Transgender Esotericism: Transgenderism, Alchemy, and the Androgyne
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by Lily (Basil) MacLachlan
P-ANDROGENY POSITIVE ANDROGENY POWER ANDROGENY POTENT ANDROGENY POLITICAL ANDROGENY PERFECT ANDROGENY P-ANDROGYNE WILD BEING UNHOLY CHOSEN ONE -Genesis Breyer P-Orridge Semantics note: Androgyne here refers to all trans people. As transphobes love to remind us, we will never truly be one gender or another– a common refrain among transphobes is "You Will Never Be A Woman" or "You Will Never Be A Man." I use the term androgyne because it also relates back to the archetypal figure of the androgyne– as Elémire Zolla puts it, "The androgyne is the symbol of supreme identity in most religious systems. It stands for the level of non-manifested being, the source of manifestation." Another archetypal figure which I am choosing to let fall into my own definition of Androgyne (capitalized with an A for differentiation from the pre-21st century concept of the androgyne) is the hermaphrodite. In esoteric writings that predate the sexual revolution, there is the dichotomy of hermaphrodite vs. androgyne– hermaphrodite being someone who has qualities of both male and female at once, often referring to intersex people with both genitals, or to people with breasts and a penis, aka the archetypal and modern day trans woman. Androgyne as it is used in this dichotomy then means someone with qualities of neither gender. This can refer to those who are neutered through outside processes or intersex people who have qualities of neither gender from birth. However, I am making the conscious choice to integrate both of these archetypes into the label of Androgyne. My reasoning is this: hermaphrodite, as it is used in recent years, has become a slur, especially for intersex individuals. In addition, since the sexual revolution of the 1960s and the gender revolution of the 2000s and 2010s, there are so many more trans identities that might not fall within the binary of hermaphrodite/androgynous. Therefore, I use the term Androgyne (capitalized) to refer to all transgender people through an esoteric schema, and because essentially, all transgender people are somewhat androgynous through the nature of transitioning from one gender to the other. To be transgender is, by definition of the root words, to transform; to travel across the landscape of gender; to transfigure something about yourself. This definition can be used to exclude non-passing or non-medically transitioning people; however, it is imperative to begin this essay defining my stance. I disagree with the exclusion of those who do not medically transition. Being trans is a process which occurs perpetually within the mind, learning and unlearning forms of gender. This is what differentiates us from being cisgender, although I may go so far as to say that all of us, cis or otherwise, contain anima and animus, and it’s entirely up to us as individuals to hear the eternal beckon of the Androgyne. Through the process of taking cross-sex hormones, transgender people work their way through a process of making themselves whole. Transgender activists say we’ll die if we don’t get our hormones– the truth is, we might perish from the pain of not achieving wholeness. The ultimate form of subversion to the pharmacopornographic*, 21st-century alchemy that is being transgender is to take HRT**, although those who are trans may also opt out of this. This does not make these non-medically-transitioning individuals not trans, nor does it make them not a part of the Androgyne movement. I fully believe that transness begins in the initiation, through the esoteric knowledge of gender processes that only trans people know. Furthermore, I believe taking HRT is modern alchemy, developed through the lens of the pharmacopornographic era. Androgyny, and therefore transgenderism, represents in our present culture a sort of reaching towards the divine– in the divine there is a point in which all gender and sex passes away. Among other things such as the advent of medical technology and HRT, this was enabled by postmodernism, as it is an eschewing of the binary. Postmodernism also led towards the syncretism of culture being even more prevalent to the internet leading towards the rise of transgenderism in our culture. This, too, has given rise to new forms of 21st century esotericism– Genesis Breyer P-Orridge being a pioneer of one form. Thee Temple Ov Psychic Youth, Genesis’s movement towards what they call Pandrogyny, combines esoteric thought and Crowley-esque chaos magick with transgender energy. When you consider transsexuality, cross-dressing,...they are all calculated impulses– a symptomatic groping towards a next phase. One of the great things about human beings is that they impulsively and intuitively express what is inevitably next in the evolution of culture and our species. It is the Other that we are destined to become. Pandrogyny is not about defining differences but about creating similarities. Not about