I just came back from yoga class. Most yoga teachers nowadays, in Spain and in Mexico, call their students with inclusive diplomacy. Instead of saying “todos” they say “todos y todas”. I used to think it was unnecessarily complex until I had a teacher who said the same phrase, but inverted: “todas y todos”. Sometimes she would make a pause: “todas… y todos”. During the pause I would hear my ego protest: hey, I’m here too! And then it would relax after it was acknowledged.

The trick made me notice it feels nice to be acknowledged. I have the sense that if I were to address a mixed group I’d call them out in the same way.

However, today I had a teacher who just said “todas” and didn’t acknowledge my masculine ego. My practice didn’t suffer from it, though I could hear the little child inside of me claiming for acknowledgement, recriminating his feminist teacher. “Shhhh little ego, you have feminine essence too, you are both a woman and a man, because our dualist nature encompasses the feminine”.

If gender is not important, why do we throw a fit if somebody does not address us in the way that we want? The true issue here is not gender, it’s identity, and in its infinite immaturity the ego cries of you call him “miss” instead of “mister” in the same way a boy cries if you say he’s a girl.

I do not place myself above the fact that I do feel feel burned when I’m not acknowledged as a man. But, at the same time, I acknowledge the absurdity of the fact.