The Non-Binary Gender; Differences Seen as a Threat
Topics:
“The Non-Binary Gender”
“Differences Seen as a Threat”
“Belief in Evil and the Devil”
Sunday, September 15, 2024 (Private/Phone)
Participants: Mary (Michael) and Yvonne (Zarla)
[Audio begins partway through session]
YVONNE: We talked a few weeks ago about differences between men and women, and how there are relatively few actual differences and there’s a lot more that is learned, and then varies from culture to culture.
ELIAS: Correct.
YVONNE: So I wanted to ask, too: how do non-binary folks like myself fit into this, if there really are few differences between men and women?
ELIAS: I would say that for individuals such as yourself, that you’re somewhat in the middle. But in relation to culture, you’re still or you have still been somewhat pushed to one side or the other. Because this identification of “other” is, in relation to culture, relatively new. Therefore I would say that it’s a matter of finding your position genuinely in what is genuinely you.
Now; understand that you still have the physical traits of one gender or another. Therefore in relation to that, it’s a matter of finding what you lean more towards. Because regardless of what your physical gender makeup is, that doesn’t mean that you necessarily incline to that, and you might not incline to either of the male or female. And in that, I would say though for the most part, for individuals such as yourself it’s easier because you already don’t necessarily entirely connect with the male-female expression anyway. And in addition to that, that I would say that how you express yourself is somewhat for the most part gender-neutral.
Now; where it becomes somewhat different is in relation to sexuality. With male-female, these individuals know how to maneuver automatically. They know how to maneuver in relation to the opposite gender, because that’s something that is taught by example throughout your lives and in your cultures, and therefore that’s something that for them is easy to maneuver with. For people that are in that “other” expression or as you term it to be, non-binary, that becomes a little more tricky because you don’t have necessarily clear examples of how to be, how to express yourself sexually, AND I would say an interesting piece about individuals that are non-binary is that many of them – not all – many of them are not as interested in sexual expressions and therefore that’s a piece also.
And looking at what are your preferences, what IS your direction? What IS your dynamic when it comes to sexual expressions? I would say that it’s a matter of looking at what type of drive do you have in relation to sexual expressions. Some individuals have a considerable drive in relation to sex. Some individuals are more moderate. Some have none. And all of that is acceptable. It’s a matter of discovering genuinely, without the influences, what is natural for you and what is comfortable for you, knowing that you are the one who is going to determine what is your sexual preference and inclination.
And in that, as being non-binary, that puts you in a direction that you would be more inclined to be comfortable with either male or female, or someone such as yourself. Therefore your choices are more open, but in that, it can be confusing because if you are physically female then you’ve been taught from the time you’re very, very, very small, how to be attractive to males. If you are physically male, you have been taught from very, very, very small, what to be attracted to in females. And in that, being non-binary, you don’t have a clear example of attraction. And therefore you might be attracted to an individual, you’re only attracted to the individual. You might be attracted to a male individual in one time or a female individual in another time, and you might be more attracted to who they are than how they appear. Whereas appearance is generally what has dictated the initial attractions previously. Therefore in that, it’s not necessarily as clear of how to be expressing yourself. Do you understand?
YVONNE: (Laughs) Completely. Yes. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Flirting might be confusing.
YVONNE: Yeah. Oh, for sure. It’s—
ELIAS: Learning how to be flirtatious with different individuals might be confusing.
YVONNE: Yeah.
ELIAS: Or it could also be a matter of how to express yourself sexually. Or it might also be confusing if you are attracted to someone but not sexually, and that you might, some people are not necessarily sexually attracted to anyone because that aspect of it doesn’t interest them. And in that, I would say that it can be a matter of if you’re attracted to someone and you’re drawn to them and you actually develop, let’s say, an intimate friendship with them, for the other individual the next logical step would be to be sexually intimate. That may not be the direction that you might want to move in.
I’m using the word “you” as a general, not specifically you.
In that, there are some parts of being non-binary that are, I would say, simpler and that are in a manner of speaking freer because there are not as many rules. But then there are other parts that are confusing because there are not rules. And therefore it lacks that structure. And that’s the part in which you have to learn to maneuver on your own, because you’re not of a generation in which you have any examples yet.
YVONNE: Yeah.
ELIAS: I would say that as of now, there is only beginning to have a starting generation that will have examples, but that generation are still infants.
