[Essay Written 12/09/22 for Mythology Class]
Many a lot of philosophers and anthropologists try and pinpoint the pivot of history where we stopped simply being homo sapiens and became what we know today to be humans. It is known that no known animal truly has a concept of death beyond “ceasing of being” let alone what lies beyond death. But we as humans have something truly unobserved in nature—that ritual which surrounds death. The ritual of death is one of the earliest known forms of ritualism [1.32], and the presence of ritual in human culture has only permeated our culture and rooted itself deeper into the collective unconscious. Fundamentally the principle of ritual defines a transition or transmutation of one state of being into another, be it something so arcane as expanding one’s consciousness by communing with the devil on the full moon, or as mundane as that which everyone experiences, like death.
Perhaps less “ritualized” in western culture but no less universal is that ritual ascribed to the process of puberty. Puberty is an inevitable stage of growing up, representing this transitionary period of childhood to adulthood. In many non-Western cultures, puberty is marked by a social set of predefined actions and activities that serve to symbolically mark this transition from childhood to adulthood. These rituals, these actions, these principles that serve to drive this rite of passage, are part of a system of “stereotypes” that Victor Turner defines to give structure to this or any form of ritual [2.6:57]. By “stereotype” one does not imply the negative connotation of such, but instead the positive connotation that denotes an underlying behavior that seeks to drive a certain result forward within the context of a particular culture.
Humans are not inherently “stereotyped” beings—such is an old, outdated, and scientifically inaccurate idea—unlike animals such as the bee who is stereotyped inherently to create such perfect geometry in the hexagonal structure of its home. Joseph Campbell would suggest that humans are instead “open” creatures [1.45] that are then formed and imprinted on by the society they grew up in. Campbell would suggest that we are, as children, imprinted upon by the adults we grow up around, thereby being “stereotyped” as to how adults are and how they as adolescents should act, through this switching from a system of dependency to responsibility [1.46].
Freud would suggest that the function of ritual is much different in the Western culture [1.47], stating that we as members of society are responsible for our own “reality function” i.e. the awareness of the social programming that surrounds us and our capacity to form our own sense of becoming and being despite this presence of social programming. This would contrast starkly with cultures where the members of it are in fact stereotyped through the process of ritual and coming of age as to form their identity within the context of that society, rather than the more Western form of individualistic becoming.
While Joseph Campbell suggested that form, structure, and ritual is what gives society its glue and structure [1.52], one must understand the era of which he has written this essay in—i.e. before the age of the computer, before the age of the internet, before the age of hyperconnectivity and information flow that allows individuals to form their own sense of communitas within an aggregate of individuals that form a collectivized set of experiences through individual adventures of soul searching and identity formation. Perhaps one of the strongest senses of modern communitas formed through the intentional subversion of these identity rituals and adherence to form and structure is such community found throughout LGBT groups. While the expressions and identities found within the non-cis and non-hetero subgroups within the LGBT umbrella are practically infinite, perhaps no community subverts the rite of passage more than the transgender community.
Joseph Campbell suggests that rituals generally have an underlying form of mythology that forms the greater infrastructure of a set of rites and rituals [1.57]. Perhaps while it is less seen in Western culture, one can look to other cultures, such as Indian cultures, to see evidence of a mythological superstructure driving some of the earliest examples of transgender expressions. In Indian culture, transgender individuals are called hijra, a term traditionally used to refer to male-to-female individuals but can be used to describe any trans person in general, and the hijra were considered sacred embodiments of Shiva—a deity that embodies both the masculine and the feminine form. Shiva could shift between a male and female form, similar to how a hijra would have both the masculine and feminine aspect within them (although such may be a point of argument amongst modern transgender individuals, many of whom want no connection to their birth gender), which thereby led to a general belief that these hijra were mythical beings—i.e. trans people were considered as mythical beings, or otherwise beings with mythic qualities. Similarly in Native American cultures, genders and even names are not final until the individual goes through their own process of mythical self-discovery, often through a ritualistic and mythical process, that defines who they are not at birth but at a later point of becoming in their life.
