Transgender

People practice a bifurcation of reality.
The most elementary discrimination one makes about a stranger is whether they are a man or a woman, a girl or a boy. I haven't seen gender help anyone, I've only perceived it as a constraint.

Humans like to split things into infinitesimally minute pieces. For example: man, short, angry, middle class, white, fat. These labels are like mental maths games that add up to some kind of "answer". The answer is invariably a judgement.
A judgement can never be verified as absolute truth, but judgments are nonetheless believed in.

Getting back to gender: I do not believe it exists, but I can cede that other people believe in it.
Transgender is an actual modality of experience, which pretty much poos all over the gender binary. The fact that transgender is little understood or poorly publicised does not mean it is illegitimate.

Civilizations have always progressed falteringly. Anything revolutionary or contrary is initially snuffed. There are knowledges we have destroyed because they extended beyond the boundaries of a dominant worldview. The first nations people of Australia (note nations because hundreds of nations lived on this land) knew everything necessary for survival in this country, but because that knowledge was contrary to the invading Western worldview it was destroyed. I do not even know how many nations, people or languages died.

In a sort of similar way, third gender, gender neutral or ungendered are concepts that this particular society (Anglophone Western) cannot really understand and therefore see as irrelevent. Our language doesn't accommodate pronouns for such people, which indicates a belief that such people have never existed. We have always existed.

I am uprooting the gender-centric mental maths games I play in my own head because I know that I am gender neutral in a female body. So it would be unfair for me to go around assuming a person is a man because they don't have breasts, because they have a beard, because their voice is deep.

Gender and the physical body have been so bound together in our thinking.
But think about stick insects: they sure look like sticks, but they are not sticks.
Think about elementary particles: solid objects are comprised mostly of empty space.

Appearances only offer a shell of understanding, the substance is often invisible.
These days I see gender as a shell of sorts, an armor for protecting the purest and most inexpressible part of oneself. I feel a need to disarm, to allow that ineffable self to be seen. Perhaps I will surgically modify my body, or gender neutralise my clothes or change my name. Or maybe I will decide those things are unnecessary. The only thing I am sure of is myself.

How am I sure? Because it is so uncomfortable wearing this shell.

Clammy clam calamity

INTERESTING FACT! Transgender is often perceived as an intermediary state. "Trans" comes from Proto-Indo-European "to cross over", and many people believe that transgender people are crossing over from female to male or visa-versa. That belief excludes the whole gamut of gender-variant individuals who are beyond or between male and female.

Humanity is a big jerk who is beating up the Earth

If humanity was one person, from an inter-stellar perspective they would look like an innocent child who grew into an adult jerk.

The things that we all subscribe to and act out seem to be, how to put this gently... unintelligent. As a species we seem to work primarily with our basal ganglia: the parts of our brains that are concerned with dominance, control, aggression and territory.

It deeply concerns me that humans mine into the crust of the earth to extract minerals for the purpose of creating plastic bottles that will be used once and then put back into the Earth as a piece of garbage that will poison everything they contact as their toxins are released for up to 450 years.
It deeply concerns me that humans have developed complex law systems and regulate when and how people cross roads but do not adhere to the law of nature which states that ALL THINGS ARE IMPERMANENT and disrespect this fundamental and self-evident law of reality by "possessing" things (land, houses, animals, beds, key chains, televisions, letter boxes, paper, food, fences, ideas...)
Any thing that exists I will guarantee you will be consumed physically and legally by the human desire to own.

For all of our talk about how rational science has ushered in a quantum leap for human consciousness, we have made very haltering progress on the frontier of human rights and have moved in retrograde concerning Earth's rights. If we can't treat our own species with respect and kindness we can't develop our respect for non-speaking beings such as forests, oceans and animals. If technology is not eco-centric, it's because people are not eco-centric. People are not eco-centric because they are egocentric. If people continue to think primarily about themselves and not about the environment, we will not have a hospitable planet to live on. Earth is finite.

The truly disappointing thing is that humans have examples of generosity and interconnection surrounding them in their natural environment yet few of us follow such a way of life. We are largely unconscious of it, but we already are interconnected. Sunlight doesn't just touch you, it penetrates you. We breathe in tandem with the plant kingdom. Whatever you consume orally drives you nutritionally. You are constantly shedding cells into the atmosphere. Ironically, you don't own things, you are everything. 

When animals eat each other, it might appear violent, but actually they are just sharing. Sharing around the nutrients. When humans kill each other, that is actual violence. We simply destroy. And contrary to that, we also compulsively make. Yet because energy is not created or destroyed, what we make always takes its toll. The consequence of feeding the unstoppable demand for more stuff is that we deplete Earth's resources and enslave each other. That sounds extreme, but it's not. It's simply true. We don't talk in such ways because it causes guilt.

Instead of being guilty, just recycle as much as you can, just foster an attitude of respect in yourself for other beings and learn how you can act in accordance with your values. Just share your concern, like I am.

Bird recycling a worm.