Adrian colby

I’m a man ( trans/DSD containing both male and female). I like women ( sorry that’s boring and traditional). also a field of awareness that is neither a man or woman ( sorry again but this is the actualised forum and I have experienced god realisation and nondual awareness). I can say I like all women but it wouldn’t be true because I have preferences/biases. I have preferences for certain types of women and that can be cut down again into specific women I find attractive. Would I with a trans woman? It completely depends on the person. I have come across one I was attracted to. ive had a rigid preference for women shorter than me but I fell for someone taller than me and that prior ‘dealbreaker’ flew out the window, so it’s completely dependent on the person. It’s my preference, and a preference is not something prescribed for others and not for others to judge me over ( that’s stepping over someone else's boundary implying moral superiority… not ok!) It’s not “Im not attracted to a person because they are trans”, I’m not attracted to them because I don’t find them to be an attractive person. I can’t fake that but I personally wouldn’t use being trans as an excuse because I wouldn’t just be rejecting them but invalidating their identity as well and that’s stepping over a line. I wouldn’t want it done to me so I wouldn’t do it.

I’m trans. I don’t identify as such but I’m aware of the biological incoherence in my own system even though I had no external influences. There’s a difference between biologically emergent identity and symbolic level identity regardless of symbolic level influence, a biological system will always have an inherent identity. ( incoherence within a system becomes part of that innate identity.) I had no internet growing up. I wasn’t exposed to any lgbt culture, I’d never heard the word trans and I don’t think there was anything other than binary biology at school. There were no doctors in my country at the time who knew anything about it or treated it. my identity was persistent and sustained from 4-5 years old and it became a severe problem at 14. I stayed away from the lgbt or any activism. I did go to check out that scene when I was part the way into my treatment but I was not impressed with the behaviour. I didn’t gel with anyone in that community and figured it was just another culture to conform to. it was more the case for me, get treated correctly and reintegrate back into society as normal so I’m straight male and the condition once treated no longer exists…when I was treated by a competent team, I was diagnosed with a DSD and gender incongruency. No one knows about the condition. I didn’t talk about it, kept up with healthchecks at the doctors but just got on with my life. I see others making a show of themselves, shouting at people and demanding respect ( I understand the anger and frustration in them, I’ve been there…but) you’re heading for a punch in the face behaving like that. being prior to 1990’s when I started having problems, it wouldn't have made a difference in my case, what timeline widespread education happened. I was treated incorrectly in the beginning so the only benefit to growing up post ‘90s is that I would have had access to the proper healthcare and not suffered a rake of issues that could have been avoided. I think I would agree that educating about the different types of people in our species reduces marginalisation but telling kids they can do whatever they want without undersranding complex biological systems is playing into symbolic identity which can fragment someone from innate identity. That’s not a good thing for a regular kid or trans kid either.

I’m in the fellowship of isis. its mixed pseudo Egyptian /celtic druidry but a lot of spiritual circles in my community tend to be mixed culture like Native American, Buddhist, Druid, Christian etc but on the mysticism side. unfortunately on my travels through them, very few people actually know what spirituality or esotericism is. its mostly aging women who dress up in new age robes, do ceremony at the years symbolic quarter cycles and then stroke my hair and feed me cake cause I’m the only ‘young’ man there besides being the only one they’ve ever met to have a god awakening ( not induced by psychedelics)

I’m in the middle of writing a fuller piece on this, but briefly: I understand the issue with ideology, social pressure, and conformity but those operate at the level of symbolic identity (labels, roles, narratives). Conflating that with pre-symbolic identity( what emerges from underlying biological organisation) is a category error. Biological systems can form stable patterns we recognise as identity while still containing internal incoherence. When a system moves to resolve that and become more functionally aligned and efficient increasing its potential, that’s not avoiding reality…it’s responding to it and taking appropriate action. Telling someone with that predicament to just sit there and accept themselves, misunderstands that is exactly what they are doing! Reducing this to delusion or lack of self-acceptance collapses distinct layers into one, and overlooks how biological systems actually work: dynamic, adaptive, and not fixed. The comparison to animals “just accepting reality” also misses the point. Non-human animals do not possess the same level of self-reflective cognition or the capacity to analyse and intervene in their own biological and psychological processes despite having inate intelligent emergent identity. Humans can recognise internal incoherence and respond to it. sometimes medically, sometimes behaviourally which is precisely what makes this discussion possible in the first place. The same confusion shows up in the “trans in sports” debate. It treats sex as a single, fixed property, when it’s actually a cluster of interacting developmental processes shaped by signalling and environment. Puberty does create meaningful differences but it is not the whole system. The relevant question isn’t what category someone is placed in, but whether specific performance-related traits developed, and whether they persist. Individuals who do not undergo their originally assigned puberty and instead develop under a different hormonal environment, do not acquire many of the traits typically cited as unfair advantage so why implement generalised ban? We already see that biology does not follow rigid categories. Conditions like 5-alpha reductase deficiency (guevedoces) show how developmental pathways can shift, leading to male-typical outcomes despite earlier female classification. Other conditions prevent male-typical development entirely, resulting in individuals who remain within female physiological ranges and sometimes completely unaware of the condition ( but those individuals mostly have coherent systems where trans do not. Some are actually trans as well) So reducing the issue to fixed labels like “male” and “female” misses how biological systems actually function as dynamic processes producing a coherent outcome ( recognisable pattern) Because ultimately, you are not just a set of signals or components. you are the integrated result of them: a biological system organising itself toward coherence over time. And it’s also worth being mindful of how this is discussed especially dismissive and invalidating language. For people actually living this as their direct experience, hostile imposition has real consequences. Social pressure can lead to suppression, adaptation over prolonged internal conflict, and eventual deterioration into mental illness. You don’t have to agree or be supportive. But contributing to an environment that increases harm to people already navigating this reality is something we should at least be conscious of.

