WIE: In Gender Outlaw you describe gender freedom as having the ability to move fluidly between a variety of different gender roles and identities—

KB: Among a variety.

WIE: Yet there is another view of freedom in relationship to gender that I wanted to ask you about. The teachings of some of the most spiritually liberated beings have called us to transcend all notions of self, including gender. From a spiritual perspective, wouldn't attachment to or preoccupation with gender in any form ultimately prove to be an impediment to spiritual liberation? Attachment to ideas of fixed gender, fluid gender, no gender—any way of relating to gender as a fundamental reference point?

KB: Yeah. Attachment to it would certainly be an impediment.

WIE: Do you think it is possible for the individual to come to a point where they no longer are preoccupied with or fixated on gender differences, roles and identities, and at the same time feel no need to avoid or deny whatever gender differences there may actually be?

KB: I think that pretty well describes what I'm approaching.

WIE: It's a subtle question, though. What I'm asking about is the possibility of letting go of any kind of grasping at or holding on to a self-image that's related to gender. Is it possible to really let all that drop and then find out, again and again in every moment, what qualities or characteristics there would naturally and spontaneously be? To allow "gendered" qualities or characteristics to just be there without denying or avoiding them, or orchestrating them, and without having to know beforehand what they are?

KB: You're talking about a very enlightened state. I can do that a lot around gender, okay, because it's been my whole life. I've spent over forty years consciously exploring it. And I'm trying to use what I've learned in my gender explorations to be as fluid in other areas of my life.

WIE: From what you described in Gender Outlaw, it seems that much of the experience of transgendered people is practicing or acting various gender and sexual behaviors. It seems that the goal is having a greater spectrum of characteristics and behaviors to choose from, and not just being slotted into a certain range of characteristics. I wanted to ask you about this idea of acting a gender role.

KB: Well, everybody does that. It's just a question of the degree of consciousness we have while we're doing it. I mean, you do it.

WIE: Yes, it's true; I realize that this is definitely not just true for transgendered people. But what I'm getting at in this question is that when people are acting these roles, it can seem self-conscious or somewhat unnatural. It can seem affected, this putting on of a feminine or a masculine persona. But obviously, conventionally heterosexual men and women do it also.

KB: I was going to mention John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Bruce Willis, Geena Davis. I mean, hello!

WIE: Right, exactly. Yet one way of describing spiritual liberation is the discovery of a condition of naturalness, spontaneity and lack of self-consciousness that comes from all self-concern falling away. There's no self-image being clutched on to. What do you think about the distinction between this way of being and the kind of self-consciousness that comes from acting a gender role?

KB: I don't think that they're different. I think one is a step toward another. I think that one way to be able to totally cast off the either/or gender idea would be to fully embrace the being and doing and experience of each of these main genders and see if they really, really work for you—either one. And by defining ourselves as genderless, i.e., unable to be nailed down to any gender, we open ourselves up to being able to perform the function of any gender, create the effect of any gender, experience the experience of any gender. But if you're going to perform, create or experience depending on the performance, creation and experience that are allowed your gender, well, it's going to be on a limited basis. Men are allowed to perform certain things, create certain things, experience certain things that women aren't.

WIE: But isn't this "performance" still self-conscious?

KB: Yes, and it's a path.

WIE: What do you mean?

KB: If you really wanted to get to a point of transcending gender, you would have to consciously embrace and act out both primary genders.

WIE: Do you think that is a path to the kind of transcendence of gender identification that I've been asking about?

KB: Well, it's a clumsy path, but it's the only path that the culture allows right now—it's to carve out our own. But if you're really going to transcend, if you're really going to get to a point of being enlightened, unattached to self, unattached to how you're presenting, unattached to how you're treated in the culture, you better know how you are being treated. For most people, there's not much difference between being oblivious to gender and being unattached to it.

WIE: I don't think I'm with you on that.

KB: I'm saying that I'm approaching a point in my life where I'm becoming more and more unattached to gender. But I would venture a guess that you've been pretty oblivious to any gender beyond man or woman prior to recently.

WIE: Right.

KB: But you would probably consider yourself fairly unattached to gender—or at least, it isn't necessarily a component of your life that you've really had to focus on. But you'll go to bed tonight thinking you're a woman. I've never done that. And I've never gone to bed thinking I'm a man or a boy. Ever.

WIE: That's true; my experience has been different. But there's another way to approach the question of how to go beyond gender identification. Many traditional spiritual teachings point to becoming completely immersed in that which transcends the particulars of material life—something that's beyond time, beyond space, beyond thought, beyond mind—and becoming identified with that. And then we still happen to be whatever gender we are, but it's not a fundamental reference point or preoccupation. We'll be in whatever kind of bodies we're in, and we may express whatever qualities in those bodies we express spontaneously, naturally, but without being self-conscious about it, without there being any kind of pretense or affectation—whether it's the Marilyn Monroe kind or the campy homosexual kind—which is still a kind of posturing, isn't it?

