SuttaCentral
Many thanks for the reference. 
For me, saying “there’s sexism in the Pali texts” is very different to “calling the sutta pitaka sexist”.
I see what you are saying, but I strongly disagree with your conclusions and the manner in which you are currently expressing them. For me, everyone here has great respect for the EBTs. That’s our commonality, that’s our starting point.
If i woke up as woman or gay tomorrow, i really don’t think it would change much and i certainly wouldn’t think any less of the texts or think that they were less for me. The impact on my training would be little to none.
@inb4dead This thread is about the erasure of women’s, queer and trans voices.
You are doing a very good job of showing the problems that have been raised in this and other threads on this issue. You are insisting on your own straight male view and refusing to accept the validity of others who have a different view, (again the whole point of the thread) you’ve been responding using highly emotive language, which seems like you’re trying to silence the conversation by claiming that people here are being offensive and denigrating the holy texts (not true), or that they are just creating “drama”, and you are being incredibly dismissive of the issues raised. The way you have generally engaged in this conversation has been quite hostile. The tone of your responses will make it harder for women and queer people to contribute to this thread.
There are so many things that could be said about your comment but it’s clear that you are speaking from a position of ignorance and not listening anyway. I just hope that you reflect on it and don’t miss any further opportunities for empathy, understanding and knowledge.
Wow. 
I won’t be responding to you any further in this thread. I would suggest you give some space to this thread too so that the people whose voices you don’t seem to think matter can continue to engage. And maybe give some thought to your obvious attachment to your own view and strong identification with your own identity before you judge others as bad Buddhists.
Yes, everyone has it difficult. But my observation is that some straight men (me, for example) can easily underestimate and misunderstand the problems of those who are different from them. This makes us much less effective at helping them with their difficulties.
That’s good to hear. As I said previously for me I don’t think less of the texts, or think they don’t speak to me, despite being homosexual.
I remember once watching a presentation by an American convert who ordained as a Korean Bhikshuni. She said that there was an implication that nuns “give up” their womanhood by ordaining, but the monks don’t give up their manhood. I found that really sad.
It reminds me of the last line of the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, how women (like Mary Magdalene) can become worthy of the Kingdom of Heaven…but only if they make themselves men. Ew.
Then those Bhikkhunis are very wise and those monks are foolish! It is a great gain for the Bhikkhunis.
And for us, who can learn from them! 
She said that there was an implication that nuns “give up” their womanhood by ordaining, but the monks don’t give up their manhood. I found that really sad.
Might you be able to link the original presentation if you have it?
I apologise that I don’t know the precise context of the American bhikshuni and whatever she has experienced was undoubtedly real for her. Some sharing from my own experience:
The injunction to nuns to not be so feminine is very common in East Asian monastic circles (in the words of my own teacher, “nuns are not strawberries”). Every time I have heard this it’s been in the context of nuns not knowing how to look after themselves or always going back to men for help. In Australia, we’re not so used to this sort of behaviour, but um, I know some healthy women who lack the skills to even get up a ladder (this sort of thing is more common in urban East Asia). This is why the nun teachers have to push the nuns to actually develop a little independence (not a stereotypical Confucian female quality)- because their gender socialisation (as opposed to their gender itself) is not appropriate for monastic life. Especially in Korea, monastic colleges have historically involved agricultural labor (although I hear this is getting less since the 80s) and nuns have to work. The flip side of this is that (especially prior to the 1980s) sometimes nuns in the past were given work that was genuinely too difficult for them.
If the American bhikshuni had heard a statement about being less feminine, the chances are that she has probably heard it from her nun teacher or senior nuns in a didactic context. If your students’ previous gender socialisation had been that women are good for having children and cleaning, I imagine it would be important to get them out of that way of thinking fairly quickly. This is why nuns from Taiwan are on record saying things like “I am not a woman”. Sure, the approach might be a bit rough-and-ready, but from my limited degree of 2nd-hand exposure to these systems, I can appreciate that these type of statements are often a reaction against Confucian gender norms & may express an actual felt experience of social liberation for the women who make them.
I was reflecting on why this matters…
"Whether now or after I have passed, any who shall live as their own island, their own refuge, with no other refuge; with the teaching as their island and their refuge, with no other refuge—those mendicants of mine who want to train shall be among the best of the best.” SN 47.9
and why compassion for one another can help us to understand that we all seek refuge in these teachings and why for some it may be more difficult to navigate the terrain than for others.
