressions range far beyond "penis or vagina". It can be both or neither, and those are fairly common sex expressions - people naturally have many other sexual expressions that aren't just XY/penis/testes or XX/vagina/ovaries.
Roughly 1.5% of people worldwide are born intersex, so when you say you're getting non-politically correct you're actually just repeating false information generally talked about by people who wish to harm trans people (even though intersex people and trans people are different groups that occasionally intersect) while ignoring a population estimated to be around one hundred million people.
I do think there's some grounds for reflection on why you correctly identify that gender exists on a spectrum, not a binary, yet simultaneously seem to need to see biological sex as a binary when there are many examples of how it's not - particularly given treating it as one has resulted in a great deal of harm to intersex people worldwide who are forced into unnecessary 'normalizing' procedures so they can fit into the box of either biologically male or female. You don't seem to have many concepts you aren't willing to dig deeper on or explore further, so I'm not sure why this is one you can't get past.
Thanks for the comment Jordan. I'm certainly willing to dig deeper and reflect on how I might be wrong about biological sex, and I do admit that on a genotypical level, I was oversimplifying in portraying it as a binary. This thought (what about cases of intersex people?) occurred to me while writing, but I ultimately didn't delve into it because it seems so rare. I seriously question the 1.5% number you throw out, and would read and appreciate data backing that up.
Even if indeed 1.5% of people are X0, XXY or something else, though, does that really undermine the core of what I'm saying? It's still categorical, and biological sex is still a different thing from gender identity ― a thing with its own relative truth, by which people are born biologically male (XY), female (XX) or non-binary (other).
I looked into where the number came from - the 1.5% number I was using was itself sourced from Amnesty International (they had it as 1.7%) here https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/10/its-intersex-awareness-day-here-are-5-myths-we-need-to-shatter/. Doing some more digging, I found further articles where it's cited as a range between 0.05% as a lower bound and 1.7% as an upper bound, which gives an estimated range of 4,000,000-132,000,000 people (https://www.unfe.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/UNFE-Intersex.pdf).
But the point you don't seem to be taking is that what you think of as biological sex isn't one specific thing, it's multiple - and they are heavily correlated but not completely linked.
Taking from Dr. Katrina Karkasis' article in the Lancet, The misuses of "biological sex" (https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32764-3/fulltext), the US army's formal definition of biological sex consists of four factors "chromosomes, gonads, hormones, and genitals", and when those four don't line up, which takes precedence? We know that 46,xy people who have female gonads and female genitals exist - are they biologically male or biologically female? We know from sports testing that there are 46,xx women with female genitals and gonads who have naturally elevated testosterone - a male sex hormone. Are they biologically male or biologically female?
The need to generalize categories makes you deliberately inaccurate when talking about millions of people, while the targeted language you're objecting to averts that problem in specific situations where that accuracy is important.
I take in your point that biological sex encompasses many facets, and has more possibilities than a binary. Let's take Dr. Karkasis's framework as true for the sake of argument:
From my perspective, you aren't taking in my essential point, which is that biological sex is real and categorical, whether it's a binary or it has 2^4 (16) possible categorizations. We could throw out the terms "biological man" and "biological woman" and use those 16 categories, and my point would still stand. Gender is a spectrum, sex is categories, and both are real.
That said, I view it as far more efficient to use the categories of male, female and non-binary. We don't need to say that any of Karkasis's factors take precedence, and we can just label this 0.05%-1.7% of people as non-binary. If they don't like that label, they can make their own that accounts for as much categorical expansion as you / they like. I have no problem with using language like "person with a vagina" or "man who menstruates" in particular situations where accuracy is important. In the broad and general sense, saying "women" is more efficient than saying "people with vaginas," because the vast majority of people with vaginas identify as women, but I don't want to get into a semantic argument that dilutes my main points.
My essential point is that categorization underlies sex, whereas gender is a spectrum. Because I view the masculine (yang) and the feminine (yin) as a salient polarity (not binary), I view the categories of male and female as useful for the vast majority of people. But by all means, make as many other categories as you like; I don't believe we actually disagree here.