Yes I’ve seen this too. It’s the ego holding onto an idea as an identity instead of integrating back into the relative experience. It’s a claim of being absolute while in a relative state which is a misunderstanding and bypassing of the relative state. it’s fine when someone is deconstructing and getting excited about non dual understanding or direct experience but it turns into a big problem when that is where it stops as an absolute instead of completing the circle and integrating everything that was deconstructed back into a lived experience, gaining wisdom as a result. Of course I’m just assuming that is what you mean or in some way similar.

Ecstatic dance, singing, paddle boarding and taking psychedelics for pure expression.

It’s interesting what happens when you get language to start self referencing. Nothing ever touches what everyone is talking about so it’s interesting when the words start to turn back on themselves they diminish till you get paradoxical statement that circles forever until it’s realised this is an infinite paradox. Language falls appart and then we step into what lies beyond that. Like a heavy conversation with someone that goes nowhere or heavy, noisy thoughts in contemplation that go nowhere and then suddenly it stops, attention stops focus on the language communicating something and the something comes forward and completely envelops the field of attention like a deafening silence. the direct reality connection happens.

The resting light is only half way after turning away from the objective. Once it’s realised, reintegrate into the experience to develop a harmony with everything. You don’t perpetuate turning away from the objective unless you’re trying to dissolve it. Being able to adapt to situations is part of the balance and harmony with everything. Absolute peace is only when you go back to that state. Being more fluid in the mind allows going into that state more accessible but also being at peace in varying degrees, dissolving is not always necessary. Even when you dissolve the body and world to sleep, the mind creates another body and world to experienced through. It does not always stay in an absolute state of peace. Like a vibrating string, the still string is still it but not it while ‘doing’. Plenty of people walk around claiming enlightenment and ‘floating’ through life not actually engaging but avoiding it.

We know all of this and have moved past it and reintegrated back into reality ( capable of relating to other). They are not claims. They are descriptions using ‘things’, ’terms’, ‘concepts’, ‘metaphors’ and ‘analogies’ from within lived experience ( tangeable) to express and communicate a thought about an ‘intangeable’ being ( not A being but being as a state of inertia/potential that cannot be known due to its indescript and undefined nature. Not a concept derived from contemplation but an actual experience of reality dissolving till it is all that is left at the foundation ) no longer playing games with others about absolutism that cannot be applied at the relative level nor can non duality be used to gaslight the dualistic experience. accepting the human experience is happening ‘now’. All the other layers are there at the same moment but while human interacting normally can point to an experience and understanding of absolute, it doesn’t speak from there even though it’s a part of and encapsulated by it. if you are not interested in communicating or discussing ‘it’ then you are simply creating ‘content’ to draw people into discussion with no other purpose but to flatten and terminate the conversation. What’s the point of that?

Yes. This is when you ‘sit in the absolute’ of which there is nothing you can say because even that is the very formation of mind. however, this is the place of realisation where you sit after deconstructing reality and self where even the ocean of consciousness dissolves. once this phase has been exhausted ( not very long, maybe a year or two as there’s nothing in that ‘state-no state’ to know, you re-integrate everything that was dissolved and have another type of awakening where not just the absolute but everything in experience or mind is also ‘it’. dissolving and realising absolute is only part of the way. Make a full circle back into where you started as a human seeking and recognise all of it as infinity. Not doing this risks nihilism and the dismissal of the lived experience, relational responsibility to the ‘other’ parts of infinity and infinity itself. it maybe described as an imagined dream but it’s not something to be dismissed as mere illusion beyond realisation. That would be existence rejecting its own existence (something a human does when it can’t realise its part of the totality). a great deal of spirituality particularly non duality is falling appart as a certainty amongst study groups at the moment because it’s going nowhere ( sorry no pun intended). love finds itself through its experience not by pretending it’s not happening. ( love being a profound level of acknowledgement, acceptance and allowing that it can simply be ‘being’ or ‘existence’ ( one in the same as infinity)

@Natasha Tori Maru thanks Natasha I appreciate the depth and always open to your point of view. I used to love getting into long proper conversations but I’ve met my exhaustion in the past year.