In Western cultures, gender is less defined by culture and mythology, and is seen as a performative act [2.18:29], much in the same sense of Shakespeare’s idea that “all the world’s a stage.” We as members of society play a certain role—in this case, the role of Man, that takes the role of the tarot Emperor archetype, and the role of the Woman, that takes the role of the tarot Empress archetype. While Jungian archetype theory would suggest that we all have both the Emperor and the Empress within ourselves (he himself lamenting on how he neglected to explore his feminine side), such expressions are repressed in this Western society where people are seemingly assigned preset social roles, functions, and expectations based on the set of genitals they were born with—if one is born with phallic genitals, they are deemed to be the Emperor, and to express the Empress is a sign of weakness; if one is born with yonic genitals, they are deemed to be the Empress, and to express the Emperor is crossing a line of predetermined power. Where these certain power structures and assignments have come from is unsure—but what is sure is that such assignments are not static, as these dimensions of what the role of Man and Woman must do has constantly changed. This in and of itself shows the performative role of gender—i.e. that role one is assigned at birth based on the expectations this greater roleplaying game of society has for them. The realization of this performative role—and the desire to perform the role not what was assigned to them, but what one designs for themselves, then is a major driver as to the rise in experimentation of self-expression as is seen in modern society.
Modern society is used, as opposed to “Western” society, as the impact that technology and the rise in ease of communication that has occurred over the last 50 or so years, and with the advent of technology that makes information to access easier than ever before, has led to more people around the world, not just in the West, aware of their performative role in society, the existence of transgender individuals not just in the west but within the scope of their own culture helping more individuals around the world become more sure of not just who they are, but who they themselves want to be, not simply what society wants them to be. For example, a good portion of the information sourced in this essay was sourced through the (as of writing this) newly released AI chatbot, ChatGPT [3]. One may simply query it as they would a human being, and one will get a coherent response that strives to be as academically correct and unbiased as possible. Further examples of such are gender-swapping Ais that aim to show one what they would look like as an inverted gender, which has been a major player in helping “eggs” (people who have not yet realized their transgender identity) figure out their identity. The rise in information technology, and the rise in widespread deployment and access to AI has led this experience of transgender expression to be found not just in Western societies where ritual has less importance, but in many ritualistic societies around the world, like in India. It is hard to say whether globalistic use of technology will over time diminish the ritual and Rite of Passage, but it should be noted that while the act of transitioning is not a ritual or rite of passage in the traditional sense, it still holds many traits and forms of a traditional ritual, although in a transformative form.
Victor Turner defines a ritual by three stages or dimensions: the exegetic, operational, and positional stages. The exegetic dimension expresses the internal structure of a ritual i.e. that who practices the ritual. This here, then, is the trans person themselves, as a “player character” in this ritual where one is embodying a role that better suits them they are becoming into. [2.9:35]. On some level, it also represents the symbolic meaning and significance to the ritual—something deeply personal and unique to every trans person who undergoes their transition [3]. This could also represent the process of self-discovery and self-expression the trans person undergoes through their process of transitioning. The operational stage are those on the fringe of the ritual, the officiator or thereby a bystander that witnesses those undergoing the ritual—in this case, the allies one has that forms their support network i.e. their sense of communitas as they undergo the transitionary process form the operational dimension, alongside the external actions the trans person may take to fulfil their transition, such as hormone therapy, getting a haircut, getting new clothes. The positional role, then, is a combination of both of these—being the fulfilment of identity through a legal name change and legal gender change, as well as such’s functional role in an external society. From an informational perspective, a cis person reading about a trans person’s experience or thereby how their transformative role fits into society, would also be taking a positional role, as they have not truly experienced what it is like to be a trans person—one is alien to dysphoria, the lack of self-identity in gender expression, and that feeling of wanting to become something else. In some ways, ChatGPT, which was used to augment many of the ideas in this essay, so too takes a positional role, as it merely looks at the sum total of all knowledge about trans people and the transgender experience—it itself never did the research, nor does it know what it is like to be trans, thereby its information is positional.
There are two described types of ritual: the liminal and the liminoid. The liminal rituals describe this straddling between two forms of existence within society [4.510] i.e., the main differentiator between one’s pre-ritual self and their post-ritual self. The liminoid, then, was developed as an alternative within a more pluralistic society like in Western cultures, to represent the more “playful” or “creative” aspect of a ritual. In this sense, the process of transitioning is both liminal and liminoid [3]. The liminal aspect of transitioning is represented by the stark contrast of a person pre-transition and post-transition. Not just this person visually and grammatically changing, so too is their internal world changing, as they transition from someone unsure of who they are into someone thoroughly confident in their identity. There is also the very formal aspect of the legal officiators of the change—the name and gender changes—which mark an officially recognized aggregation into society. The liminoid aspect, then alludes to the individual trans experience where they “play” with their identity and figure out who they are—it is a necessary stage in the self-discovery process to play with one’s identity in order for them to find out what is right for them.