Reiman,
Thank you so much for this thoughtful reply— it means a lot, and it definitely quiets some of the hurt feelings I was having. The thing you said about “people with vaginas” is definitely where I got the impression you maybe weren’t supportive of trans people. That type of rhetoric, while it CAN come up in a harmless philosophical debate about language, in my experience, often is actually a dogwhistle for a larger anti-trans ideology that actively hurts trans people. For instance when JK Rowling tweeted about “people with vaginas” (https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1269382518362509313?s=21), and then later went on to publish statements which were used by politicians to fight against the political rights of transgender people (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1231569)— to give just one, very prominent example, where this type of statement was a precursor to actual tangible harm to trans people. Reiman, I don’t care that much what you think about what words we should use to talk about things, as long as we are on the same page about the rights of trans people. I reacted as strongly as I did, because my experience has shown me that I (as a trans person) am in danger with people who make statements such as the one you made. But I think and hope in this instance, that is not the case, and I’m glad to have cleared that up.
That’s the most important thing to me. As contrapoints says in a different video— the rah rah anthem of the trans community and its allies shouldn’t be about asserting the validity of trans people’s identities (debating various linguistic distinctions). It should be about winning political rights and freedom for trans people— who undeniably exist as a category of people, regardless of what your philosophy of gender says about our experience. So, if you’re on the same page with me about that (that trans people deserve healthcare, protection under the law to live as our authentic selves, and freedom from violence and oppression), we should get along fine.
That said, shall we have a harmless philosophical debate about language anyways, haha? I’m very interested in the points you are making about meaning in language. Here’s my take (not exactly a direct rebuttal, just some thoughts):
I get your point that making language more inclusive sometimes comes with costs, and is not always the right move. I am reminded of a conversation I once had with another queer person about the acronym LGBTQ, and whether adding more letters to it was productive— for instance I for Intersex. Although this would make the acronym inclusive of more people who have experiences outside of the typical cis-hetero experience, it would actually make the acronym less USEFUL, because the experiences of intersex people are so different from the experiences of, say, cis lesbians. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be taking about intersex people, it just means we should talk about them SPECIFICALLY, rather than grouping them in with everyone else. Making a term more inclusive shouldn’t always be the goal— the goal should be to use language that is as accurate as possible. Another example I can think of is when people use the term “people of color,” which is a very wide encompassing term, when the group they really mean to pinpoint is Black people. Sometimes you need to be specific, sometimes you need to be inclusive— and it’s important to use the right language at the right time.
So, I agree that it would be improper and kind of whack to talk about “people who menstruate” or “people with vaginas” when what you mean is “women.” In most contexts, I agree with you, we should probably be talking about women, not “people with vaginas.” “People with vaginas” is a particular group, that it’s only appropriate/meaningful to reference at certain times— e.g. when discussing gynecology, or the accessibility of menstrual products. But in those contexts, I would argue, that is the MOST meaningful or accurate term to use. If we’re talking about the health risks of a certain type of tampon and who that poses a danger to and we say, “women,” that not only fails to include trans people who also use tampons, but it falsely includes, say, women who have gone through menopause (as well as of course trans women). Why would we use a term that didnt specify and point out the group we actually want to talk about? Isn’t that a less meaningful term? Instead, in that case, I think it would be more meaningful to say “people who menstruate.”
It would also be not only dehumanizing, but also inaccurate, to say “people with vaginas” in contexts where what you really mean to say is: women (or even CIS women). When you’re talking about a social phenomenon (like the pay gap, or catcalling, or sexual assault rates) and not a biological one (like periods, pregnancy, or sexual health) the relevant group who is affected is WOMEN. And that includes trans women, it includes women who have gone through menopause, it includes women who are infertile, it may even include girls who haven’t gotten their period yet. These groups are biologically quite different from each other, but they are grouped SOCIALLY. The reason we don’t use a biological term to single out the group we’re talking about, is because biology is not what’s relevant here. When a cis woman is paid less than a man for the same job or is catcalled in the street, does that happen because she has a vagina or certain chromosomes? Are the people who are behaving that way towards her somehow using X-ray vision to see under her skirt, or doing dna analysis of her? If so— why do the same things happen to trans women? (I don’t know if you know any trans women, Reiman, but believe me— these things do happen to them, and often in a context where no one has any idea they’re trans). It’s because these are social phenomena, and they happen to people based on how they dress and look and carry themselves, and what their name is and what gendered language is used for them. In my understanding (and I know this is contestable), gender is a social phenomenon— it doesn’t happen in your pants, it happens out in the world.