YVONNE: (Laughs) Yeah, so—
ELIAS: Or barely toddlers. And therefore they have ways to go before they are going to be enacting what they have learned from their examples. And in that, anyone that is I would say over the age of five doesn’t have an example yet.
YVONNE: Wow. Yeah.
ELIAS: Because this is so new of what people are allowing themselves to be that it’s not something that there is any trodden territory yet. Therefore there are precious few examples.
YVONNE: Yeah.
ELIAS: In this, you are the pioneers that are blazing the trail for the upcoming generations.
YVONNE: Mm. And so I suppose for examples we’ll need to do some future-pulling, to see in a few decades or later some examples of how non-binary individuals are expressing ourselves.
ELIAS: Yes. You could.
YVONNE: Okay.
ELIAS: But I would say that that also is something that you would be privy to, but the masses aren’t.
YVONNE: Right.
ELIAS: Not yet.
YVONNE: Not yet. Yeah. (Laughs)
ELIAS: And therefore for the most part, this is something that is going to play out in relation to how the younger generations, meaning individuals that are coming up from adolescence and those in their twenties, how they will be expressing themselves and how they will move in directions of examples to younger individuals.
YVONNE: Wow. That’s exciting, to be blazing trails.
ELIAS: I would agree. Another new and different aspect of this shift.
YVONNE: Yeah, for sure. (Laughs)
ELIAS: Not that there hasn’t always been individuals that you would term to be non-binary, but that it hasn’t been something that has been defined, and it’s not the same as homosexual. Therefore that was what individuals speculated about or thought for a time when I first introduced that concept of “other,” which was actually more than a quarter of a century ago. And in that, many individuals speculated that I was speaking about homosexuals, which I never was. But in that, it wasn’t the time yet to go into this subject, and people were not ready yet for this information. And I’ve always expressed that it’s important for people to have the experience first and then they can hear information about it and have an explanation for it. And in this, it has been very, very recent that people have begun to move in this direction of recognizing that their experience is different and that it doesn’t fit to what has been previously defined.
YVONNE: Yeah.
ELIAS: But I would say the time is now. (Yvonne laughs) And it is actually quite fascinating how quickly that direction and that expression of sexuality has, and gender, has been expressed and spread and accepted.
YVONNE: Yeah. And at the same time too, we have individuals that are moving in like a backlash direction to all of this, and you know, even to homosexuality that was more accepted or more into the public view than non-binary, that was happening earlier. And I wanted to understand people’s perspectives more, because I didn’t want to get into a way of… like try to stay out of the way of, even though I really disagree with people, to not be thinking of them as an enemy or any of that, because that just creates further division. But it seems like many individuals that are doing this backlash or trying to take out expressions of LGBTQ or non-binary, out of libraries and schools and everything like that, were sometimes raised in very fundamentalist upbringing that’s very black and white, and sometimes told to not be friends with anyone that disagrees. And within the communities, there’s very strict rules on what to believe and if you disagree with any of it, then people could be ousted. Which is very threatening if their whole life, and everyone they know is within that.
So I was feeling like okay, individuals are very afraid and that’s probably playing a big part into the backlash. But what I still didn’t really understand yet, and maybe this is just coming from as an intermediate, it’s sort of like well, everyone can choose what they believe. And for example, with gay marriage or even these new expressions that are coming out, it’s like why does that, if somebody else is expressing that, why is it so threatening to these individuals that are choosing the more traditional, so to speak, ways? If two men a few states over get married, why is it so threatening to someone else? And I just didn’t understand that or the genesis of that fear that they have.
ELIAS: I would say that is as old as the ages, my friend. That it is the entire subject of difference. People are threatened by difference. And why are they threatened by difference? Because of the “right” and “wrong.” Because people move in a direction of whatever they do, whatever they think, whatever direction they engage, that’s right. And if you do something different or if you ARE something different, that’s not right. Then that means it’s wrong. And in that, anything that’s wrong might infect you, because you have the right direction and anything else threatens that.
Because history has shown – and this is how people think – history has shown that “right” can be overthrown. And this has been tremendously reinforced through the dawn of the religious era, and the religious era is struggling to survive. It is putting a push on to continue to be expressed and to survive. And in that, it’s not (laughs) a matter of thriving, it’s a matter of surviving. And people are moving in droves farther and farther away, and in that, that also reinforces this idea that the “wrong” can be infectious. And in that, the “wrong” can take over or conquer the “right.” In this, it even is something that moves to ancient, ancient times. Every civilization believed that they were right.
