SPIRITUAL BYPASSING AND GENDER
Why we cannot solve a psychological crisis with a mystical platitude
The Question “How is it that I am a man, but deep down I feel like a woman?”
The Spiritual Architecture
In the Secret Wisdom, every single soul contains both a Male aspect and a Female aspect. This is a Kabbalistic concept that describes forces:
Male: Bestowal, initiative, going outward.
Female: Reception, containment, internality.
These forces exist in absolutely every human being—men and women alike. But here, we must make a crucial distinction.
The Crucial Distinction
We must distinguish between the mystical language of “Soul Forces” and the actual, lived experience of Gender Identity.
When a biological male says, “I feel like a woman,” he is often not just saying that he has a capacity for empathy or containment. He is talking about a deep, continuous experience of an internal identity that does not match his physical body. This is entirely different from the concepts of “Male and Female” in the Kabbalistic Sefirot.
You cannot solve or dismiss this profound human experience with a generalized spiritual statement like: “Oh, you just have a strong feminine force in your soul.”
The Two Realities
The Sensitive Soul: Sometimes, it truly is just a man who is more sensitive, more empathetic, and more connected to emotional depth. This means he has high access to his “Female/Vessel” energy, and it means absolutely nothing about his gender identity.
Gender Dysphoria: But sometimes, it is genuine gender dysphoria. This is a recognized psychological and medical phenomenon accompanied by significant mental distress. It is not an imagination. It is not a trend.
The Boundary of Mysticism
Some people choose medical intervention; some do not. Every single case is complex and different. Spirituality can give us a beautiful language to understand the forces of the psyche. But it does not replace responsible psychological clarification.
The main rule: Do not rush to define. Do not rush to dismiss. Treat the experience with deep respect, and clarify it in a mature, careful way.
Translated from the Hebrew Transmissions of Ruth Kedem
ORIYA’S NOTE
The spiritual community has a bad habit called Spiritual Bypassing. It is when we use high-level, mystical concepts to avoid dealing with messy, painful, human reality.
When someone comes to you in the agonizing distress of a profound identity crisis, and your response is to quote a Kabbalistic text about “masculine and feminine energies,” you aren’t helping them. You are hiding behind a book so you don’t have to sit with their pain.
The text is drawing a hard, necessary line between Physics (the spiritual structure of Male/Female energy) and Psychology (the human experience of the mind and body).
If a man is highly sensitive, cries easily, and creates space for others, society often shames him by saying he is “acting like a woman.” The mystical answer to that is: “No, you are just a man with excellent access to your Vessel (Female energy).”
But if a person is experiencing true Gender Dysphoria—a deep, agonizing disconnect between the brain’s map of the body and the physical body itself—you cannot cure that with a spiritual platitude. It requires deep, careful, professional, and compassionate psychological work.
Spirituality is the map of the cosmos. Psychology is the map of your mind. Do not confuse the two. And never use the first to invalidate the second.