So… in the system I’ve just outlined for when to use the term “people with vaginas” and when to use the term “women”, has the term “women” still become meaningless? I know what I mean by it. To be a bit cheeky, I mean… women. Maybe more specifically, I mean that what is essential to being a woman is a particular internal and social experience that is shared across the social group of women. Just because I can’t tell you in words here and now what exactly that experience IS (and frankly… as a man I don’t think I should), doesn’t mean that I’m not identifying a real, meaningful category with the word.
Thanks for continuing the conversation. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Ben
Thanks for following up and philosophizing with me :)
My reply will be relatively short, largely because we don't disagree about much, but I've very much appreciated the conversation.
I'm all for using particular language when / if appropriate, and was only ever objecting to the idea that such language must be extended to the whole of our gendered discourse. Your characterization of womanhood as a social experience seems apt. Of course, that social experience has an extremely strong correlation with biological underpinnings, but I'm with you that we'd be inaccurate to equate the two, and that we need flexibility in our language to speak accurately about both. I'm all for striving for situational accuracy while not losing our ability to speak meaningfully about women, about men, about the feminine and about the masculine.
Above all, I'm completely with you that trans people deserve healthcare and protection from violence. One of my greatest values is that all people ― trans people certainly included ― are free to exist as their authentic selves.
Once again, thanks for this conversation that has supported my own reflection. I respect that, rather than just writing me off as many other people did, you came to me sincerely and enabled this refining of views. Muchas gracias, and be well!
I'm not Reiman but I'll check out the vid 😎
Thank you for writing this. It matters
<3
What are your thoughts on Carl Jung? I find his ideas both compelling and strangely difficult to access. But a lot of this blog reminded me of his writing on encountering, synthesizing, and developing the feminine "anima" and masculine "animus" within the psyche.
I haven't read any Jung directly, but doing spiritual work and having huge interests in psychology and philosophy have exposed me to many of his ideas (including the anima and animus), and I think he was somewhat of a genius. I'm probably completely butchering this like the pseudo-intellectual I am, but I think he had a concept of "anima (or animus) possession," whereby suppressing one's anima results in a shadow side of the anima sort of hijacking the person. This seems like a fair way to characterize me before I embraced / awakened my feminine.
This is beautifully written, mate. It gives words to half-thoughts and fleeting feelings that I’ve never grabbed hold for long enough to properly experience, let alone articulate. It makes me long for something I’m not sure I’ll ever get - maybe due to cowardice or unintelligence or malaise, or all three. Much to investigate, process and determine… a second or seventh read will help. Maybe I agree or disagree with most or all of it, but that doesn’t really seem like the point right now. Left me in a bizarre state of being. Kudos.
Thanks Bloop. I hope you can journey to the limits of your longing.
Pleasure. And, I hope I can too. I can barely acknowledge my longing, though. Recovering addict, copywriting as a doldrum job while attempting to escape a Groundhog Day of self-hate, regret, unnecessary isolation, and the absence of creativity that once kept me alive. I don’t even know where to start when it comes to moving towards a brighter and more open bit of earth, but as soon as I feel it might be in sight, night comes and sleep returns me to default. Boring stuff, huh?