Here. My attempt at a transcription:
…when men ordain they do not lose their masculinity socially. They are still recognized as men socially. When women ordain we lose our femininity and become a kind of neuter. And this brings some other powers, because you are no longer in the feminine paradigm, or the female paradigm, but you also lose what power women do have. In Korea…In Korea, you know, women do have their own power; it’s not obvious and operates in back channels, but it’s there. Korea is a very strong patriarchy, but it’s not like women don’t have their own avenues, it’s just generally not public and happens very much behind the scenes. So men don’t lose their masculinity in the same way that women lose their femininity when they ordain, and the result is that monks continue to act like men — you know, the posturing —
to be honest, when we got full ordination, the nuns ordain first in their own ceremony, then the monks ordain, then the nuns have to receive a second ordination from the monks platform. And then we have a general assembly and do the dedication of merit. As as we were doing the general ceremony, the monks were all on this side, all the fully ordained monks, and the nuns were on this side, and I was in the isle, so I was about 5 feet from the monks so I can sorta see them. And one of the announcers said, “now that you’re Bhikkhus you are all Great Monks now.” And saying don’t be like that….and you can see they were swaggering, “Now, NOW we’re monks.” But all the nuns, we just perceived full precepts, now I have to go home and bow to 50 older sister nuns, then I have to go attend to my teaching…our lives are so different. So monks, that posturing, that masculinity, it’s an allowable part of their lives.
While a nun, she acts feminine? Because as you know you cannot attain enlightenment in a female body — I’m sure you’ve heard, you pay any attention to Buddhist stuff in East Asia you’ll know this is a standard argument — so we don’t want to act feminine because we already have the misfortune of being born in a woman’s body. We don’t want to add to that misfortune by creating more female karma that might propel us into another female birth in a future life. We want to do everything we can to have a masculine rebirth, and that includes dropping a lot of the feminine posturing, the [?], the feminine habits that are part of a socialized female identity. We want to drop as many of those as possible. While as men are encouraged as monks to stay men.
We’d (I assume) all agree that it depends on how we choose to define those two words. Someone people choose to say, “There’s no difference between sex and gender, they’re synonyms.” But other people attach them to two different concepts, thus:
Sex and gender are different concepts that are often used interchangeably. The UK government refers to sex as being biologically defined, and gender as a social construct that is an internal sense of self, whether an individual sees themselves as a man or a woman, or another gender identity. They encompass many different identities and may be non-binary (that is, not a man or a woman).
Source:Sex and gender within the context of data collected for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) - Office for National Statistics
When I was growing up, as a cis, straight woman, they were assumed to be the same. Homosexuals and “hermaphrodites” were acknowledged but considered anomalies. Other possible identities had no sort of pubic acknowledgement at all: this was 20th Century erasure in action. The Gay Liberation Movement of the 1970s changed the status of gays and lesbians. and I remember a period in which lesbians, gays, and straights were all “OK” because their sex and gender lined up in what was considered the “correct” way. But here is an explanation of why I find it necessary to think of sex and gender in the same way that the UK Government Census does. …
I became a mother right at the end of the 70s and was involved in some co-operative child-minding initiatives in the early 80s, a major concern of ours being the sexist attitudes being conveyed to young children in more official centres. We had a small premise where we left babies and preschoolers for minding and play, in return for volunteering a number of shifts each week as carers. There were two babies whose nappies I changed regularly who had ambiguous genitalia. Although I went overseas and lost touch with this group, I was permanently affected by knowing them and their mothers.
The traditional idea was to provide surgery to such babies, based on the ease with which their genitals could be converted to look like one sex or the other, and there seemed to be an assumption that the child could then be socialised to grow up conforming to the results of this surgery. I’ve often wondered how those two kids went (they’d be over 40 years old now) and whether their inner feelings about themselves aligned with the external appearance the doctors chose for them.
Thinking through the possible logical outcomes for them, I find it absolutely necessary to accept that sex and gender are different categories that do align in various ways, including ways that are different from the cis, straight, norms that society has preferred to accept as “normal”. And when I listen to modern voices describing individual paths and experiences, I weep for those people in the past who were denied their own voice and forced to keep quiet and disguise who they really were.
Thanks for sharing that story, Gillian.
People who are intersex or people with variations in sex characteristics (formerly referred to as “hermaphrodite” but not only was that an incorrect usage, it has since been rejected by intersex people as an outdated slur) were subject to medical erasure in modern times, through coercive and invasive surgeries which (apart from impacting the person in many horrific ways) also had the effect of erroneously cementing the binary notion of gender in our modern minds. But in fact about 3 % or 4% of people are born with variations of sex characteristics. An often mentioned statistic is that number is the same number of people with red hair.
