{"id":14359,"date":"2026-04-30T09:20:59","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:35:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/?p=14359"},"modified":"2026-04-30T09:22:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T03:37:57","slug":"we-are-all-cis-how-transgenderism-risks-reinforcing-the-system-it-seeks-to-resist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/we-are-all-cis-how-transgenderism-risks-reinforcing-the-system-it-seeks-to-resist\/","title":{"rendered":"We Are All \u201cCis\u201d? How \u201cTransgenderism\u201d Risks Reinforcing the System It Seeks to Resist"},"content":{"rendered":"

During a recent Tantra Heritage Tour Guide Training in Kathmandu\u2014part of our effort to expand tourism while positioning Nepal as a matriarchal and queer-friendly destination, with the support from Kathmandu Municipality \u2014a young man asked: Why are some people cisgender and others transgender?<\/p>\n

It is a question that sounds modern, even progressive. But it is rooted in a deeply Western assumption.<\/p>\n

The idea goes like this: gender is \u201cassigned at birth\u201d for most people\u2014these are called cisgender\u2014while a minority are transgender, meaning their gender is different from that assignment. This framework is widely promoted as inclusive. But look closely, and it reveals something else: it keeps the original system intact.<\/p>\n

Because whether one is \u201ccis\u201d or \u201ctrans,\u201d the starting point remains the same\u2014birth assignment.
\nAuthority lies with the doctor, the state, the patriarchal family. Even resistance is defined in relation to that authority. The structure is not dismantled; it is simply stretched.<\/p>\n

In Nepal, and in many indigenous cultures, gender has never been so rigidly fixed at birth.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nYes, bodily markers\u2014linga\u2014may lead a child to be recognized as a son, daughter, or intersex. But this is only a beginning, not a final truth of the human nature in terms of gender. As a person grows, other dimensions emerge: physiology, psychology, social roles, and spiritual identity. Gender unfolds. It is not assigned once and for all.<\/p>\n

This is why our traditions have long recognized multiple gendered pathways\u2014not as deviations, but as part of natural human diversity. One may grow into womanhood, manhood, or third-gender identities.<\/p>\n

These are not contradictions of birth; they are continuations of life.<\/p>\n

From this perspective, the rigid distinction between \u201ccis\u201d and \u201ctrans\u201d begins to collapse.<\/p>\n

If gender is always evolving\u2014shaped by body, mind, emotions, society, and spirit\u2014then who is truly \u201cfixed\u201d? Who is purely \u201cassigned\u201d? In reality, all of us are living through gender, negotiating gender roles over time. In that sense, we are all what the West would call cis\u2014not because we conform to a label, but because we are continuously becoming ourselves within our embodied realities.<\/p>\n

The problem with Western frameworks is that they reduce this complexity in two opposing ways.<\/p>\n

Western traditional systems reduce gender to anatomy: you are what your body appears to be at birth.
\nSome so-called progressive approaches swing to the other extreme: gender becomes only identity, detached from the body. Both are simplifications. Both flatten human diversity.<\/p>\n

And both, in different ways, serve larger economic and political systems.<\/p>\n

First, there is a growing medical economy built around rigid gender transitions\u2014surgeries, lifelong hormone therapies, repeated clinical interventions. For some, these may appear as necessary and life-affirming. But at a systemic level, this also creates dependency and markets. Bodies become sites of continuous medical consumption. Multiple industries\u2014pharmaceutical, surgical, psychological\u2014benefit from maintaining gender as a problem to be managed.<\/p>\n

Second, and more structurally, binary thinking is efficient for patriarchal binary capitalism.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nA world divided into two stable categories\u2014whether defined by birth or by identity\u2014is easier to administer. It requires fewer investments in infrastructure, law, and social systems. Recognizing a broader spectrum of gender diversity would demand more: inclusive policies, redesigned institutions, expanded welfare systems, and deeper social transformation.<\/p>\n

Binary systems\u2014whether \u201cmale\/female\u201d or \u201ccis\/trans\u201d\u2014keep governance simple and costs low.<\/p>\n

So even as the language changes, the underlying structure remains: controlled categories, manageable populations, and limited obligations.<\/p>\n

This is why we must be cautious.<\/p>\n

The struggle for dignity and rights for third genders or nonbinary or transgender people is real and necessary. Discrimination, violence, and exclusion must be confronted. But the frameworks we use to understand gender should not un\/intentionally reinforce the very systems that marginalize people.<\/p>\n

Nepal has something different to offer.<\/p>\n

Our histories, philosophies, and tantric traditions recognize that identity is not fixed at birth (or by identity alone)\u2014it is relational, evolving, and deeply connected to both the material, the Shakti(energial) and the spiritual. Gender is not merely a category; it is a process.
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nAs we promote Nepal as a mateiarchal, queer and inclusive tourism destination, we should not simply import Western categories. We should lead with our own knowledge systems\u2014ones that do not begin with rigid assignment, do not end in binary classification, and do not reduce human diversity to patriarchal administrative convenience.<\/p>\n

The question is not whether some people are cis and others trans.<\/p>\n

The deeper question is: Why do we continue to organize human life through categories that limit our understanding of who we can truely be recognised?<\/p>\n

In the end, gender is not something given once at birth, nor something chosen in isolation.<\/p>\n

It is something we live, grow, and transform through\u2014together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During a recent Tantra Heritage Tour Guide Training in Kathmandu\u2014part of our effort to expand tourism while positioning Nepal as a matriarchal and queer-friendly destination, with the support from Kathmandu Municipality \u2014a young man asked: Why are some people cisgender and others transgender?
\nIt is a question that sounds modern, even progressive. But it is rooted in a deeply Western assumption.
\nThe idea goes like this: gender is \u201cassigned at birth\u201d for most people\u2014these are called cisgender\u2014while a minority are transgender, meaning their gender is different from that assignment. This framework is …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":14360,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,18,1081,8,492,490,3,2065],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-issue","category-education","category-explanationawareness","category-human-rights","category-opinion","category-slider","category-society","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14359"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14359\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14364,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14359\/revisions\/14364"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pahichan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}