In this uncompromising and rigorously argued article, Claudette Kulkarni offers a systematic critique of Jung’s theories as they relate to sex, gender, and sexuality, challenging their binary assumptions and calling for a re-visioning of analytical psychology in light of contemporary scientific and social developments.

She argues that these theories negatively affect everyone, insofar as they remain blind to the diversity evident in today’s world, and thereby inhibit the individuation process, not only for queer individuals, but also for those who are able and willing to conform to a cisgender assignment.

Photo by Swiss Farmer via Pexels.

Introduction

It is rather unfortunate that after a great man’s death his followers tend to stare in adoration at his pointing finger, rather than trace the implications of the pointed direction. (Papadopoulos, 1991, p. 54)

When I came across this insightful comment from Papadopoulos, I was deeply touched by his reference to Jung’s pointing finger. It seemed to symbolize what I have always tried to achieve in my previous critiques of Jungian theory. In the paper from which this quote is taken, Papadopoulos declares his intent to take “a new approach” to Jung’s psychology with the aim of “exposing a central problematic in the Jungian opus” (1991, p. 54).

My goal here is similar: to identify and discuss what I see as the problematics in Jung’s theories about sex, gender, and sexuality—and, in that process, to get at what Jung was pointing to.

I will be doing this from a particular perspective, that is, not only as a Jungian, but also as a feminist and a lesbian.

But, first, a brief sidebar about terms: Prior to the second-wave women’s movement of the 1960s/1970s, it was common practice to use the terms sex and gender interchangeably. It was mainly when second-wave feminist theorists began to describe a distinction between sex and gender that the two terms began to take on their current meanings of “sex” as biological and “gender” as socially constructed (although many people continue to use these terms interchangeably). Currently, however, there are even more changes being deliberated.

Some feminist gender theorists are now arguing for linking them together while keeping them conceptually separate. For example, Butler uses the term “sex/gender” so as to avoid implying that sex is “natural” while “gender” is culturally constructed (1990, p. 37) and Fausto-Sterling opts for “gender/sex” because she sees sex and gender as “knotted together in complex ways” (2000, p. 270).

Some feminists want to get rid of the category of gender altogether, while others want to broaden it to encompass a multiplicity and complexity of genders in order to be inclusive of those who “love the binary character of gender,” those “who cannot live very well within those binary terms”, and “those who ask for new lexicons, or for ways of living outside received categories of gender altogether [e.g., nonbinary folks]” (Butler, 2024, p. 236).

These issues of terminology will undoubtedly continue to be debated for the foreseeable future. In the meantime, while I tend to favor the eventual elimination of gender altogether, I do see the broadening of it into a multiplicity to be an improvement over the binary version and the linked versions of the terms sex/gender or gender/sex to be an important stage in the discussion.

I discovered Jung in 1980, and, for a few years, I was an obedient Jungian.

I dutifully regurgitated the received versions of Jungian theory without truly taking account of its patriarchal foundations, or noticing how his theories often conflicted with my own experience of being a lesbian. Gradually, however, I came to realize that many of Jung’s ideas needed to be questioned, challenged, and “re-thought” (Mudd, 1998b, p. 1), above all those related to his three binary notions of sex (males and females as biologically fixed “opposites”), gender (men and women as determined by biological sex), and sexuality (heterosexuality as the norm and homosexuality as pathological).

When I wrote my book Lesbians and Lesbianisms: A Post-Jungian Perspective (Kulkarni, 1997), I thought it captured everything I wanted to say in critiquing Jungian theory on these topics, but, over the course of the nearly 30 years since then—and in spite of my remaining deeply fond of Jung—I have become increasingly aware that his theories in these areas (as well as various others, e.g., race, class, ethnicity) are profoundly in need of scrutiny and revision.

I have felt energized in this by several “radical” post-Jungians (see Kulkarni, 1997, pp. 105–111) who have confronted Jung’s binaries and proposed revisions to Jungian theory that are more reflective of the real lives of real people—post-Jungians like Andrew Samuels, Lyn Cowan, Peter Mudd, Demaris Wehr, Christine Downing, Renos Papadopoulos, and Mark Saban.

In various ways, these Jungians have, knowingly or not, traced various implications of Jung’s pointing finger. And each has played a part in my thinking and my resolve to show my deep affection for Jung by finding ways we can make his theory relevant to contemporary realities.

My efforts to do this have also been deeply influenced by a number of non-Jungians, especially Judith Butler, Anne Fausto-Sterling, and bell hooks. And, most recently, my participation in the International Queer Jungian Initiative has deepened my commitment to a more radical understanding of LGBTQIA+ issues.

My focus in this paper will be on theory because I believe that:

Theory is at the heart of the task of bringing Jung into the 21st century.
It is in theories that our beliefs, prejudices, and preconceptions show up and influence (or even control) our thinking.
Mark Saban is right: “If analytical psychology … is to remain alive” and to be meaningful in the 21st century, “then it must itself continue to individuate, and that means changing, transforming, reacting to, and engaging with the world around it” (2019, p. 3)—and this includes the transformation of some of its theories. (see interview with Mark Saban)

My intent throughout is to challenge Jung’s theories while keeping in mind bell hooks’ (1994) important admonition that theory is a most useful social practice when it is liberatory and “rooted in an attempt to understand both the nature of our contemporary predicament and the means by which we might collectively engage in resistance that would transform our current reality” (p. 67).

It is this kind of thinking that inspires me to work on freeing Jungian theory from its problematic aspects in relation to sex, gender, and sexuality in order to be able to go further than Jung was able or willing to go.

But “moving beyond Jung requires beginning with him” (Downing, 1995, p. 266)—which, to me, means:

Trying to understand what he was pointing to when he invented concepts such as anima/animus, contrasexuality, and the “feminine” and “masculine” principles.
Asking a lot of questions, like: What could he see, or almost see? Why did he stop short of pursuing his vision? What is it that we need to do in order to make his theory more liberatory and to bring it into the 21st century? Why is it that so many Jungians are so averse to disrupting the binary gender/sex system and to rethinking some of Jung’s related concepts and theories? Why are some of us so reluctant to recognize the “subversive possibility that Jung opens up” for us (Samuels, 1989b)?
Being willing to deconstruct many Jungian concepts, and sometimes even “to throw out the petrified skeletons in the Jungian closet” (Cowan, 1994).