In the time of the Buddha, people with diverse sex characteristics would have been more widely known about. They seem to have faced discrimination and prejudice then just as they do today.
Returning this thread to the topic of erasure in the EBTs, I think there are probably analogies with the erasure of indeterminate genders from modern society and how we see throughout history that concepts of what is “normal” ends up pushing out things that don’t fit neatly into rigid boxes.
I made a slight edit, thus
to mesh with your
Deleted
I remember gotami sutta and I personally think it’s sexist so bhante @Akaliko is right we need to filter the sutta, there’s no way a Buddha can be a sexist like that afterall he exists for the welfare of human and gods
and Nuns have more precepts than monks and no woman can be a Buddha According to sutta, do you think it’s sexist ?
Thanks
May you be happy,stay happy and in peace 
If anyone doesn’t understand why this thread is created, etc, you are warmly invited to simply observe.
People shouldn’t participate in a thread they don’t think should exist. It’s only going to lead to trouble, as we have clearly seen.
If it’s any consolation, there’s a Pali word for this in the Visuddhimagga: purisamada, the conceit of being male (i.e. as something that is not good to have).
@ayyasoma mentioned conceit in what is considered by some to be the noblest, most constructive post ever seen on this forum, as it happens in a somewhat parallel theme.
Bhikkhu @Akaliko: I hear, believe, recognize, understand and regret that life is duhkha for queers and females. I’m up to speed on the first noble truth already, what I’m hoping to see is how to go beyond that.
Hi Jared, thanks for the link to the other thread and for your comments. So this thread is about erasure of voices in the EBTs. It doesn’t purport to answer all questions about everything ever and might not do what you are personally hoping for either. If you want to make a thread that answers the questions you want to see, then please go ahead!
Speaking more generally, I think we can “chew gum and walk at the same time”, so we can discuss these topics in this thread and also still have a practice that aims to come out of suffering. Certainly, this is just a small part of my practice and the spiritual work I do. Suggesting, as some have, that this topic is not worthwhile or shouldn’t exist is just another form of silencing and erasure. Women and queer people are entitled to have a space in this forum and everywhere to discuss issues that affect them. That’s essential, actually. And it doesn’t obliviate our other spiritual concerns, or suggest that we are somehow incapable of moving beyond these issues in other areas of our practice. This is part of our practice and will be part of our liberation.
It’s worth noting that hundreds of thousands of books, millions of words and countless talks have been given dealing with daily concerns like marriage, family, work, stress, depression etc and no-one says: “Okay you’ve had your turn, we’ve heard enough, move on, get over it.” But this is often what women and queer folks are told to do by their Buddhist communities: “Enough already about the feminism or identity issues, we are Buddhists, we don’t discuss those things!” Again, this is just silencing valid discussions that need to be had and these topics can be talked about as many times as we want. Further, we don’t need permission from others to have a discussion about issues that affect us.
Discussing the nature of suffering for particular groups is useful because there is a shared experience of certain types of suffering which needs to be understood. It’s a mistake to think that discussion of suffering somehow equates to more suffering or doesn’t lead to a reduction of suffering. Understanding things like erasure, oppression, shame, prejudice, and knowing how these things work is very helpful to come out of suffering. Discussing the systemic nature of these things is useful because it shows that these things are less personal, more social and cultural, that they are conditioned. So, talking about things like queer or trans issues is a good way of understanding not-self.
In fact, instead of being ‘obsessed with identity’ as queer and trans folks are often unfairly accused, they are actually experts in understanding the construction of identity, and are uniquely positioned to have special insights into not-self. Straight and cis folks can also learn a lot about the nature of not-self from these discussions, as they actually have a gender and sexuality too, which unfortunately they often cant see in because they might think of themselves as’ normal’, but these discussions help to open up aspects of self that otherwise might not have been talked about.
Queer and trans folks see the construction of self and the reality of not-self through by understanding that the things we mistake for self are impermanent, and changing through things like:
All these things teach us that self is not stable or permanent, that it is constructed and a result of causes and conditions. Seeing these things clearly helps us enormously on the spiritual path, which is why these discussions are important. Hearing from women and queers about the truths they have seen for themselves is a wonderful opportunity for us all to learn and grow, which is why its a big shame and terrible omission that there has been so much silencing and erasure of these voices throughout history, and in contemporary Buddhist communities.