A close friend of mine is transgendered, and although she has never desired to take physical actions to match her outside to her inside, (or asked to be called “he” instead of “she”) there is no doubt in her mind that she is of the male sex, trapped in the wrong body.

“I was really little and I remember looking in the mirror one day,” she says. “And I was shocked. I remember touching my face and thinking, ‘Who’s that? Where’s my beard? What happened to me?'”

At this point in evolution humans tend to attack differences and address things from a physical perspective–which is how the mainstream is currently dealing with transgenderism: as a physical/genetic issue; a medical condition that must be labeled and “cured” – if not by shame, psychology and electro-shock treatments (thank God we’re finally getting beyond such barbaric approaches), then by figuring out what chemical “imbalance” and genetic “disorder” the transgender person suffers from and then hopefully fixing it.

Our whole social focus is on the physical as well – the practicalities of appropriate bathroom access, state-level gender identity protection, and equal employment opportunities. Amidst all the body-oriented blame, shame, confusion, media-hype and hysteria, it’s easy to overlook one of the most startling and potentially Earth-shattering possibilities the very existence of transgendered individuals like my friend reveals: potential proof of life after death.

If there is such a thing as the individual soul and that soul has lived on Earth before as a man or a woman, isn’t it possible that their sexual identity from the previous lifetime might carry over?

Why not? If we’re willing to embrace the notion that child prodigies like Mozart, Bobby Fischer, John von Neumann and Pablo Picasso might have waltzed into a new lifetime with a backlog of subconscious memories and talent from a previous life, why not view the transgendered woman or man the same way?

In our obsession with all things physical, we tend to overlook the shocking and brutal fact that pure non-physical energy provides the foundation of mass. There is no such thing as a physical “point particle” underpinning life on Earth. Just waves of interconnected energy.

And of all the theories quantum physicists have come up with so far to explain “spooky action at a distance” by electrons (and even algae cells) that can instantaneously communicate over vast distances with no intervening medium, it is not superstrings or quantum foam but rather the information theories that have the “most likely” edge.

Noted English mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose theorizes that at the level of the Planck Scale (an unfathomably small and unimaginably energetic scale at which even quantum field theory breaks down) the entire universe is actually pure, abstract information from which the physical world is derived and formed.

So if matter isn’t really matter, but rather energy and information <em>appearing </em>as matter, instead of a “genetic disorder” creating a transgendered individual, perhaps it is the information a soul is carrying from a previous life into a new genetic vehicle that is affecting the embryonic genes instead of the other way around?

Why not? Epigenetics shows that thoughts and emotions can “imprint” genes and trigger certain manifestations and tendencies. Why not old “thought patterns” from a previous life?

In a non-physical universe of energy and information, probabilities, potentials and ongoing evolution, anything is possible. Why are we so hasty to brush new ideas under the rug? Why are we so quick to scoff? Why are we so adamant that everything has to boil down to a physical/chemical/medical answer?

How about taking a step back and embracing a larger view? Over half the entire world’s population believes in reincarnation. According to the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (2009 survey), even 24 percent of American Christians believe in reincarnation.

Transgendered individuals are not only bulldozing antiquated sexual biases and identifications, quite possibly they’re pointing the way toward a spiritual Renaissance as well.