I believe that “Jung, the heretic”—as Douglas Thomas (2024) refers to him—calls us to be heretics ourselves, to defy orthodoxy (even Jungian orthodoxy), to be as transgressive, radical, and subversive as he himself was toward the prevailing psychologies he defied in developing some of his theories.

Too many of Jung’s concepts have remained unexamined, including within the “official” Jungian world, where most Jungian training programs continue to endorse classical Jungian theory and its underlying presuppositions, and to resist change—in effect blocking efforts “to trace the implications” of Jung’s pointing finger.

What was Jung pointing to?

It is my contention that Jung was pointing to a very simple fact: namely, that all traits available to humans are available to all of us regardless of sex, gender, or sexual orientation (among other categories).

Evidently, however, Jung could not bring himself to admit this outrightly— possibly, I believe, because it would have undermined his binary system of:

male/man/masculine versus female/woman/feminine,
and heterosexuality versus homosexuality.

I don’t know whether Jung did this consciously, or whether he simply couldn’t imagine it to be any other way. In any case, devising certain notions (like the anima/animus concepts and contrasexuality) seems to be as far as he was willing to go. This, at least gave everyone permission to access their so-called “opposite” inner qualities (though in restricted and constrained ways).

This was certainly a step in the right direction—but Jung seems to have gotten stuck there (and many Jungians, and Jungian theory, are still stuck there with him). But why is it that so many Jungians are reluctant to critique the Jungian canon?

Where and why did Jung get stuck?

As I see it, Jung’s theories about sex, gender, and sexuality are made up of seven building blocks, each of which represents a problematic place where he got stuck. And, as a result, each also holds a key to liberating and rehabilitating Jung’s ideas on these topics. While others might propose additional or different problematic areas of Jung’s theory on sex, gender, and sexuality that could be challenged, I hope these seven will at least get us started toward understanding:

Where and why Jung got stuck.
What is problematic about each of these areas.
How to re-vision these problematics in a way that frees us to imagine ways of amending them.

Please note that these aspects of Jung’s thinking are problematic for everyone, not just for members of the queer community, because all of us (regardless of sex, gender, or sexuality) are assumed and expected to conform to constraining ideas and compulsory norms about sex, gender, and sexuality.

Seven problematics of Jung’s theory

1-The concept of opposites

The concept of opposites was fundamental to Jung’s thought. He considered opposites to be the “ineradicable and indispensable preconditions of all psychic life” (CW14, §206) and the tensions between them to be the source of life and consciousness. He even admitted that it was a “heuristic principle” for him to deliberately seek opposites (1989, p. 77), which apparently led him to obsessively look for and, of course, to find, imagine, or even invent “opposites” everywhere. This seems to have been driven by two factors.

The first is his own personal life experiences. Mudd tells us that “Jung’s theory is an experience-driven theory. By this I mean he derived his ideas directly from his own experiences and empirical observations of his analysands’ experiences” (Mudd, 1998b, p. 5). His experiences of his 1 and No. 2 personalities are an excellent example of this (as is so well delineated by Mark Saban, 2019).

The second is his desire to establish analytical psychology as a science. Jung based his theoretical ideas about opposites on the theory, borrowed from physics, that “energy demands two opposing forces” (Samuels et al., 1986, p. 102). Using various preconceptions, he applied this theory to all kinds of supposed opposites, including males/masculine vs females/feminine. In that latter context, he proposed that the dynamics between these “opposites” could fluctuate between being happily interdependent to being “at war with one another” (Jung, 1989, p. 85). For example, he writes:

Although man and woman unite they nevertheless represent irreconcilable opposites which, when activated, degenerate into deadly hostility. (CW12, §192)
[Opposites] come together in the coniunctio […] either confronting one another in enmity or attracting one another in love. (CW14, §1)

Needless to say, such a binary theory produces a very distorted view of sex/gender and sexuality since it excludes anyone who does not fit its rigid categories and it implies that heterosexuality amounts to a “battle of the sexes” (Kulkarni, 2024). It is not surprising that Jung’s reliance on a methodology of dichotomous division also led him to establish a binary system of sex/gender and sexuality consisting of fixed and immutable categories: two “opposite” sexes/genders and two opposing forms of sexuality. For Jung, the two “opposing” sexes and genders were:

mutually exclusive: i.e., whatever traits one has, the other doesn’t;
mutually exhaustive: i.e., there are no other possibilities beyond the two “opposites”;
complementary: i.e., they need each other to be “whole”.

As a result, sex/gender has often come to be depicted as two columns of opposing qualities, “each list yearning for the other list so as to become whole” (Samuels, 1989a, p. 97). And it was not a far step for Jung to also suppose two opposite sexualities:

one “normal” (heterosexuality),
one “pathological” (homosexuality).

Obviously, if we are to grasp and unravel the complexities of sex/gender and sexuality in the 21st century, we will need a much more pluralistic and discerning approach than Jung’s ideas allow us. This means that we will need to confront Jung’s tendency to imagine differences as opposites and determine whether opposites have a role to play in any investigation into sex/gender and sexuality.

That means we will need to ask questions like the following:

On what basis did Jung claim that males and females are “opposites”? As far as I can tell, Jung did not provide any real evidence for this claim. He simply assumed it and then alleged that certain human qualities “belong” to only one sex or the other.

When we say that two things are “opposites”, do we mean what Jung meant? Are males/men and females/women really “mutually exclusive” and “mutually exhaustive”?

What does it imply when we insist that two things (like males and females) are “opposites”?

If there are only two “opposite” sexes, how do we understand the presence, for example, of the intersex, the nonbinary, and the cisgender people who do not identify with social norms? (Note: A cisgender person is someone who is relatively comfortable with the sex/gender they were assigned at birth. However, it is important to recognize that not all cisgender people accept the cultural norms associated with that gender.)

How can males and females (to use just these two sexes) be “opposites” if we are all human beings, and thus have more things in common than different?

For me, one way of taking on such questions—believe it or not—is to turn to Aristotle.