separation but about unification and resolution. Transgenderism is leading us (those initiated into the secret knowledge) towards the upper echelon of heavenly androgyny and angelic realms. Many countercultural movements throughout history have pointed us towards esoteric knowledge– for example, the “turning on” of the sixties with psychedelic drugs, and the new age movement of the 1980s. It seems as though the “transgender craze” is the 21st century version pointing us towards these realms. Paul Preciado, 21st century gender scholar, argues that in a way, HRT is drugs: a way of unlocking one’s complete potential through body-altering substances. He coined the term Pharmacopornographic to describe the flux that our bodies face in the 21st century, including and celebrating the changes one experiences on HRT. These drugs that change the alchemical substances of hormones from female to male, or vice versa, continue the lineage of the esoteric study of Alchemy. Alchemy, in its historic sense, was a spiritual-philosophical tradition predating modern science and chemistry that was first practiced in Eastern cultures. Early alchemical writings can be traced back to first civilizations, such as Ancient Egypt, and as in China through the study of Taoism. It made its way to the west during the Renaissance through the rediscovery of Alchemical texts dating back to Ancient Greece and the Islamic Golden Age. Alchemical androgynization, in its historical term, was the process of mingling “male” elements with “female” elements to powerful effects. The androgynization of fire is said to produce the philosopher’s stone. Looking through a 21st century lens, could HRT be the literal manifestation of this androgenization? Modern science is a continuation of esoteric alchemy, and alchemy has laid the groundwork for chemistry today. And, in a way, transgenderism has somewhat unlocked the fountain of youth, which the philosopher’s stone was purported to cause. In cycling from female to nonbinary to male to nonbinary again, all vaguely resembling each other, I retained a boyish look in my male form and in my female form. In the past, in a time before HRT, some form of androgyny was achieved through intercourse between male and female, and close relationships between a man and a woman, as an albeit imperfect way of invoking the anima of the man and the animus of the woman. To pull from Jung’s The Red Book: You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning...You, women, should not seek the masculine in men, but assume the masculine in yourself, since you possess it from the beginning… But Humankind is masculine and feminine, not just man or woman. You can hardly say of your soul what sex it is. (Jung 8-9, 263) This observation of Jung, of the Anima and Animus within us all, sheds light on the esoteric and perennial nature of the Androgyne. There are even more historical examples of the androgyne possessing an innate spiritual power, as evidenced in Zolla’s book The Androgyne, and if I cover them all, this essay will become a full-length tome. Many cultures had androgynous religious figures, starting with the pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas revering the wisdom of two-spirit shamans; the pensive androgynous bodhisattva Avalokitesvara in Buddhism; the Hindu legend of Shiva splitting his body into male and female in order to make himself whole; the emphasis on the “bisexuality” of God in Christian Rosicrucian sects; and even the Gnostic spiritual movement of early Christianity, as evidenced by The Apocryphon of John: This is the first thought, his image; she became the womb of everything, for it is she who is prior to them all, the Mother-Father, the first man, the holy Spirit, the thrice-male, the thrice-powerful, the thrice-named androgynous one, and the eternal aeon among the invisible ones, and the first to come forth. While taking these words out of context and assigning a literal interpretation of these religious figures is not recommended by any spiritual practitioners of today, they can all be read in a queer and transgender lens, further bolstering my argument that transgenderism is divine. By aligning and labelling past androgynous wisdom figures with current transgender Androgyny, we can come to the conclusion that the idea of transgenderism is not new, but a perennial reach towards wisdom and esoteric knowledge. These androgynous wisdom figures of the past evoke a greater realization of Androgyny, but since these times, transgenderism has only risen and become more technologically advanced. Due to the rise of capitalism and thus the pharmacopornographic era, we have figured out a better way to fully embody androgyny. Transgender hormones are the source of much debate, but at the heart of it all is the will to make the ‘female’ body more masculine and the ‘male’ body more feminine. This knowledge–the knowledge of what the body does when prompted with cross-sex hormones– is forbidden by the orthodoxy of science, religion, and the state alike. This forbidden