a Process Buddhist theory of gender would be one in which gender is understood as both interdependent with sex and an abstraction from sex; gender as asymmetrically interdependent with sex, where sex includes gender but not the reverse. Buddhism informs the interdependence aspect (sex and gender are mutually dependent notions; you can’t have one without the other) while Process informs the asymmetrical aspect (gender refers to secondary abstract being which is relative to sex as primary concrete becoming); Process Buddhism sees these two approaches as complimentary aspects of the same comprehensive perspective.
A key move here is that “sex” in this logic is not a static state with an essential nature; only gender is a static state, in that it is a linguistic universal composed of conceptual similarities that homogenize differences between particular qualities under a unified notion such as “man” or “woman”, but gender also has no essential nature because it changes to varying degrees based on historical, cultural and pragmatic context.
Sex on the other hand, is not only concrete but it is *becoming*, which is to say that sexual embodiment is not a static fact with an essential nature established at birth but a continuous process of becoming that unfolds throughout one’s life. Sex is also not only just genetic but also epigenetic, which is to say that sex can be and is partly shaped by social conditions and techno-pharmacological interventions.
When trans people transition, they are indeed changing their sex in the process, but not in a way that changes something that wasn’t changing before, only that they are consciously and intentionally directing the changes of their sex as they grow. Cis people do this all the time already, with birth control, HRT for post-menopausal women, TRT for male hypogonadism, PEDs in bodybuilding culture, etc. Trans people just do it with a broader emphasis on their overall embodiment in a way that is directed and shaped by gender but not ultimately based in gender because gender is an epiphenomenal reflected image of the sexed body-in-process.
The reason why the existence and reality of trans people are threatening to the status quo is because the status quo is predicated on the belief that some things are immutable because they have an essential nature that is fixed and can never change. Sex is one of those things people firmly want to believe is one of those immutable things, in spite of the fact that what we call “sex” is not a single, unitary thing but an aggregate of multiple interdependent factors all of which are either fluctuating or performing different functions based on other contingent conditions. What we call “male” and “female” are not spiritual or natural essences but a set of sexual factors that coalesce into certain patterns of regularity to varying degrees.
There is much more freedom to move in this space than we often want to admit, because patriarchal society feeds us myths and narratives about romance and belonging that are predicated on the lie that the human species is composed of two neatly distinguished sexes who are destined for heterosexual coupling. Trans people live the freedom of consciously changing their sex, and so are living refutations of that patriarchal lie. This is why apologists for the status quo want so desperately to philosophically dismiss our identities, to legally define us away and to physically remove us from life.
Holopoiesis 