While I recognize that Aristotle’s ideas about women were even more problematic than Jung’s, I do find him useful on the topic of opposites (or what he referred to as “contraries”) in the following way. For Aristotle, all sensible, concrete things (which he called “substances”) are a composite of “form” and “matter”. Simply put, form consists of the features and functions that a substance must have in order to be considered a member of a particular species and matter is the physical material out of which a substance is made.

Since members of a species necessarily have the same form, any differences between members of a species can only be differences in matter (e.g., in traits, qualities, body parts, etc.). Therefore, only differences in matter can be contraries. That is, a “characteristic of substances is that there is nothing contrary to them” (Aristotle, 3b24–27).

Think about it. Can you think of any object that has an opposite? For example, what could be the contrary of a book, a refrigerator, a tree, or a giraffe? So, how can it be that the only entities that have an opposite are males/men and females/women? (Note: The only way that Aristotle himself found a way to get around this was to claim that males are perfect exemplars of the human while females are imperfect versions.)

To be clear, I am not saying that opposites do not exist. They do. I believe that there are, in fact, a number of different kinds of opposites (as I discuss, as a work still in progress, in Kulkarni, 2024, pp. 172–173). For example:

spatial opposites, like opposite sides of a river, or directions, like up/down, right/left,
logical opposites, like certain contradictory or paradoxical statements.
Natural physical forces that can attract or repel, like positive/negative poles of magnets,
human forces opposing each other, e.g., physically on a field of battle or politically in an election,
metaphorical opposites, e.g., pairs of concepts/predicates like light/dark, right/wrong, black/white.

My contention here is simply that:

Males and females are not opposites.
Dualistic divisions are generally simplistic, reductive, and misleading.
Jung’s binary system lacks the multiplicity and fluidity needed to truly understand sex, gender, and sexuality.

2-Othering

Renos Papadopoulos points out that although “Jung never presented an explicit and systematic theory of the Other as such”, he was on a “constant quest for formulating […] an adequate theory of the Other” (1991, p. 56). But the problem with his quest, for me, is that Jung did not seem to appreciate the difference between “otherness” (which recognizes diversity and may evoke curiosity and a desire to learn more) and “Othering” (which employs polarizing concepts such as opposites, hierarchies, and feelings of superiority toward those who are “different” from one in a variety of categories).

To be fair: Jung did not invent othering. However, othering was embedded in much of his theorizing and often led him to “other” others—that is, to produce theories permeated with what we can now clearly recognize as racism, sexism, Eurocentrism, heterosexism, anti-Semitism, colonialism, etc. (I cannot take on all of that here; but aspects of these “isms” have been and are being addressed by various authors, e.g., see Carter & Farah, 2023). However, it is important to remember that othering plays a part in all of the “isms” and inevitably produces harmful consequences for everyone involved:

It generates judgmental and stereotypical notions about “Others” (especially oppressed and disempowered others).
It also does damage to the perpetrator of the othering, in that it ignores one’s relationality with the “Other”, often overemphasizing differences and “overlooking the similarities and connectedness” between the two, all of which leads to polarized tensions between the two persons or groups (Papadopoulos, 2023, xxvii-xxviii).

In the context of sex/gender and sexuality, Jung’s tendency toward othering resulted in three polarizing sets of beliefs, each of which constitutes a kind of “silo” of prejudicial assumptions:

There are only two kinds of humans: males and females (“sex”).
Each of these two sexes has an opposite and fixed social role (“gender”).
Heterosexuality is the norm (“sexuality”).

Each of these silos contains a number of problematic prejudices and the interactions between them generate even more complications–many of which will be discussed below.

3-Unquestioned prejudices: social/cultural norms, stereotypes, preconceptions, assumptions

I should explain that my understanding of the concept of “prejudice” is grounded in the philosophical hermeneutics of Hans-Georg Gadamer (1993). One of Gadamer’s goals was to “rehabilitate” the notion of prejudice (p. 277). He argued that we cannot escape having prejudices. We are all the product of a variety of inherited, acquired, and/or accumulated beliefs, social and cultural norms, bodies of knowledge, personal life experiences, etc. This leads us to develop the pre-understandings (prejudices) that we take into the hermeneutic circle with us every time we attempt to understand something or someone.

These prejudices are not only inevitable, but also necessary to our being able to begin to understand anything, that is, they provide a starting point for our efforts to approach any subject matter.

However, they can also become the origin of our misunderstandings because “prejudice means a judgment that is rendered before all the elements that determine a situation have been finally examined”. As a result, “prejudice […] can have either a positive or a negative value” (p. 270). Therefore, Gadamer warns us, “[t]he important thing is [not only] to be aware of one’s own bias” (p. 269), but also to be open to questioning and testing them in order to “distinguish the true prejudices, by which we understand, from the false ones, by which we misunderstand” (p. 298–299).

Jung, like all of us, had a variety of prejudices:

some based on his childhood experiences,
some likely absorbed from 19th-century Swiss social/cultural norms and beliefs,
some derived from his studies,
some that reflect the “colonial thinking” (Roesler, 2024, p. 135) that pervaded European thinking at the time.

The problem is that Jung took all of these for granted and seems never to have doubted or questioned any of them. Some Jungians ascribe Jung’s prejudices to his being “a product of his times”, but, as Andrew Samuels has so convincingly discussed in the context of Jung’s anti-Semitism, this is not a satisfying argument. There were “other choices that he could have made, other viewpoints possible” (Samuels, 1993, p. 295).

Jung’s various cultural biases “may have seemed natural considering the […] biases of the time”, the problem is that “Jung did not seem to consider the role that culture could play in him, nor in the collective unconscious” (Hila, 2023, p. 125). Rather, Jung took the cultural norms and stereotypes of his time and elevated them into ahistorical, eternal verities.

He asserted an archetypal basis for them that put them beyond question and beyond change, removing the possibility of any questioning and/or debate about what factors make or influence them. Masculinity and femininity confront us as abstract archetypal principles, fixed and defined for all time, to which we all have to conform (Colman, 1998, p. 199).