knowledge is also one that can only be taught through experience, making it deeply subversive and esoteric in nature. Not only does transgenderism occupy the same space in society that Gnosticism did in early Christianity and hermeticism/alchemy did in the Renaissance era, I believe it is a manifestation of a perennial idea; body-self-transcendence, through a certain hidden and esoteric knowledge which can only be accessed first in the questioning of one’s own assigned gender. Many times between transgender friends we’ve discussed that cis people simply don’t get it– yet. In my opinion, the differentiation between cisgender and transgender is the mental realization that gender is entirely a game that we can manipulate, or don’t have to play into at all†. This realization changes the perception of one’s world, especially in how one sees the self and others. To quote transgender esotericist and artist Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, "It represented the liberation of the mind and perception, the liberation of the body, and, ultimately, thereby the beginning of a sort of evolution. It’s an external manifestation of an inner change-just a reflection of what’s going on inside." It follows that if being transgender is an initiatory process into the divine, the struggle against transgender rights is a struggle for suppression and control of esoteric knowledge. Transgenderism occupies the same space of heterodoxy, alternative to the orthodoxy, and heresy– it is heretical to the church and science alike. The church is the orthodoxy of the past; science is the orthodoxy of the present. Both find fault with transgenderism and the idea that through alchemy (HRT) you can transcend your physical birth gender. Orthodoxy fears the androgyne and its power. The androgyne historically has represented a “stalking” archetype the one that leads men and women to question the boundaries of gender, and leads men and women down a path of heterodoxy and esotericism. Modern-day faiths, which have a hand in world affairs, discourse largely against trans people. To be queer is already heresy by an Orthodox standpoint, at least in Abrahamic faiths. Fortunately, though, many churches, mosques, temples, and more are beginning to branch off in support of transgender individuals. As religion develops, I suggest trans people collectivize our own approach to faith, in a heterodox and esoteric way. Also we need to examine our heresy in relation to modern-day science, not in a science-denying way, but in a manner that avoids worshiping science as one would worship a god. Science is, in part, what makes it possible to medically transition: however, these technologies often are gatekept from trans people, and more often than not, our genders are denied in the name of “science”. These scientific facts are often thrown in our faces–:however, these factoids are merely small bits of information from a larger whole that is much more complicated than the factoid “XX is a woman, and XY is a man”. As Morton suggests: "Science is just correlations between data, and human interpretation of that data." To go against “biology” by being transgender might seem to science-worshippers like shooting yourself in the foot, but many biologists or geneticists will tell you that the truth is much larger than what the facts present. So, in the end, the suppression and control of transness is, once again, the suppression and control of knowledge and information. The idea of Androgyny can never be taken away– it's an eternal truth that has followed humanity for generations. And, as trans people, we should take solace in the fact that we’ve been chosen, in a way. We followed the call of the Androgyne, the archetypal, divine being that represents wisdom and esoteric knowledge, and transformed our bodies with that knowledge. Life is constantly changing, mutating and evolving, and it is in our nature to strive for this, to look for the next available change, to heal our broken-hearted nature as humans. As Zolla said, "The complete androgyne wades blissfully through the world of change, samsara, balancing action and inactivity." As complete and whole Androgynes, we can take solace in the fact that we have fulfilled a destiny, one which was ordinated from the beginning, to blur the boundaries between male and female, to unite the Animus and Anima of our broken souls, and to share this realization with the world. Lily (Basil) MacLachlan is a writer of prose and poetry as well as a mixed media visual artist residing in Chicago, IL. Bibliography SHARE - Issue: 1.8 / April 2026 Editor's Notes
*Pharmacopornography is a theory of the philosopher Paul B. Preciado that posits that contemporary societies use pharmacological and media interventions to regulate desire. ** Hormone replacement therapy (HRT). † See also West, Candace, and Don H. Zimmerman. "Doing Gender." Gender & Society, vol. 1, no. 2, 1987, pp. 125-151 and Thorne, Barrie. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. Rutgers University Press, 1993. |