Your Seven Centers Don't Have a Gender: Rethinking Chakras for Trans and Non-Binary Bodies

Pick up almost any mainstream chakra book in an American yoga studio and you'll probably run into language that feels... binary. "Divine masculine." "Sacred feminine." Sacral chakra descriptions tied to the womb. Root chakra language anchored in a kind of embodiment that doesn't fit everyone. For a lot of trans and non-binary folks, this stuff lands like a door slamming shut on a tradition that — if you look deeper — was never actually built that way.

Here at TransDharma, we believe the ancient wisdom of dharmic traditions belongs to all of us. And when it comes to the chakra system, the deeper you dig into the original texts, the more you find a framework that's way more fluid and expansive than the wellness industry tends to let on.

Where the Chakra System Actually Comes From

The chakra system as most Americans know it is a 20th-century synthesis — part classical Tantra, part Victorian occultism, part New Age remix. The original Sanskrit texts, including the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana from the 16th century, describe chakras as wheels of subtle energy (prana) moving through the body's energetic architecture. They're not gendered in the way modern wellness culture implies. They're relational — describing the interplay of Shiva (consciousness) and Shakti (energy), which are cosmic forces, not human genders.

That distinction matters enormously. Shakti isn't "woman." Shiva isn't "man." These are metaphysical polarities that exist within every being, regardless of how they move through the world.

Maya Rivera, a trans Latina yoga teacher based in Los Angeles who has studied Tantric philosophy for over a decade, puts it plainly: "When I went back to the primary sources, I realized the binary framing I'd been taught was a colonial overlay. The original system was talking about energy, not anatomy. That realization was genuinely healing for me."

The Root Chakra: Belonging in Your Own Body

Muladhara — the root chakra — sits at the base of the spine and governs our sense of safety, groundedness, and belonging. In traditional teaching, it's associated with the earth element and our most primal sense of being here, in physical form.

For many trans people, the relationship with physical embodiment is complicated, layered, and deeply personal. Dysphoria can make the body feel like contested territory. But practitioners like Rivera argue that's exactly why muladhara work is so powerful for the trans community.

"Root chakra practices aren't about loving the body you were assigned," Rivera explains. "They're about learning to inhabit the body you're becoming. Grounding isn't about staying where you were planted. It's about finding earth wherever you stand."

Practices like walking barefoot, working with the color red, or simply placing both hands on the lower belly and breathing can be reframed as acts of claiming — not accepting a body that doesn't fit, but anchoring into the process of becoming.

Svadhisthana and the Creativity of Self-Definition

The sacral chakra is where things get especially fraught in mainstream chakra teaching. So much of the Western wellness world has tied this center to reproduction, to "womb wisdom," to a very specific kind of female body. It's alienating — and it's also just incomplete.

Svadhisthana governs creativity, pleasure, flow, and emotional fluidity. Jaylen Okafor, a non-binary dharmic counselor and meditation teacher in Brooklyn, works with clients on reframing this energy center entirely.

"The sacral chakra is about your creative life force," Okafor says. "And honestly, what's more creatively powerful than crafting your own identity from scratch? Trans people do this incredible work of self-authorship that most people never attempt. That is sacral energy. That is svadhisthana in action."

Okafor encourages clients to work with this chakra through creative expression — writing, dance, visual art — and to consciously release any inherited shame around pleasure and desire.

Anahata: The Heart That Holds Everything

The heart chakra, anahata, is often described as the bridge between the lower, more physical chakras and the upper, more spiritual ones. It governs love, compassion, grief, and connection — both with others and with ourselves.

For trans folks navigating family rejection, social isolation, or the quiet grief of years spent performing a self that wasn't real, anahata work can be profoundly tender territory. Rivera describes her own heart chakra healing as inseparable from her transition.

"Coming out cracked my heart open in every direction," she says. "I lost some people. I found myself. The heart chakra isn't just about love that feels good — it's about the capacity to stay open through all of it. That's the real teaching."

Breath-centered practices, compassion meditation (metta), and even simple chest-opening yoga poses can support anahata. But Okafor also recommends something less conventional: grief rituals. "You're allowed to mourn what transition cost you while also celebrating what it gave you. The heart is big enough for both."

Vishuddha: Speaking Your Truth Out Loud

The throat chakra governs authentic expression, communication, and the courage to be heard. For trans people — many of whom have spent years suppressing their voices, their names, their pronouns — vishuddha carries a particular charge.

"Coming out is a throat chakra act," Okafor says. "Every time you correct someone on your pronouns, every time you introduce yourself by your chosen name, you're doing vishuddha work. You're vibrating truth into the world."

Chanting, singing, journaling, and even simply saying your own name aloud in the mirror are practices that can support this center. Some trans practitioners work with the Sanskrit seed mantra HAM (pronounced "hum") as a daily affirmation practice.

The Higher Centers and the Liberated Self

Ajna (the third eye) and Sahasrara (the crown chakra) point toward something beyond individual identity altogether — toward the part of us that witnesses, that knows, that exists beyond labels. In many dharmic traditions, this is where the concept of atman lives: the soul-self that is neither male nor female, neither trans nor cis, but simply awareness.

This doesn't mean identity doesn't matter — it absolutely does, especially in a world that constantly tries to erase trans lives. But these higher chakras offer a complementary truth: at the deepest level, you are whole. You always have been.

"I tell my students that the chakra system is a map of the journey home," Rivera says. "And home isn't a gender. Home is knowing who you are all the way down."

Starting Your Own Practice

You don't need a fancy studio or a teacher who "gets it" to begin working with your chakras through a trans-affirming lens. Start small:

• Root: Spend five minutes barefoot on grass or earth. Breathe into your belly. Say aloud: I belong here.
• Sacral: Create something — anything. A doodle, a playlist, a poem. Honor your creative force.
• Heart: Try a simple loving-kindness meditation. Start with yourself.
• Throat: Say your name. Say your pronouns. Let them land in your body.

The chakra system, stripped of its binary overlay, is a genuinely beautiful tool for the kind of whole-self healing that trans and non-binary folks deserve. Your energy centers were never gendered. They were always yours.