I don't think anyone's internal world is boring. I feel for everyone who struggles to reconcile those internal calls of the heart or soul with their external life, which seems to be many people these days. Godspeed <3
And those who comment on random blog in an act of lazy desperation. Cheers :)
It is good to see that many people are waking up to the atrocities that these elites ("the dominator system") are trying to commit against humanity. I come from France and I can see the dictatorship in which I live (maybe you have already seen the videos of the protests in the city of Toulouse, which went around the world). You have matured a lot, I remember you on Survivor, you were young, resented the world you lived in.
Now I see what you're doing (outside of Survivor) and I think it's great that you've come to the conclusion that I've come to, which is to rise spiritually in the world and be a better version of yourself. I wish you all the best in your life, if I have anyone to recommend regarding these topics, it's Rodney from Survivor Worlds Apart, he does great content on nutrition, health, forbidden history.
BIG LOVE From France!
Amour grand back! I actually spent three weeks in Toulouse in high school doing a foreign exchange, and loved the city. I didn't see the protests there, but I'm glad they're standing up. I can't say I "know" who's behind the dominator system, or what "elites" we're dealing with, but there's no doubt about the importance of us rising spiritually and coming together as one human family.
I am so tuned in. I (believe I) am only in the very early stages of a conscious spiritual journey and I love hearing about experiences and gained insights from others. This is very well written, and it resonated with me. Thank you, Reiman.
Thank you for sharing. There is a lot to absorb and reflect on in here. I may write back with more detailed thoughts later :)
I love you Spencer!
You've lost it dude
So much wisdom here. And so much truth. I appreciate your eloquence and deep dive into concepts not often explored so honestly. Moving forward, I shall eschew the feminine victimhood I've too often donned and will work toward the heterarchy.
P.S. I think it's funny that such a furor erupted over at Reddit about the bit shared here regarding the vaccine (though I thank those drones-of-the-Matrix for alerting me to your new blog). How can they not see that they are fully under the Control you warn about?
That control runs deeper than you can imagine. I'm not fully free of it myself ― just free enough to recognize it. Yay for eschewing the victim mentality which so many men and women are stuck in. <3
It's just honestly hard to take much of what you say seriously when it is evident from very early on in this piece that your actions are still woefully divorced from your words. Vaccination is not a personal choice; it is a choice to protect those around you who are medically incapable of being vaccinated and so cannot make that choice themselves. This is literally hundreds of millions of people around the world: transplant patients, the immunosuppressed, children, and more groups besides. Your willingness to embrace death-- which I generally agree with-- does not give you license to make that choice for other people. The virus does not have a 99.7% survival rate among these groups. Your decision to remain unvaccinated makes you a danger to them, they who may wish to remain alive. I cannot square this with your insistence that you love everyone and only wish to be helpful. Disseminating unscientific justifications-- unironically and apparently unknowingly steeped in American ideas of what is a personal vs. communal choice-- for remaining a threat to the already-afflicted around you is even more harmful than your selfish (not "personal") decision-making, no matter how limited the audience for those justifications may be.
If this comes across as harsh, that is because it is difficult to garner respect for someone who affords so little to others-- in particular those without the fortune of good health-- through his actions.
There is a reason you may not be able to travel as a result of your decisions and it is a good one. If only you would not voluntarily stay a danger to the most vulnerable people still stuck around you.
I'm sorry you perceive me as not respecting others, as that's far from the reality. I respect that you took the time to write this and actually come to my blog and engage with my ideas, rather than just firing off an insulting tweet. I view getting the covid shot as a personal choice in which protecting others (the communal choice you speak of) might be one important factor. The shot doesn't stop transmission, and most people getting the Omicron variant are fully vaccinated, so for me it's not a persuasive factor, but I appreciate the concern for others driving your perspective. Ultimately, everything is a personal choice. Murder is a personal choice. It's a personal choice I find repugnant, and it rightly has grave consequences; I totally agree with you that I don't have a right to make the choice of embracing death for others.
However, if we can agree that various risky behaviors are on a spectrum in this regard, and that deciding not to get the covid shot is certainly "making this choice for others" to a much, much, much lesser extent than murder, I have some questions for you regarding that spectrum:
1. Where is smoking on it? Should we mandate that it's illegal to smoke outdoors in public?
2. Would you agree with mandating that everyone exercise daily and take vitamins? What about mandating therapeutics, or mandating supplements like turmeric that are known to support the immune system?