@Natasha Tori Maru Thank you, Natasha. I appreciate the care and warmth in your response. What’s been sobering for me isn’t the argument itself, but watching how certainty is hardening everywhere and how quickly nuance collapses into repeated ‘slogans’ and how easily conspiracy and incentive-driven narratives rush in to fill the gaps where reflection used to live. After years of recognition and a kind of peace, it’s strange to feel the collective field growing louder and tighter again despite me having done nothing. At times it can feel as though self-erasure would be easier stepping out of the noise entirely if only to spare the less conscious aspects of God from their own discomfort. And yet, I still sense that even a small amount of care, imagination, and honest speech has the capacity to re-pattern reality in subtle ways. So I speak when I can just to keep the space for complexity alive. Thank you for meeting that with respect. Butters is exploring intimacy, love, connection and just a little unsure because of the ‘noise’ circulating at the moment. I’ll always apologise for hate but never for love nor prevent ‘others’ exploration of it.

🙄 I’m a bit surprised by this. You often emphasize how language and concepts distort reality, yet here you’re treating a culturally loaded label (“penis”) as if it maps cleanly onto biology, identity, and sexual orientation. Preferences are preferences not ontological truths. Everyone is attracted to a range, not to “women in general” or “men in general.” What people actually respond to is their own internal prototype. A particular configuration of appearance, affect, presence, and embodiment that they label “woman” or “man.” That prototype already excludes vast numbers of biologically female women and includes traits that are not strictly biological at all. Genital appearance does not define biological sex in a clean binary way. The clitoris and penis are the same dimorphic organ, differentiated by hormonal pathways, enzymes, receptors, and timing. Variations exist on a wide spectrum. There are documented cases where individuals are born with externally female genitalia and develop fully functional male genitalia at puberty due to enzyme differences. These bodies do not fit simplified binary categories, yet they are not pathological. When an organ’s appearance crosses an arbitrary visual threshold, we rename it “penis” and treat it as ontologically decisive. It isn’t. Individual sexual components that have dimorphic potential are not exclusive. Calling attraction “gay” or “straight” based solely on the presence of a single organ is a category error confusing appearance with biology and biology with identity. It is entirely possible and biologically documented for someone to be neurologically female and embodied in a form that does not conform to ‘folk taxonomy’. Labels don’t change that and it also does not follow that a person attracted to them is gay. I’m not raising this as an exception, but as a concrete example of the principles above. I know this from direct experience. I am someone who has been scanned and tested, neurologically aligned with male-typical neuroendocrine development, carries XX chromosomes, had female looking genitalia, and gonadal dysgenesis, meaning I did not have endogenous hormones for enzyme production to continue development at a biologically critical age. I embody both male and female biology, but I am in no way a woman, and I have had extensive surgeries to correct that lack of development for the sake of intimacy in a way that feels natural to me. Not everyone in a similar position will feel the same, and there are “nebulous” reasons for that. My wife is most certainly not gay, and after having had intimate relationships with other men, her experience is that I am no different. Unique, yes but not different from her preference for what she considers a man. Sexual attraction responds to a whole, integrated system not a single anatomical component and personal bias/preference according one’s own ideal has a lot to do with that.

@Butters @Butters human being is a human being. If we can’t experience what it is like to be in that scenario ourselves we can experience it through another’s story which gives us greater perspective on reality. Never mind what others say. When you feel love, allow it to just be. The most beautiful and authentic connections can be found there. ❤️

@Butters ladyboy is what the culture uses as you say for a third gender because of a recognition of a type of person ( transgender as we know it) but there is a large number of young men there who do not identify as women who noticed they could get out of poverty by crossdressing and amusing rich foreigners ( it started with military visitors). They don’t transition but live in a woman’s social role for western attention because they tend to be prettier than western women and have no trouble passing. when I was over there about 9 years ago, I bumped into someone in Bangkok who worked as a ‘ladyboy’ educator. Because I’m somewhat in the ‘trans’ category, I asked her if I could meet and talk to a group there so she brought me out one of the weekend to a club where she knew some hang out. I asked a bunch of questions when I noticed a difference between two types. She confirmed that the transgender women ( who were on one side) didn’t really mix with the ladyboys because they were there to make money by ‘amusing’ the customers not genuinely dating. But when I talked to the ladyboys ( couldnt help myself) they said several of their friends actually did transition because the partner they picked up were rich, paid for surgery and took them home-permanently. Really nice people but the ones who seemed to be genuinely neurologically female didn’t mix with them. The woman who I met that brought me there said they call them all ladyboys that it’s just a cultural normality but there are different types. I was curious because I noticed something similar at home about 25 years ago. There are different types. I don’t dismiss any of them for their differences but there are those genuinely derived from a biological variation and others rising out of other types of motivating pressures. plenty other factors I’m sure.