The transgender experience then is a subversion of the rite of passage; while not relying on traditional rituals and rules and in fact attempting to break tradition, one still goes through the three stages of the rite of passage. [2.31:00] The separation phase would be that point one realizes, and accepts that they are trans. They perhaps choose a new name for themselves and a set of pronouns that better fits them. This is a literal “separation” from their past identity, and starts their journey of becoming into their true self [3]. The “transitionary” phase is what trans people themselves refer to as a literal transition—that which they introduce their new identity to trusted individuals, as they play with their identity amongst people they deem safe, through the interplay of the liminal and liminoid nature of the experience. They may buy new clothing, change their hairstyle, and attempt voice training, perhaps also starting hormone therapy, or getting surgery to better fit their ideal body. This is where the individual would find and build their communitas, and their sense of identity within the larger LGBT and allyship communitas in a society that otherwise ostracizes such individuals. The reincorporation, or aggregation stage, would then be that official name and gender change, and the outward social transition outside of the formed communitas that attempts to finalize their last stages of transition in society.
Much like a puberty ritual is not a finality for adulthood—and adulthood and self-identity is a constant state of flux and becoming, the process of transitioning never truly stops. In that sense, transitioning is a cyclical ritual, one where people discover new aspects of themselves, pursue a miniature rite of passage into becoming that new self, and emerging on the other side within their communitas as a fresher, updated version of the self. It is to note that this process is not unique to trans people and is a feature of all humans—we are not static beings with static personalities, with static likes and dislikes—much like Heraclitus said before, change is the only constant—and we must all recognize the change within us and become the self we want to be, not simply being what society asks us to be.
In some sense, unfortunately, trans people never stop being the “structurally dead” neophytes Victor Turner mentions [4.508]; upon giving up their previous status of being cisgender, one will find themselves permanently ostracized in a society that is yet to normalize transgender individuals; such comes the importance of the communitas built through the transitionary process as this allows the trans person to be able to aggregate back into society—a society that accepts them and sees them as the newly emerged person that underwent the rite of passage into becoming the person they were meant to be—and supporting them in their journey forward as they and all within that communitas constantly figure out who they are.
It is to be noted that the existence of transgender people have existed in cultures far older than western civilization, and it is not a product of “western decline” as some may call it. In a culture devoid of rituals, one struggles to find their identity and must make do to explore who they truly are—in this process, they may discover they are not the gender assigned to them at birth, and then follow the pursuit of undergoing their own, created form of rite of passage, one taken not because society asked them to, but because society asked them to be something they are not, and they are trying to break free of it. Rite of passage itself is all about transitions, and the act of changing one’s self as a trans person itself is called transitioning. Even the very laws of physics necessitates change, and as stated before, change is the only constant. We are all in a state of transition, from one state of being into another state of being; the transgender experience merely seeks to take control of becoming and directing it to manifest who one wants to be, not where they’re pushed to be. We must all recognize this constant transitionary state in our lives, that we are all living in a constant cycle of becoming and coming into, and a firm understanding of who we are and where we want to go is what it will take us to the fullest version of and ideal of ourselves. The rite of passage marks specific points in our lives that are particularly notable, but in reality, every experience we learn from is a rite of passage, as we emerge from it fundamentally changed from who we were before. If we don’t take everything for granted, and take each moment, no matter how humbling or simple it may be, as a learning moment, and strive for a constant state of becoming, one embraces the change, the constant state of transition, and one may find themselves farther than they ever thought was possible. May change drive us all forward, and may we emerge from each experience better learned, more knowledgeable, and far wiser than we were before.
References
- Campbell, Joseph. Myths to Live By. Penguin/Arkana, 1993.
- Warren, Bob. “Ritual Presentation.” YouTube, YouTube, 18 Jan. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0DTPq37HOA.
- ChatGPT, OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/chat. 12/09/22. Discussion by Fractal Hassan. Full transcript available upon request.
- Thury, Eva M, and Margaret K Devinney. Introduction To Mythology: Contemporary Approaches to Classical and World Myths. 4th ed., Oxford University Press.