YVONNE: (Laughs) Yeah. (Laughs)
ELIAS: And civilization after civilization after civilization were conquered by other civilizations. That each one believed that the conquering civilization was wrong but they were conquered anyway, and assimilated. And in that, this has been something throughout your history that has been reinforced over and over and over again, and this is what creates the fear. That whether you perceive it as wrong or evil, whether it is something that is cultural or religious, it doesn’t matter, it all equals out to the same. And what the same is, is that whatever is not right can overthrow what is right. And therefore that creates the massive fear, and the tremendous backlash of how to protect against what is not right.
This is the reason that I have expressed many conversations about this subject of “right,” because this is something that is very pervasive. Everyone has points, whether they realize it or not, everyone has points in which they believe that they are right. And in that, this may be expressed in polite company by expressing that you will agree to disagree, but that is simply being polite because you’re still expressing, “I’m right. You’re wrong. And I’m not changing my perception that I’m right.”
And what I have expressed so many times is that in relation to your own guidelines, which is what makes you think you’re right, you are, for you. And when it comes to that, it is natural for you TO express that you’re right, but only for you, and not to necessarily express that someone else is wrong because they’re different. And people can accept that in varying degrees, such as a person can accept that someone else is not necessarily wrong in one direction, if it’s not tremendously important or affecting. It’s not necessarily wrong to not water your lawn, but it’s definitely wrong to kill your neighbor. It doesn’t matter if you’re killing your lawn, but it does matter if you’re killing your neighbor. Or it does matter if you kill your neighbor’s dog, or if you kill your own dog.
In that, there are degrees of what people can accept as being wrong or being right. And in that, that they judge what is right for everybody in relation to their own guidelines and also in relation to what they’ve been taught and what they’ve learned through example. Because some of what they accept as right isn’t necessarily associated with their own guidelines. Some of it is what they’ve learned through example or what they’ve been taught.
YVONNE: Right.
ELIAS: Therefore in that, difference is viewed almost the same as an infectious disease.
YVONNE: Wow.
ELIAS: That you can be infected by that difference and it can take over, and it can pull you to the dark side. (Both laugh) And then you’re caught by the devil (Yvonne laughs) and there’s little escape from that.
YVONNE: How are people, just speaking of the country that I live in, are there people genuinely afraid of the devil, or is it more just—
ELIAS: Yes.
YVONNE: — like afraid of… Okay. Like the consequences of—
ELIAS: Oh yes
YVONNE: — potentially being kicked out of their community or something? Yeah.
ELIAS: No. No. There are, there are definitely people that are afraid of losing community, but I would say to you very genuinely, there are considerable numbers of people that are still very religious – and that’s not only Christian religious.
YVONNE: Sure. Of course.
ELIAS: And in that, they very much believe in evil and they very much believe in the devil, and that they can be ensnared by that. They’ve been taught for generations on generations the devil is crafty. And in that, they can be ensnared and if they’re ensnared, their life is practically forfeit.
YVONNE: Yeah. I think it’ll be interesting to see how bridges are built, because for some instances it seems like it’s very hard to move in that direction if some people are… People need to first be open to a bridge and it feels like there’s large numbers who are not open to that yet.
ELIAS: What I will say to you, my dear friend, is all of you in younger generations are doing an excellent job of that. And many of these younger generations are doing it by not necessarily expressing opposition or conflict, but simply walking away from what they can’t bridge, and by doing so, ARE bridging.
[The timer for the end of the session rings]
YVONNE: Oh.
ELIAS: They don’t even realize that they’re being a bridge by doing what they’re doing. That by expressing themselves and not relenting, they are creating a bridge. Because the older generations, many, many, many of them, are taking a step sideways and their love and their bond to their children is stronger than their fear of being overthrown. And therefore they are softening. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
YVONNE: Well, that’s very encouraging. I never even thought that just choosing to participate can be a bridge.
ELIAS: Yes. Most definitely.
YVONNE: Well, thank you Elias for another fascinating and wonderful conversation.
ELIAS: You are very welcome. And I express great appreciation for another stimulating conversation. (Both laugh) In tremendous love and dear friendship to you as always, au revoir.
YVONNE: Au revoir.
(Excerpt ends after 45 minutes)
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