Sex, Gender, Trans-Gender

Along with Quadrants, Levels, Lines, and States, Types is one of the five fundamental elements of the AQAL Integral Model. Types has been explored in approaches such as the Enneagram and Myers-Briggs, but the simplest typology is that of masculine and feminine. Here a member questions whether gender identity is not simply a matter of types, but perhaps also a developmental line. As Ken explains, yes, looked at certain way, gender identity is most definitely a line of development. At an egocentric level of development, gender identity is closely tied to one’s biological sex as a male or female human organism. At an ethnocentric level of development, those biological differences between men and women are then cemented in gender roles as “God’s way.” At a worldcentric level of development, one is finally free to critique and reject the socially-constructed gender roles of one’s culture, and then create one’s gender identity as one wishes. At an integral and Kosmocentric level of development, one actually becomes in a sense “trans-gender,” as one’s locus of identity is found in all that is arising, of which the body-mind is one small part. Ken goes on to comment on the four-quadrant nature of sex and gender identity, and the importance of a truly integral feminism….