As a result, Jungian theory is jampacked with concepts based on 19th and 20th-century assumptions and stereotypes, all of which came to be installed in the binary system Jung built—a theoretical system rigidly based on:

perceived hierarchical “differences” between the sexes, races, countries, classes, etc.,
and compulsory heterosexuality.

This is a theory which negatively affects every one of us regardless of sex/gender or sexuality because it is a theory which is blind to the variety of diversities obvious in today’s world. It thus inhibits the individuation process for every one of us, even those who are able to conform to a cisgender assignment without too much discomfort.

Since I am critiquing Jung for being bound to the norms of his day, I want to point out that “[n]o one arrives in the world separate from the set of norms lying in wait for them” (Butler, 2024, p. 31), norms which act on us “repeatedly over time”, although “opportunities arise to derail their reproduction” (p. 32)—that is, norms are subject to change.

Another important point is that social norms have a “double nature” (Butler, 2004, p. 207):

There are social norms that “we cannot do without” (p. 207) and which we “need […] in order to live” (p. 206). These are “the norms […] that permit people to breathe, to desire, to love, and to live” (p. 8). Though we may not always agree on what these are, their effect is to make community life livable. Butler is reluctant to name these norms because she is concerned that norms can become prescriptive over time and evolve into instruments of normativity. In any case, the goal for her is not to set new norms, but to challenge the unlivable ones.

The second set of norms are those that “do violence to us” by unnecessarily imposing oppressive and restrictive constraints aimed at “normalization” (p. 206). These are the norms “that restrict or eviscerate the conditions of life itself”, even making it “unlivable for some” (p. 8). Of course, these are the norms that need to be challenged.

Apparently, Jung could not see such norms for what they are: a means of social coercion/control by which limitations are “imposed from without, but falsely identified as lying within” (Gould, 1981, quoted in Fine, 2010, p. 235), as if dictated by “nature”. It takes courage and resources to defy such norms and to risk the potential ostracism or even violence that might ensue.

I am arguing here that the current binary “sex/gender system [endorsed by Jungian theory] is unlivable for many, including some who want to fit into the prevailing system of ‘opposite’ sexes and some who do not” (Kulkarni, 2024, p. 174).

I believe that it is beyond time for Jungians to recognize this and to interrogate the antiquated norms upon which Jungian theories of sex/gender and sexuality are constructed.

4-Simplistic and outdated biology/psychology

“Jung held that psychology constituted the fundamental scientific discipline, upon which other disciplines should henceforth be based” (Shamdasani, 2003, p. 15). It was, therefore, extremely important to him that analytical psychology be established as a scientific endeavor. Unfortunately, however, much of Jung’s psychology was grounded in 19th-century science, especially biology. (For detailed accounts describing aspects of this, see Shamdasani, 2003, pp. 179–194; Roesler, 2024, pp. 70–114; also see Roesler’s article on this platform).

As a result, Jung’s theories about sex/gender and sexuality reflect a number of specious ideas:

Biology determines the structure and functioning of psyche.
Anatomy is destiny.
Males and females possess different “preformed features” that are “innate” to them. (Roesler, 2024, p. 65)
The binary system of sex is a law of nature “fixed and defined for all time” (Colman, 1998, p. 199), thus tethering one forever to one’s sex-assigned-at-birth.

But these and other archaic beliefs are being contradicted by the findings of today’s scientists (e.g., see Ainsworth, Balocchi, Bohanon, Denworth, Fausto-Sterling, Hyde, and Montañez).

We now know that “in the human species there is not an absolute dimorphism, but a wide range of chromosomal, gonadal, hormonal and anatomical variations of sex” (Balocchi, 2022, p. 159) and that sex development is a much more complicated process than was formerly believed.

In fact, when one evaluates the evidence about the various factors involved in sex development (e.g., gene mutations, hormone activity, variations in XX and XY chromosomes, and the large variety of intersex cases), it becomes obvious “that sex is no simple dichotomy” and that “the idea of 2 sexes is overly simplistic” (Ainsworth, 2018/2015).

Our bodies do not “naturally” conform to a binary system; rather they are as complex as the mosaic psyche described by Tyminski (2024, pp. 821–822). As a result, biological sex cannot be determined simply by viewing the external genitals visible at birth.

In addition, through the very complicated field of epigenetic studies, scientists have discovered that there are a variety of environmental and individual factors which impact human sexual and intellectual development throughout the life span, factors that work with our biology but are, in a manner of speaking, beyond it.

For example, we have learned that the neuro plasticity of the human brain makes the brain capable of changing in response to various life experiences and to various internal and external stimuli. As renowned biologist Ann Fausto-Sterling tells us: “Examples abound in which a social interaction causes a physical change in the nervous system” (2020, p. 250). “Existing neurons change their connections; new neurons are born, and all this happens as a result of how the body interacts day to day in the physical world” (2012, p. 63).

This means that “we cannot understand the underlying physiology of [gender] behavior without considering an animal’s social history and contemporary environment” (2020, p. 245), that is, without considering epigenetic mechanisms.

We have also learned that “there are different mechanisms by which genes interact with their environment [both internal and external]. Biological and genetic structures can be even changed by social and mental influences during development” (Roesler, 2024, p. 79).

Furthermore, “what lies with one’s genetic predisposition and what lies with one’s social environment are not […] easily parsed. […] because the human brain is simply too social, too plastic, too malleable, too revisable to pin down like that” (Bohanon, 2023, p. 293).

In other words, the formation of the personality is not determined by our genes or by our sex (at birth or otherwise). (For an extensive and detailed critique of the binary sex/gender system, see Fausto-Sterling, 2020, especially pp. 240–313, and for more about epigenetics, see Roesler, 2024, pp. 77–82).

Needless to say, Jung could not have known any of this, but we do know now. Of course, there are some biological differences between males and females, but these are mainly related to our reproductive system. Any others are generally minor and/or statistical.

My point here is that Jungians must stay informed of current state-of-the art knowledge in science and other disciplines (e.g., biology, epigenetics, social anthropology, philosophy, history, etc.) and integrate relevant new findings into our theorizing as it becomes available.