KB: But posturing can be a lot of fun, darling, don't you think?! Posturing makes us laugh! Most of the Zen masters were great comedians. And a lot of the Taoist masters were too; Chuang Tsu was a riot! He was better than a lot of the stand-ups we've got today. I think that kind of posturing, when done tongue in cheek, can create an effect. It interrupts what's going on to a point where we can go, "Oh, yeah, we were all attached to that. Now we can breathe."

You keep asking me either/or questions. And I don't know what's good and bad! I don't know what's right and wrong! So I'll contradict myself again. Do you need to embrace each gender wholly before you can achieve gender enlightenment? No. But you need to examine what values you're holding on to that are gendered and let go of the gendered nature of those values and embrace them for what they are rather than the fact that they're tied to a gender. You need to take a look at how important your identity is to you. How important is it for others to see you as a certain identity? How important is it that people see you as a man? How important is it that people see you as a woman? What are you holding on to, what am I holding on to, that ensures or increases the chances that people will see me as a certain gender? That's attachment to gender!

WIE: What do you think is the best way to see this?

KB: I think it's taking risks. I think it's saying, "Okay, what about this gender?"—you know? [takes off her wig] If I have an attachment to your seeing me as a pretty girl with long blonde hair, then I've got a problem. If I don't, if I can joke about it, great. It's less of a problem to me. Also, it's bodhisattva: Make yourself sillier. Make yourself more outside the rules that have been set up for you.

WIE: That leads to my next question: It's been observed that people who break taboos are in a powerful position in relation to others precisely because they've dared to transgress social, cultural or religious mandates. In transgressing these mandates, they experience a kind of freedom and power and are sometimes viewed with awe or fear by those interested in protecting the status quo. You have quite intentionally broken a number of taboos, and not only do you not hide this, but you use it as a way to educate others. Has it been your experience that there is power in breaking taboos?

KB: Yeah, I've broken some taboos. Breaking a taboo lowers a person on the social scale, and paradoxically, it gives them power. It's like the position of the fool in the royal court. When you break a taboo and come to terms with it, then you're free of the cultural whip called humiliation. You know, I can't be humiliated. What are you going to do, call me a transsexual? I'll go, "Cool! Duh!" Are you going to say "lesbian" with a sneer? I'll go, "Yah!" What can you say—"You're a man!"? I'll say, "Okay." Or, "You cut off your penis!" I'll say, "No, I turned it inside out!" I mean, there's very little that I can be humiliated about now. That's the freedom.

Gender has its own set of social responses that you either obey or don't obey; and when you choose not to, you get humiliated—until you get to a point of having fun about it. I think that a sign of approaching enlightenment is having fun with it: "Yes, I'm performing because I like it!" Can I be a man, woman, boy, girl, aunt, uncle, sister, brother, teacher, student all at the same time? Wouldn't that be enlightened? Flip, flip, flip, flip, flip, flip. I think I finally got that there is not going to be any socially sanctioned identity or role that will fulfill me. I just take on roles as a lark now.

WIE: If we were to wake up tomorrow and there had been a radical evolution in consciousness and everyone had transcended this primary identification with gender, what do you think it would look like?

KB: People would look awfully awkward at first. They wouldn't be making moves automatically based on their gender identity. People would have to relearn how to work in the world, would have to relearn how to get along with each other. They couldn't use the automatic structures that exist for men and women in this world.

Do you know how much is based on whether you're a man or a woman? Try going as neither. Put on a mustache. Make people wonder what the f— you are. Do that for one day. Or make it easier—ask three questions, honestly, of yourself. What is a man? What is a woman? Why do we have to be one or the other? And I think if a majority of the world asked themselves those three questions over a period of three minutes, we'd have a hell of a change on this planet. If they honestly, without fear of retribution or loss of respect, could ask themselves these questions, that would change the face of the globe.

WIE: Do you recommend that others question gender identity in the way that you have as a spiritual path?

KB: One way to achieve enlightenment is through gender. One way. It's to unattach yourself from the perks of both genders. That's what I've done. Now I still walk down the street and get the perk of "pretty girl." I do! And I get all the shortcomings of "pretty girl" or "dumb blonde," too. It's really cool. It's a fun identity for me. I enjoy "bimbo." I enjoy "silly blonde." I have a lot of fun with it. All I'm saying is that some people might find it easier to explore the path of gender than to explore the path of meditation. What's meditation but focus? How much focus do you think it takes to change a gender? A hell of a lot. It's a very meditative practice if you choose to use it like that. You have to pay attention to an infinite number of details, and you can never get all of them. The best you can do is spread your mind out over as many as you can and let the rest go by, and that's meditation. It's a form of meditative behavior, if you will—"Zen and the Art of Gender Maintenance." All I'm saying is that conscious gender is a path to enlightenment. It's gotten me farther toward understanding stuff, toward accepting how much I don't understand and toward developing a sense of humor than anything else I've ever gone through. But that's just me.