Is it right or wrong for a person to change the gender they are born with?

Smt. Priyanka Seethepalli asked: Nowadays, due to medical technology, transgenders are going through surgery and hormone injections to attain the physical features of the gender they wish to have. Some of them feel trapped in the body of the gender they were born with and they are willing to go through whatever is needed to change their gender.

Swami replied: Gender is, in no way, connected with the soul. It is only related to the external gross body. The change of gender is a subject only related to worldly issues and not to spiritual issues. In view of the souls, there is no difference in gender. All souls belong to only one gender and that is female. God alone is said to be the male (Puruṣa) in the sense that He is the Controller of creation. All the souls, including the rest world, are said to be female (prakṛti) in the sense that creation is controlled by God. Of course, this Controller-controlled concept is based on the trend of the old generations, when men used to be the controllers of the family. This is not the trend of the present generation. When Tulasi Das told Meera that females were not eligible to enter his asylum, Meera asked him “Are there males among souls too? So far, I used to think that Lord Krishna alone is male”. Tulasi Das fell at her feet and became her disciple. Till then, Meera was a disciple of Tulasi Das!

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