Of late I have been reading some interesting exchanges on Facebook about whether or not the soul has a gender. The answer–from my years of doing this work–is no. Souls are not male or female, although each has layers of male and female identities that make up the totality of its human experience. You’ve no doubt met women who exude traditional male qualities and vice versa. I had a friend who wanted to come in as a male in this life, but at the last minute chose a female body. So there “he” was in “her” body. It took her awhile to come to terms with that! 

While the soul is androgynous, we do gravitate to one sex over the other. Dr. Michael Newton wrote: “The average soul usually chooses one gender over another about 75-percent of the time.” I’ve been predominantly female in my prior lifetimes, others have been predominantly male, and still others equal it out. 

Edgar Cayce was asked why some souls changed sex and others do not. He said their decision was based on an inner desire to fulfill a spiritual need as well as the soul’s development at that point in time. He added that souls do not follow a format of changing sexes in each lifetime, but rather than sex, their gender is based on what they desire to accomplish. 

In doing the life-between-life sessions for my research project, one aspect we focused on was body choice. I wanted to find out why the participants chose the body they are in now. Some said they did not focus on whether they’d come back as male or female, but rather on the role that body would play in what they wanted to accomplish, which confirms what Cayce said. There were others who wanted to excel at certain skills and abilities, such as healers, and they felt that being one sex or the other would open more doors for them. Some wanted to be female to experience giving birth. Some liked the body they had in the previous life so much that they wanted one in their current life that was as close to their former body as possible. Still others were just tired of being the same sex over multiple lifetimes and decided to shake things up a bit!

In any case, you get some help from your spiritual advisors on which body to select. In the end, you and you alone agree to accept the body you now have. It’s not a random selection, which means you can’t play the victim card. So figure out why you chose the body you’re in. Honor that wisdom and use it to your soul’s advantage.