3. Should we close all fast food establishments immediately, and mandate that no one is allowed to open a restaurant serving unhealthy food? You might argue people can choose to avoid these restaurants, but what about the influence of advertising / marketing on people's cravings and addictions to junk food? What about people in extremely poor areas who can't afford to buy organic groceries?
4. In your view, should those of us with natural immunity ― shown to be 13-27x more effective than the "vaccines" ― still be compelled to get the vaccines, for which there are no longitudinal data? Does the fact that the definition of herd immunity was changed to no longer accept natural immunity make you at all concerned that perhaps the push for "vaccines" is not entirely about health?
5. Where does the reasoning for restricting the unvaccinated end? Travel is one thing, but do you agree with European countries imposing lockdowns only for the unvaccinated? Do you agree with Australia putting unvaccinated people into camps?
I ask these questions in earnest, with respect and, believe it or not, with love. Even if we strongly disagree about these issues, I wish you well, ZD.
I think your view of what constitutes a personal choice is extraordinarily myopic but that your comparison to murder is helpfully apt. Not that I am equating you to a murderer; bear with me.
The more people your actions potentially affect, the less of a personal choice those actions really are. It could easily be argued that nearly every action we take affects others to some degree, often in ways we cannot anticipate. However, that there is a difference between the "personal choice" to grow one's hair long versus the "personal choice" to commit murder should be obvious. The former largely affects the hair-grower and whoever is missing out on the money cutting hair. The latter is a deliberate choice to destroy a family and/or community and to irrevocably alter the course of many other lives in the process of taking one. To the extent it is a personal choice, it is one person choosing the fate of many others, which hardly seems to jibe with the worldview stated in your post.
That is the aptness of your example and line to be drawn between it and your own position and status. Both actions have the potential to greatly impact-- harm-- the lives of many other people, even end those lives. It is not just the risk of infection and death, but chronic illness from long COVID. Vaccination does not stop transmission, but it does lower viral loads and make you less contagious for less time. Should you get sick once vaccinated, you would be sick (and less sick) for a shorter period, taking fewer resources from others who need them-- possibly for reasons completely unrelated to COVID. I think it comes from a place of tremendous and oblivious privilege to voluntarily not take the vaccine when you are aware that the brunt of the virus' effects globally are falling on the poor, the sick, the marginalized, and I think it is all the worse when you are a guest in a country that is not your own.
Your questions contain a number of logical fallacies (a statement which in itself is not meant as an ad hominen) but I will still do my best to answer them while pointing out what I see as the fallacy.
1. I do believe smoking should be banned in public places, including outdoors, for essentially the same reasons of a "personal choice" becoming everyone's problem. However, I also believe it is a strawman, as a single exposure to secondhand smoke is incredibly less likely to kill someone than a single exposure to COVID. I am not going to make up numbers, but I'm not sure a single exposure to secondhand smoke could kill anybody at all. A single exposure to COVID might. Regardless, I do not believe anyone should be subjected to someone else's poison when there is a simple remedy to help avoid it: ban smoking in public places, get vaccinated. Neither is foolproof. Both are better than the alternatives.
2. This is at least a half-strawman. While obesity and poor general health put strain on the medical system, you cannot catch obesity by socializing with someone, and we are discussing COVID and vaccination.
3. This is a variation on your question #2, and my answer is essentially the same. In a perfect world, everyone should have better access to nutritious food. We don't live in that world. People need food, even poor food, to survive. The same cannot be said about catching COVID, which is what this conversation is about.
4. Yes, I believe you should still be compelled to get the vaccine. Are you aware that a number of studies looking at "natural immunity" effectiveness against reinfection were retracted, not to mention a whole bunch of those looking at the kind of fringe treatments Joe Rogan hawks? In fairness, there have been at least a couple of studies supporting my views retracted, too. Short answer, though: yes, particularly in the face of new variants. And frankly, if you want to start talking papers and even after retractions, there is overwhelmingly more scientific evidence to support my view on this than yours, including emerging evidence that natural immunity does very little against Omicron.