In other words, rather than continuing to accept Jung’s fantasies about sex/gender and sexuality as objective truth, we need to:

determine whether there are any real and meaningful biological/psychological differences between/among the sexes/genders,
be able to explain and provide scientific evidence of whether these differences matter: how and why?
determine whether there are any real and meaningful biological/psychological similarities between/among the sexes,
be able to explain and provide scientific evidence of whether these similarities matter: how and why?

Since Jungians tend to assume that differences are more significant than similarities, I believe that might be the best place for Jungians to start.

5-Sexism and genderism

Not only are Jung’s biological theories about sex/gender suspect (as just discussed), it seems to me (as it did to Demaris Wehr when she was writing her dissertation) that “sexism [is also] embedded in Jung’s psychology” (Wehr, 1987, p. ix). Wehr summarizes sexism in this concise way: “Sexism consists of limiting beliefs about the ‘natures’ of women and men” (p. 15). And she points out some of the ways that it operates:

Although [sexism] is damaging to men, it is particularly wounding to women because women are the ones who stand outside of the definition of the fully human that maleness in Western patriarchy has come to represent. […] it is reinforced constantly by the various levels of the “ongoing conversation” in patriarchy—in religion, in psychology, in popular culture […]. Looking through the sexist lens means that the sexist structures of society seem to be the way things are naturally. (Wehr, 1987, p. 15)

Wehr notes that, at first, she was angry about the sexism she found in “Jung’s psychology [because it] had meant a great deal to [her]”. Eventually, however, she found a way to change her attitude “from opposition to dialogue” (p. x). While I can’t quite join her in abandoning opposition, I do believe that my critique of Jung’s theories about sex/gender is also a dialogue with Jung, a dialogue which takes two significant points into account:

Jung’s theories were constructed by a patriarchal man and for patriarchal men living in a patriarchy.
Jung mistook the patriarchy to be “the masculine principle” and then felt motivated, given his fixation on opposites, to devise a few “opposite” concepts: a “feminine principle” (to oppose the “masculine principle”), contrasexuality (to ensure the superiority of heterosexuality), and the anima/animus (as “proof” of contrasexuality).

In addition, although Jung often acknowledged that his psychology was “a subjective confession” (e.g., CW4, §774), he generally theorized as if his life experiences were universals that applied to everyone (at least to all men), and even declared concepts like the anima and the animus to be archetypes, not simply concepts.

Concepts are ideas conceived by humans and, thus, are open to being challenged and revised, or even entirely rejected. But archetypes are “patterns of instinctual behavior” (CW9i, §91), “primordial images” (CW5, §101), and “a priori, innate forms of intuition” (Jung, 1919, quoted by Roesler, 2024, p. 13), so, unlike concepts, they are immutable; that is their content might be reinterpreted, but the structures would remain because they are genetically transmitted.

Another problematic factor in Jung’s ideas about sex/gender is that Jung often did not take women’s actual experiences into account when developing his ideas about women. For example, he says things like:

“Since the anima is an archetype that is found in men, it is reasonable to suppose that an equivalent archetype must be present in women” (CW9ii, §27).
“With women the case is reversed. […] If the anima is irrational feeling, the animus is irrational thinking” (CW10, §80).
“So far as my experience goes, a man always understands fairly easily what is meant by the anima […] But I have, as a rule, found it very difficult to make a woman understand what the animus is, and I have never met a woman who could tell me anything definite about his personality” (CW10, §81).

We can see here, once again, that Jung’s tendency to see everything through the lens of “opposites” colors his approach to theorizing the psychological lives of women and men.

It is often argued that Jung’s invention of the anima and the animus was momentous in that, as already noted above, it gave women and men permission to access their inner “opposite” qualities, that is, qualities that were (and some still are) contrary to the sex/gender norms of the day.

In fact, Verena Kast tells us that “in the 1930s, [this] must have been refreshing for women” (2006, p. 119) (which leaves me wondering how men felt about this new opportunity).

There is no question that Jung made room for women in a way that no one before him had done and that, as Peter Mudd states, Jung was capable of having meaningful relationships with women, even of admiring some women (1998a, p. 7).

Further, Jung is known for his critique of Christianity and other religions for conceiving of God as “organized into triads and trinities” (CW11, §222) because this excluded “the feminine element” (CW11, §107). Was this an unconscious acknowledgement of the problematic exclusion of women from public life? I don’t know. He certainly recognized that women were at a disadvantage in the world. For example, he writes:

there is no problem of “woman in Europe” without man and his world. If she is married, she usually has to depend economically on her husband; if she is unmarried and earning a living, she is working in some profession designed by a man. Unless she is prepared to sacrifice her erotic life, she again stands in some essential relationship to man. […] Neither politically, nor economically, nor spiritually is she a factor of visible importance. If she were, she would loom more largely in man’s field of vision and would have to be considered a rival. (CW10, §240)

It’s unclear whether Jung considered women of his day to be rivals of men, but it is clear that he believed that men and women have entirely different “natures”. For example, he wrote:

It is a woman’s outstanding characteristic that she can do anything for the love of a man. But those women who can achieve something important for the love of a thing are most exceptional, because this does not really agree with their nature. Love for a thing is a man’s prerogative. […] If one lives out the opposite sex in oneself one is living in one’s own background, and one’s individuality suffers. A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman. (CW10, §243)

In other words, women and men should stay in their assigned roles: women at home with the children and men out in the world exploring their options. This is clearly articulated in the text of Jung’s last interview in 1955:

A man’s foremost interest should be his work. But a woman—man is her work and her business. Yes, I know it sounds like a convenient philosophy of the selfish male when I say that. But marriage means a home. And home is like a nest—not enough room for both birds at once. One sits inside, the other perches on the edge and looks about and attends to all outside business. (Jung, 1977, p. 244)

Such an attitude about sex/gender can only result in a theory that reinforces the traditional roles of both women and men.

So, in spite of the fact that Jung’s concepts of anima/feminine and animus/masculine did offer both women and men a way of expanding their sense of self, his thinking about sex/gender stopped short of what could have been its full potential, namely: recognizing that women and men are more similar than different, and thus are not opposites.

As a result, Jung’s theory about sex/gender continue to present many problematic aspects. Here are the ones that stand out for me.

