I have previously described the existential phenomena of physically/medically transcending gender not primarily as the lived experience of forsaking male to become and co-opt female but rather as becoming "whole and complete" from the vantage point of a previous perception of "un-wholeness" or lack of “completeness.” Through the process of gender transition, it seems I experience my humanity not primarily as a dimorphicly gendered being but increasingly (and more significantly) as the synthesis of both . . . and neither.
In my efforts to construct an accurate and comprehensible conceptual framework (to accompany my "constructed" body) I openly wonder (here aloud) if I am becoming that which the Transhumanist Movement regards as the next advance of human evolution - the Androgynos
Transmitted and developed through dualistic Gnosticism in the East, the notion of an androgynous creation was adopted by the Hebrew Haggadists in order to reconcile the apparently conflicting statements of the Hebrew Scripture. In Gen. ii. 7 and 18 et seq., the separate creations of man and of woman are described, while in chap. i. 27, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them," their creation is described as coincident. Thus by the latter account, it's clear from the reading of the orginal biblical hebrew text that both the Hebrew Deity, and the Deity's creation, was both male and female in union and equalibrium.
With respect to useful definitions of "Transhuman and by extension "Transhumanism", the Italian verb “transumanare” or “transumanar” was used for the first time by Dante Alighieri in The Divine Comedy. It means, “go outside the human condition and perception” and in English could be “to Transhumanate” or “to Transhumanize”.
The actual concept of "transhuman" as an evolutionary transition was first expressed by FM-2030. His trilogy, Up-Wingers, Telespheres and Optimism One(1973) constitutes the beginnings of the transhumanist philosophy, as well as his contributing final chapter in Woman, Year 2000 (1972)
In 1966, FM-2030 (formerly, F.M. Esfandiary) outlined an evolutionary transhuman future while teaching “New Concepts of the Human” at the New School for Social Research, New York City.
Excerpted from and more at: www.transhumanist.biz/whatistranshumanism.htm
How then does the phenomenology of transgenderism fit within a larger conceptual framework of transhumanism? Can we explore, as one of the goals of Transhumanism, the social/medico-biological replication of androgyny as a higher state of being and a desirable outcome with respect to the human/biomedical complex?
Does the replication of androgyny through the agency of biomedical technology represent a higher good for those humans predisposed to seek reintegration and does that process neatly coincide with the philosophical concept of Ableism as conceived by the Transhumanist movement? The more radical and encompassing question to ask - is this the destiny of humanity?
For the sake of definition:
Transhumanized Form of Ableism (generic)
A set of beliefs, processes and practices that perceive the improvement of functioning of biological structures beyond typical boundaries as essential. The transhumanized version of ableism, sees all biological structures as limited, defective and in need of constant improvement beyond biological structure typical boundaries.
The transhumanized version of ableism exhibits the favouritism of beyond biological structure typical abilities and perceived biological structures as deficient as being in a diminished state of being if they are not enhanced beyond biological structure typical abilities.
Transhumanized Form of Ableism (human related)
A set of beliefs, processes and practices that perceive the improvement of human body abilities beyond homo sapiens typical boundaries as essential. This transhumanized version of ableism, sees all human bodies as limited, defective and in need of constant improvement of their abilities beyond homo sapiens -typical boundaries.
This transhumanized version of ableism exhibits the favouritism of beyond homo sapiens typical abilities and perceived humans as deficient as being in a diminished state of being human if they are not enhanced beyond homo sapiens typical abilities. The transhumanist body ability enhancement can be of three types
a) external by shaping the environment.
b) internal reversal by modifying bodily structures in an reversible fashion.
c) internal non-reversal by modifying bodily structures in a non-reversible fashion.
In The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto, Sandy Stone notes (not a little prophetically):
“ . . . Transsexuals do not possess the same history as genetic "naturals", and do not share common oppression prior to gender reassignment. I am not suggesting a shared discourse. I am suggesting that in the transsexual's erased history (favored in order to "pass" - emphasis mine) we can find a story disruptive to the accepted discourses of gender, which originates from within the gender minority itself and which can make common cause with other oppositional discourses. But the transsexual currently occupies a position which is nowhere, which is outside the binary oppositions of gendered discourse. For a transsexual, as a transsexual, to
generate a true, effective and representational counterdiscourse is to speak from outside the boundaries of gender, beyond the constructed oppositional nodes which have been predefined as the only positions from which discourse is possible. How, then, can the transsexual speak? If the transsexual were to speak, what would s/he say”?
I would offer as a response to Stone’s compelling question – that dialog should and could proceed from within the contextual framework of Transhumanism – with an Androgynos, like the “two-spirit” shaman of old, pointing the way.
© 2009 Renée Thomas all rights reserved
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