5. Are those who cannot be medically vaccinated included in these restrictions? If not, then offensive as it may be to your sensibilities, I have absolutely no problem with any of them. Unfortunately, the unvaccinated as a group have shown a shocking lack of restraint and propensity for sensationalism and even violence. This may not be you, but the people assaulting flight attendants and threatening health care officials are your bedfellows in this. I do not have a problem with elected officials taking steps to protect large vaccine-supporting majorities from this vocal and dangerous minority of people making a choice and I do not buy in to slippery slope arguments. If this eventuality is something a person is afraid of, the solution is to get vaccinated. If you want the freedom to make a choice on this, then you should be ready to accept the consequences of that choice, just like any other law or mandate one chooses to ignore. The consequence for breaking the law is often detainment. That these are new laws does not change much. Furthermore, at this late date I support basically anything that might convince an unvaccinated person to change their mind, including the threat of detention. We tried carrots. It's past time for the sticks.
This question really gets at the heart of why I have vanishingly little respect for this position. You are so concerned with the potential consequences the voluntarily unvaccinated may face for their choice-- a choice you defend as a personal decision-- yet nowhere in your words or actions do I see that level of concern for the vulnerable people whose lives are affected by the collective choice you and others are making to remain unvaccinated. If you do not have concern for those people, why would you think that those people or others who think like I do harbor any worry that your actions may have consequences for *you*?
I did my best to answer your questions and in turn, I ask of you:
1. What are you afraid of here, what is your actual fear in getting the vaccine? You claim to have embraced death, so surely it is not fear of dying from myocarditis. Why is it so important to you to remain more dangerous than necessary to vulnerable populations?
2. What, if anything, would convince you to get the vaccine?
3. If the answer to the above is "nothing," how is that not anti-science? If it's not "nothing," feel free to ignore.
4. You talked about risk spectrum. Does it give you any pause at all to know that your decisions contribute to creating a more dangerous environment than necessary for the medically compromised and other vulnerable populations, who must make different risk calculations than a generally healthy individual? For as long as there are people like you who are smart enough to know better but too stubborn to change their mind, the medically fragile must assume everyone they don't personally know is unvaccinated against a disease that has already killed over 5 million people worldwide (surely a severe undercount).
5. You talk of medical tyranny but seem comfortable both participating in and propagating a stance that says "I am relatively healthy, so I don't need the vaccine, and the medically fragile-- including those who are not sick through any fault of their own-- can just suck up the excess risk people like me create by remaining unvaccinated." Allowing the old, sick, and otherwise "less useful" (hard quotes) people to fend for themselves has always been a feature of a medical system you claim to abhor.
6. Why should a person believe you have genuine love for everyone when the above is what your actions say?
7. What is the difference to you between a "personal choice" and a "selfish choice," if any?
8. Do you know anybody who is an organ transplant patient, immunosuppressed, on chemotherapy, etc.? If so, how do they feel about this?
It's a true cliche: actions speak louder than words and I'm still just finding it hard to circle the square when there appears to be a big gulf between yours.
I will swing back around to finding your comparison to murder as "personal choice" to be apt in ways I don't think you even realized when you made it. Every choice we make may ultimately be personal, but some of those choices reverberate around us much further than others. When your choices have the potential to greatly alter and potentially end someone's life-- especially those less fortunate than you-- they cease to be truly personal choices.
If I may be particularly blunt (like I haven't been already), your response to my comment comes off very much like you know you're wrong but are trying to convince yourself you are somehow right. But that's just how it comes off, of course I can't think for you.
I wish you well, too, both for yourself and for the sake of those around you.
Thanks for this very thorough follow-up, and for broaching our evidently enormous disagreement with thoughtfulness and earnestness. I’m on my phone right now, about to eat dinner, and not convinced we will bridge the gap between our perspectives, so this will likely be my last reply, but I’ll do my best to leave it somewhere that respects each of our perspectives.