It focuses on content versus function. Mudd has described how Jung’s understanding of anima/animus shifted in a problematic direction over time. Originally, Jung had conceived of both concepts as psychological functions which had an “interfacing and mediating role in the psyche” but were without “inherent specific content” (Mudd, 1998b, p. 4). Over time, however, they “gradually became infused with, and then dominated by, specific content rather than dynamic function”.
It presumes that one’s sex assigned-at-birth is strictly biological, obvious, and permanent. Not only is this scientifically false (as explained above), but it also ignores the complications introduced by the fact that the sex assigned-at-birth “is not simply an announcement of the sex that an infant is perceived to be; it also communicates a set of adult desires and expectations” (Butler, 2024, p. 30)—which hints at the reality that many of us eventually come to feel that what others expect of/for us doesn’t match our own desires or sense of self.
It assumes that the sex of one’s body as assigned-at-birth somehow dictates one’s gender and sexuality.
It restricts the “contrasexual” to one’s inner life because, in the end: “A man should live as a man and a woman as a woman” (Jung, CW10, §243).
It requires that the anima should be treated very differently from the animus: “[Jung] said a man must take up a feminine attitude, while a woman must fight her animus, a masculine attitude” (Harding, 1977, p. 26). So, if the function of the anima is to help a man become whole, what is the function of the animus? Can only men become “whole”?
It dichotomizes human qualities into “masculine” and “feminine” without regard to the fact that this dichotomy was created “within a hierarchy that privileges those qualities attributed to the male” (Hauke, 2000, p. 119) and that it only reflects “what the culture will or will not support” (p. 133).
It assumes that certain qualities are naturally and immutably “masculine” or “feminine,” thereby limiting each of us to prescribed norms according to our sex assigned-at-birth. This seems rather peculiar to me since Jung often referred to the contents of the unconscious as “unknown” and to the archetype as such as “an ‘irrepresentable’ factor (CW11, §222), yet he somehow decided that the anima and animus were archetypes and then described their contents in some detail according to social norms, labelling one “masculine” and the other “feminine,” and designating each as the contrasexual of the other. Why did he do all of this if things in the unconscious are so unknown? Was it because he recognized that in cultures with rigid definitions of males and females, the qualities deemed unacceptable in those societies are often repressed, but he could not imagine doing anything with them except to project them? And could it be that he labeled those qualities as “the contrasexual” simply because that fit his theory and/or his way of conceptualizing his own life experiences?
It demarcates “the sexes in a highly restrictive way, one that truly considers biology as destiny” and “implicitly pathologizes any individual who does not find his/her identity within its borders”, thus posing “a real threat to true individuation” (Mudd, 1998b, p. 8).

In addition to these problematic aspects of Jung’s theory, it seems to me that it is also vitally important, as noted above in relation to biology, that Jungians take note not only of the fact that the binary system of sex/gender/sexuality is being called into question by a variety of scientists and scholars (e.g., social anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, etc.), but also that it is increasingly being challenged in various ways by a variety of other people as well—especially by many young people (possibly because they feel less bound by prevailing social norms and thus do not feel limited by the gender/sex that was assigned to them at birth).

A number of Jungians, like Ginette Paris, are telling us that, in fact, it is time for Jungians to “leave behind” all “ideas about the anima and the animus, the feminine principle and the masculine principle”—because they “have hardened like stale bread” (2017, p. 132).

Maybe it is time to adapt Jungian theories to current reality by abandoning our reliance on binaries. Maybe we need to imagine a Jungian theory of sex/gender/sexuality that is no longer built on binaries. Of course, to do this, we will have to ask ourselves some very difficult and demanding questions, and we will need to answer them based on evidence, not prejudice.

Below are some questions I would suggest.

What exactly defines “sex”?

Are there really just two sexes? What exactly do we mean by “opposite” sex? What exactly makes one someone’s opposite? Is it strictly a matter of one’s reproductive organs? Is sex defined only by biology and the sex assigned-at-birth? If sex is based on reproductive capacity, how do we accommodate anyone who is unable or unwilling to reproduce?

To be a woman, does one have to reproduce?—and if she can’t (or doesn’t want to) is she still a woman? How does the existence of a variety of intersex and trans people affect our ideas about sex? Why do we accept the idea that the sex assigned at birth is immutable?

What exactly is gender?

Are there only two genders? Must gender be dependent on biology? If gender is socially constructed, can’t it be deconstructed and/or reconstructed? If gender is set free from being conflated with sex, might it be a fluid aspect of self that gets expressed as an aspect of the authentic persona—that is, the persona that is free to “project the essential qualities of a person’s character?” (Yeoman & Lu, 2024, p. 87).

Or might it be, as Mudd suggests, that “the traits traditionally regarded as contrasexual [get] consigned to the shadow in the process of identity formation” (1998b, p. 9) and could then be brought to consciousness as an expression of the-no-longer-repressed shadow versus a “contrasexual”?

And, really, are all women the same? Do they all aspire to be “feminine”? Must all men aspire to be “masculine”? Why? What exactly makes someone or something “feminine” or “masculine”? What does that even mean and who gets to decide it? Does the concept of “the masculine” simply allow men to claim the qualities they (and the patriarchy) most prize and leave women with the leftovers?

Why did Jung insist that the “feminine” does not refer only to women and the “masculine” only to men? Is there anyone on the planet who would not make an association between “feminine” and women, and “masculine” and men? On what basis do Jungians continue to use these disputable terms?

What exactly is sexuality?

Is it determined by biology, thus forcing us into compulsory heterosexuality? Or is it simply an expression of one’s desires? Why does Jungian theory assume that “contrasexuality” is the norm? Is it? What happens to queer people in such a theory? (Please note that I use the umbrella term “queer” to refer to anyone who rejects conventional binary social norms related to the concepts of sex and/or gender and/or sexuality.)

If sex and gender are as ‘natural’ as Jung presumed, why do we need to work so hard at “gender fortification” (Fausto-Sterling, 2012, p. 10), e.g., color coding pink/blue for babies, designating certain toys, clothes, hair styles, and activities for girls or boys, etc.?

Such questions, if taken up in good faith, could inspire Jungians to have some interesting and consequential discussions that might help us emancipate Jungian theory from its sexist and genderist moorings.

