Sex determination at time of ordination

How is the sex of an individual determined at the time of ordination?

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Ahh, yes, well, good question! We ask. That’s about it.

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You are also asked if you are a human being :grinning:

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Important question these days :grin:

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Yes but the evil lizard people from the 8th dimension would just like about it anyway.

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There is an interesting story of a shape-shifting serpent (nāga) who became a monk. That’s where the rule came from.

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Nagas are usually (always?) portrayed as benevolent or at least non harmful. My lizard people reference was not referring to them, more like an inside joke😉

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I always thought of Nagas as people with narcissistic or ‘psychopathic’ personality disorder who would wreak havoc inside the sangha. Devadatta was probably an example of one of them.

With metta

That’s a bit nagist. I thought this was a Safe Space. MODS!! Dirty stinking garudas get everywhere!

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I’ve just been introduced to the term microchimaerism, from this article.

Maybe the only truthful answer to “are you a man” or “are you a woman”, is “probably bits of me are”.

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I believe nuns are also asked:
Are you not without sexual characteristics?
Are you a hermaphrodite?
Do you have amenorrhea (from memory I can’t find the questions online). This struck me as odd. Reproductive function is hardly useful as a celibate nun!

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Thanks, that’s a great article. It’s really complicated!

The impression I get is that, rather than biological gender being a simple thing one has, it’s an incredibly complex and ambiguous process that has to be created and sustained by a magnitude of forces. Each one of us has these hormones, genetic variations, and complexities, which are interacting and changing all the time, producing variable and unpredictable outcomes. And biology doesn’t happen in a vacuum: it’s constantly interacting with social, cultural, psychological, and other forces. It’s hard work to consistently produce the specific complex of characteristics that we identify as a particular gender.

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In a world where “gender non binary” becomes more and more prevalent, we still try to put people in gender-boxes. And that is exactly the kind of thing that reinforces this whole mess of gender-bias; as long as we keep looking at ourselves as belonging to a certain group and others as belonging to another group. And more and more people find out that they don’t actually fit in one group or another.

I feel that as monastics we are all human beings and we all belong to the same family that is Sangha. How can the Sangha flourish in the west if we keep on putting people in boxes where they don’t fit and tell them that they cannot associate or talk too much with people from the other box? Or worse, that one box is better than the other? Should we not recognise that the world today and our notions of gender are vastly different from India 2500 years ago?

We can learn so much from each other if we just learn to see each other, not as men or women, but as people.

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Talking about equality , why not naga be allow to ordain ?

You could be wrong , the organ according to Chinese medicine is very useful for maintaining wholeness of health and sustaining a vital energy(qi) of the body to circulate . A weak/cold reproductive organ will have a lot of illness , and especially when comes to menstrual cycles have more abdominal pain , mood changes etc . A person with healthy and good organ will look younger also .

May I ask , does the SC belonging to a certain group ?