First, when I say everything is a personal choice, that doesn’t mean I believe in everyone doing whatever they want regardless of impact. Obviously there’s a vast difference in hairstyle and murder. You seem to view the decision to not take this Covid shot as way, way, way closer to murder than I do. Given how wildly wrong the experts have been thus far about the shot’s effectiveness, I’m just not convinced it helps more than do natural remedies. I’m also not convinced there don’t exist serious and unforeseen side-effects beyond myocarditis that could actually make the decision to take it the decision that is more harmful toward others. Our differing views on the shot’s effectiveness probably underpin 99% of the vast divide we’re seeing in our perspectives, and I don’t believe we can resolve that here. All I can tell you is this:
Every single day I question whether I’m wrong, and if I become convinced that the vaccine is indeed a good solution, I will take it. That’s as good a segue as any into your questions:
1. Unforeseen long-term effects of a medical procedure unlike any vaccine in the past. I’m still human, and embracing death in an Aya ceremony doesn’t mean I’m willy-nilly with my health. There’s also quality of life — a point you mention re: long-covid, but that seems relevant to me considering:
2. We have no longitudinal data on the shot’s effects. Multiple years of solid longitudinal data would convince me.
4. I don’t know that, but if it turns out to be true, then I’ll be deeply sorry. I regularly consider that it could be true, but I’m not convinced.
5. This isn’t a question, but it is a huge misrepresentation of my attitude.
6. Actions say different things to different people. I’m at peace with people having extremely varying interpretations of who I am, because I know who I am.
7. Good Q honestly. I don’t see much difference. I actually think you could construe everything we do as selfish in some sense; even “selfless” acts come from the values of the self, e.g. getting fulfillment from others’ well-being.
8. No, not personally.
Be well, and know that should I realize I’m wrong, I’ll change course. I hope you can say the same. I believe we’re all just doing our best based on our perspectives, and I also believe that there are people with big perspectives and with small perspectives on both sides of this issue.
Looks like you've lost your damn mind. Well, considering your idol was Mitt Romney it's not surprising you've become an open right wing shit head
I stopped thinking in terms of right and left a long time ago. People seem to forget that my Cagayan bio was stuff a 19-year-old wrote on a reality TV show application with the goal of getting cast.
Is it on purpose that this site is hard to find? I googled your name and this site didn't come up, I had to look in my history.
Can't be sure, but seems very plausible that Google would suppress Substack in its results because Substack doesn't censor / conform to the big tech groupthink.
i’m grabbed by by the gender focus of this piece. these are issues i didn’t know you faced and spent so much time thinking about - and i am right there with you, which can be comforting knowing that the silent (to me) difficulties others face are similar to mine. i’m a male struggling with gender as well, though i’ve taken far different steps in deciding to transition. the focus on masculine/male and feminine/female energy, it made me think about how too much of my time is spent caught up in those thoughts - the binds i’ve felt enforced on me from society and even within. where creating a holistic self not tied to either but to all, while still recognizing facts about myself, is the path. these characterizations we attach to gender, i found myself completely jaded from the masculine and rejected it - for a lot of reasons but this isn’t my blog post. society definitely plays a large part. when i understand, rejecting is not the answer. a mutual love of masculine + feminine, it desires to exist within myself, but i have not always been kind to the war waging within me.
like you i am throwing a hailmary every time i apply for survivor, maybe in hopes it will do something for me. thank you for writing this, i did enjoy reading it :)
So glad to hear you enjoyed it, and that knowing I've struggled with very similar things can offer some comfort.
I'm wishing you the best with your transition, and I hope that going forward you find less and less internal pain stemming from our societal notions and characterizations of the sexes. May mutual love of yin and yang in their proper balance spring up from the ashes of the internal war you've faced. I have so much compassion for people waging that internal war, and caught in these painful thought loops and boxes.
Much love to your holistic self <3
Even if you don’t agree with everything stated (I know I don’t) this is still a good read.