6-Heterosexist precepts

Jung believed that “normally” the contrasexual must be projected onto someone of the “opposite” sex, thus presuming heterosexuality to be the norm and implying that homosexuality is abnormal. Not only does this belittle the lived lives of queer people, but it also denies that their psychological longings and desires have any meaning. This is heterosexist.

To live one’s queer identity—an identity outside of the heterosexual imperative as well as the binary—is not just an act of resistance to patriarchy (though it is that), it is also a declaration of one’s sense of self and a rejection of unlivable social norms.

This courageous act is what empowers queer people to become, in effect, sites of sex/gender deconstruction and thus promote a transition from gender rigidity to gender fluidity.

Jung’s attitude toward homosexuality was ambivalent at various points. He sometimes considered it to be immature or even perverted, but at other times he allowed that it must have some kind of purposeful psychic meaning for the individual and for the collective (see Hopcke, 1989, especially pp. 50–66).

In other words, he could not make homosexuality fit his theory of contrasexuality, but he also could not deny that expressions of the psyche must have some kind of purposive meaning. In the end, however, he simply insisted that the inner “contrasexual” must be projected onto the “opposite” sex and opted for compulsory heterosexuality. This is, of course, another prejudice that needs to be addressed by Jungians via questions such as the ones that follow.

Is it not more likely that any “contrasexual” traits in the unconscious of men and women are there because we’ve all learned to repress any traits thought to belong to the “opposite” sex in order to conform to social norms, to “pass” as our assigned sex/gender, and to practice the “appropriate” sexuality?

Might it not be reasonable to think that traits Jungian theory assigns to the anima/animus are actually aspects of the disowned self that we call shadow? Couldn’t that be what gets projected onto an “other” regardless of sex/gender?

Is it not probable that “contrasexuality” is a device intended to privilege heterosexuality and prop up Jung’s obsession with opposites?

Doesn’t the existence of queer people demonstrate that the coniunctio does not require an anatomically “opposite” other?

Is it not time to consider deconstructing and dismantling the limiting and normalizing concepts of anima/animus, masculine/feminine, and contrasexuality? (see Cowan, 1994, for ideas about this).

After all, as Mudd reminds us: “Our understandings of the nature of the genders are now radically shifting, and as they do Jung’s concepts of the anima and animus have become obsolete cultural artifacts” (Mudd, 1998b, p. 8). Plus, Mudd says: these are “potentially harmful stereotypes” that should “be dropped from contemporary usage” (p. 9).

I think Mudd has it right:

Evolution is now inspiring people to diversify, to find different lifestyles and different forms of relationship that move away from reproduction as the central feature of relationship. Many worldwide social movements can be viewed as manifestations of this process of human diversification. (Mudd, 1998b, p. 9)

And, in that context, heterosexuality would not be the norm—just one form of sexuality. That is, we can get beyond the binary while still allowing space for those who identify as binary, heterosexual, etc. There is room for everyone in a system that does not set unnecessary and unlivable norms. We do not need to try to find a way to make Jung’s theory of the anima/animus work for queer people, as some have done—which, frankly, for me seems like colluding with Jung’s heterosexism.

All we need to do is to adopt a nonbinary or pluralistic sex/gender system that makes life livable for everyone (as Ashok Vaid-Menon, 2020, so graciously describes in their tiny but exceptionally poignant book).

7-Predetermined goals for the individuation process

All of the problems I’ve discussed above are problematic because they set preordained norms for sex, gender, and sexuality, thus impeding or even prohibiting the individuation process for so many of us (not just queer people).

Like Mudd, I find this to be “ironic given [Jung’s] insistence on individuality” (1998b, p. 8). For example, it contradicts Jung’s assertions that individuation entails:

the development of the psychological individual as a being distinct from the general, collective psychology. […] its goal […] the development of the individual personality” (CW6, §757),
a personality of “incomparable uniqueness” (CW7, §266).

Frankly, I don’t see how we can develop our own unique personality if we are constrained by a variety of unnecessary and restrictive social norms that are unlivable for so many of us, queer or not. As Mudd puts it:

Theory, at its best, informs clinical interpretation, and if we interpret the analysand’s material according to Jung’s formulations about the anima and animus and the nature of gender, we run the risk of forcing men and women into identities that can bind and injure the unfolding individual self. We can unwittingly insist that a kind of collective conformity for each gender is a desirable goal, and mutilate rather than support the self’s realization. (Mudd, 1998b, p. 4)

Jung actually seems to have been aware of this when he acknowledged that the “prevention [of individuation] by a levelling down to collective standards is injurious to the vital activity of the individual. […] an artificial stunting” (CW6, §758). Unfortunately, however, that somehow did not prevent him from developing some concepts that are ultimately injurious to everyone’s individuation.

An additional issue, it seems to me, is that restricting individuals to a set of “appropriate” and externally-imposed sex/gender qualities, in effect, requires each of us to be one-sided, that is, to be limited forever to the particular qualities falsely associated with the sex/gender one was assigned at birth.

Does this not prevent us from truly responding to the call of the Self?

Even though some of us are somehow able to hear that call above the din of the heterosexism and homophobia that surround us and to find the courage to pursue our unique paths—some of us are not. “Queer people don’t grow up as ourselves, we grow up playing a version of ourselves that sacrifices authenticity to minimize humiliation & prejudice” (Leon, quoted in Carter, 2024, p. 344).

Of course, this can be true in various ways for non-queer people as well.

We all suffer a variety of wounds as we somehow try to hear the call of the Self as we make our way through life. The bottom line for me is that the goal of individuation cannot be to arrive at a predetermined outcome, but rather to achieve one’s own unique form of individuality.

Queer or not, the individual must be free to respond to the call of the Self and to follow it wherever it may take them (limited only by the condition that we at least try not to harm others in the process).

In terms of Jungian theory, this means that Jungians must stop endorsing theories that advocate a “levelling down to collective standards”—including in the context of sex/gender and sexuality.

So, the obvious question is: Why did Jung establish such kinds of norms?

I don’t think it’s enough to argue that these were simply the norms of the day—especially given his belief that “the normal person does not exist” (Jung CW10, §206) or that “[t]he normal man is a fiction” (CW17, §343).

Rather, I think that these norms must have seemed necessary to him in order to make all of his preconceived ideas about opposites, othering, sex, gender, and sexuality fit together and work like a well-oiled machine. I wish that he could have instead followed his pointing finger—but he seems to have left that to us.

Closing thoughts

In Lesbians and Lesbianisms, I wondered what it is that lesbians contribute to the collective. Today I wonder the same thing about the people living under the queer umbrella.

What previously unknown, unconscious, unthought “something” might queer people be carrying for the collective?

Surely, it’s something that inevitably refutes what Young-Eisendrath claimed in a 1997 essay: that “no one can be both genders or sexes, and there is no third possibility” (p. 229). Queer people, by our very existence, challenge this claim, and we represent a form of resistance to the norms that are unlivable for many, not just queer people.

The queer community offers humanity a transitional space in which conventional ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality are liberated.

I believe this reflects Jung’s belief in the purposive quality of the psyche—something Downing described perfectly: “others who choose different paths from our own do so on our behalf. They live for us as well as for themselves” (Downing, 1989, xvii).

In other words, the queer community, by its very existence, contributes to the individuation of the collective (and of analytical psychology, if we allow it to). I’ve come to understand this as an expression of the transcendent function.

Remember: an important aspect of the individuation process is that it typically involves both conscious and unconscious components. The tension between these two opposing forces can trigger the transcendent function, which can then generate a “living symbol” (Jung, CW6, §828), “a living, third thing […] a new situation” (CW8, §189) that can help reconcile the opposites.

And, since the « transcendent function does not proceed without aim and purpose” (CW7, §186), I cannot help but believe that the queer community is such a symbol, one meant to call everyone’s attention to new ways of thinking about individuation, especially in the context of sex, gender, and sexuality.

Such new ways of thinking will demand that Jungians pay more attention to all of the problematic areas I’ve been discussing, and that we become willing to understand and think about why each is so problematic.

This brings up something that has long confounded me: why is it that so many Jungians who, at least in my experience, are not personally or intentionally sexist (or heterosexist or homophobic) continue to cling to an inherently sexist (and heterosexist/homophobic) theory?

Why do they not want to disentangle Jungian theory from the binary sex/gender system and recognize that this system, as well as the Jungian theories that support it, are destructive to human thriving? The binary sex/gender system did play a part in producing the problematic aspects of Jung’s theories, but analytical psychology then became a purveyor of them.

Even sadder is the fact that analytical psychology continues to collude with the norms of an antiquated binary sex/gender system that requires individuals to check one of only two boxes: male or female.

While this system has experienced some pushback from various progressive sources, we are also now seeing the rise of powerful reactionary forces intent on pushing us back into the dark ages of chauvinistic prejudices.

I think it is time that those of us who call ourselves Jungian allow Jungian theory to evolve into a system that rejects the two boxes in favor of a fluid and pluralistic theory of sex/gender and sexuality, a system that follows Jung’s pointing finger.

But how can Jungians choose to follow Jung’s pointing finger instead of remaining tethered to classical Jungian theory?

How can we rehabilitate Jung’s theories into a nonbinary or pluralistic sex/gender/sexuality system?

Simply put, we must become willing to revise Jungian theory in a spirit of recognizing what has become obvious: sex is not binary or immutable, gender is not “natural” or tied to sex, and “normal” sexuality is not limited to heterosexuality. This will mean:

Being willing to let go of the binary system, which will require that we de-throne binaries from being the norm and instead allow every person the freedom to evolve an identity that makes sense to them (or even to reject the concept of identity altogether). If some feel comfortable identifying as binary, that’s fine; but not everyone must be required to do that.
Addressing and re-visioning the problematics I’ve been discussing (and possibly others).
Cultivating new critiques of, and insights into, Jung’s ideas about sex/gender/sexuality in order to get to the root of the problems and to follow through on some of Jung’s unrealized heretical notions
Integrating relevant new knowledge from other disciplines.
Incorporating new understandings of Jungian theories into Jungian training programs.

Undoubtedly, the task I’ve outlined is ambitious and would demand both individual and collective efforts, but I believe this is what it will take for us to bring Jung into the 21st century.

If we care about Jung, we must find ways to make analytical psychology relevant to and expressive of current realities and knowledge.

We cannot do this if we insist on remaining frozen with Jung in outworn ideas about sex, gender, and sexuality.

I feel sure that if Jung were still here with us, he would want us to be as transgressive, radical, heretical, and subversive as he was and that he would want and expect us to trace the implications of his pointing finger rather than simply “stare in adoration at” it.

Would this not demonstrate a deep appreciation and affection for Jung? And would it not reflect something Nietzsche once wrote: “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels?” (2006, p. 269).

Is it not time for us to also remember something Jung once wrote:

We miss the meaning of the individual psyche if we interpret it on the basis of any fixed theory, however fond of it we may be. (CW17, §173)

June 2026

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Claudette Kulkarni, PhD

Claudette Kulkarni is a retired Jungian psychotherapist living in Pittsburgh, PA (US). Over the course of her career, she served as Clinical Therapist/Supervisor in several non-profit agencies, including a local LGBTQ mental health center. Her writings have been mostly focused on issues related to the LGBTQ community and motivated by a desire to fondly, yet radically, critique Jung’s theories on sex, gender, and sexuality. She is a member of the International Queer Jungian Initiative. She can be contacted at ckulk44@aol.com.

Publications

She is the author of Lesbians and Lesbianisms: A Post-Jungian Perspective (Routledge, 1997). Her most recent book chapters are:

In the wake and shadow of “The battle of the sexes”: A new myth arising. In I. Burnett (Ed.), Re-visioning the American psyche. Routledge, 2024.
Queer theory meets Jung. In N. Giffney & E. Watson (Eds.), Clinical encounters in sexuality: Psychoanalytic practice and queer theory. Punctum Books, 2017.
The whole person: A paradigm for integrating the mental & physical health of trans clients (with S. Kirk). In M. Shankle (Ed.), The handbook of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender public health. Harrington Park Press, 2006.

Article

Jung’s pointing finger: Sex, gender, and sexuality

Jung’s pointing finger: Sex, gender, and sexuality