Harry Benjamin Syndrome and the Trans Rights Movement

It looks like HBS advocates want to join transphobic radical feminists in accusing the so-called “transgender movement” of ruining things for everyone else.

It really helps to read some of the HBS writings to see where they’re coming from with regards to transsexualism and transgenderism. It also helps to read some quotations from actual online discussions. Yes, Drakyn does refer to some HBS advocates as bigots, but look at what they write about transgenderism in general, as well as those who continue to identify as transsexual:

Many of course will continue to see our condition as being transsexualism and many others, for whatever their reasons, will list transsexualism as a sub-set of transgender. Of course that is not correct and never was but for some they found comfort in not being linked to any term with ‘sex’ in it. Now they, those with true HBS, have no reason to make any claim but that they were born with the syndrome. We ask that a competent psychiatrist or therapist dealing with the condition to make a reasonable confirmation that the patient has Harry Benjamin Syndrome. It should not simply be a claim made by someone that they suffer from HBS as has often been done in the past with transsexualism. It should be a verifiable medical condition as is the proper procedure with almost all physical maladies. 

Of course there will be some who will continue to use transsexualism and transgenderism to cover and mask what they really might be, sexual fetishists, sex merchants, exhibitionist, cross-dressers, delusional transvestites who ‘go the extra step’ and opt to have a ‘sex change’ so as to enhance their fetishism. They wish to mimic women but do not have the inborn need to be women physically reflective of the brain. Many call themselves lifelong pre-ops and even non-ops and never desire the affirmation surgery. To refer to them as having HBS is not only a misnomer but also an insult to those who actually have the syndrome and to those who have had corrective surgery that affirmed their body to their brains.

HBS advocacy is also tied up in some degree of heterosexism:

Harry Benjamin Syndrome is not in any way connected to sexual orientation nor should it be ever be compared to any deviance. It is a medical anomaly that often is compared to other conditions wrongly thereby causing great stress upon those with the syndrome being put into categories in which they do not and should not be placed. Those with HBS do not change gender and do not suffer from what had been commonly classified as transsexualism. Their brain gender at birth was not in need of correction even if that were possible. And, in reality, those born with HBS do not need to trans their sex since the brain sex was already set and only the genital sex needed correction so as to be affirmed with the brain.

Of course, this stuff is pretty tame as compared to a particular HBS-oriented blog. For example, the blog author sought to criticize a two-part article I wrote back in November:

Recently, while surfing the web I came across a blog in which the author posted a treatise entitled Sex, Lies, Transmisogyny, and the Heteronormativity of BDSM, pt 2.  It was placed by the writer under her following blog categories: BDSM,  MWMF,  Oppression Olympics,  anti-transgender feminism,  feminism,  horizontal oppression,  lesbian,  transmisogyny,  transphobia, and  transsexual. 

Yeah…that’s what I thought too.

Having no interest whatsoever in reading what is clearly psuedointellectual rubbish, to put it kindly, I did find myself wondering what type of person would read something so contrived and meaningless.  Skimming to the bottom of the page, I found to my surprise there were no less than 32 comments by readers who evidently did find the epic worth the effort.  I also found out who might be interested.

The author dismisses the article on the basis of the title (based on the article I was fisking, “Sex, Lies, and Feminism” from the Questioning Transgender Politics website) and the tags and categories I used. A casual reading of “Enough Non-Sense” shows that many of the posts show little more thought than this - aimed as they are at attacking the “transgender movement,” delegitimizing it, and presenting it as a pack of pretenders, deviants, and perverts. Read the comments in the above quoted post, where several HBS advocates blame the LGBT movement for society viewing trans women as invalid women:

You are absolutely right when you say that men often leave HBS (Harry Benjamin Syndrome) women “because heterosexual society teaches him that transsexual women aren’t real women, and that being one makes him somehow gay.” I really don’t think anyone would argue that point.

However, though it’s not because the very vast majority of transgender activist use big words, it is because of what they say and their political position. And, I think many people would argue that.

It is all but impossible to find a transgender activist blog or web site that does not make it perfectly clear they fully support the GLB and the associated T. And THE issue is that association of the GLB with the T. It is that association that teaches, to use your term, the heterosexual mainstream.

Of course, looking at the quote in Drakyn’s blog post about “HBS bigots,” you can see an HBS advocate basically laying the blame for any discrimination or bigotry that trans people face at those trans people’s feet - it’s not because society really views trans people as invalid in our proper gender, it’s because we bring it upon ourselves. Transphobia and transmisogyny apparently didn’t exist prior to adding the T to LGBT.

But read the posts on “Enough Non-Sense” and see what HBS advocates bring to the table, and then read Cathryn’s lament on why there’s so much friction between HBS advocates and those of us who do not identify as HBS. For my part, I have little sympathy for HBS advocates because their definitions are restrictive and often bigoted. I have seen HBS advocates describe trans women who have not had surgery as “penis people,” and similar dehumanizing terms. They play gender gatekeepers, trying to establish a “trans hierarchy,” with them at the top as the only legitimate “women.” They insist that any true trans person (defined as HBS) will be able to pay for every aspect of transition - hormones, psychiatrist, surgery, electrolysis, etc - without any serious trouble, and those who cannot are simply not genuine.

Do I hate them? No, but I view them as categorically wrong and selfish. Uninformed and strangely unaware of the realities of living as a trans person, especially a trans person of color, or with low income, or with health issues that make surgery risky. Their viewpoint is black and white: You’re either exactly like them, or you’re a cross-dressing pervert.

And, of course, they’ve provided Heart with inspiration to yet again blog about how horrible trans people are. As is usual, Heart is quick to agree with anyone who is willing to say horrible things about trans people.*

Heart makes it clear she doesn’t even understand the debate she’s trying to comment on:

Evidently the objections of post-op transwomen are resulting in the kinds of no-holds-barred attacks from non-op transpersons (who never intend to “op” nor even live as women most of the time) with which some of us are all too familiar.  I mean, what’s wrong with you. 

Ignoring the fact that I absolutely loathe “non-op.” “post-op” and “pre-op” because of what they mean (”This is what my crotch looks like”), Heart simply assumes that Cathryn’s characterization is correct - that all trans people who disagree with HBS advocacy are automatically men who wear dresses and nothing more - no hormones, no surgery, and apparently no men who were born female-bodied. This is remarkably convenient for her to believe, since it lets her rush into bathroom panic scenarios, and discussion about how trans women are not and can never really be women like cis women are:

Being a woman is about being mistreated by patriarchy because of our female bodies.    That mistreatment — in whatever its form — is what female persons know and share as women.  It’s what those who have not lived as female persons and women do not know and so they dismiss what we, as women, say about our lives, our realities, our fears, what we need.  Sometimes they don’t just dismiss, they steamroll over us, and so far, there has been little we could do about that.

This paragraph is ironic because Heart talks about trans women dismissing and sometimes steamrollering over her. This is the same cis woman who implied another blogger was guilty of plagiarism because said blogger used goddess imagery and is a trans woman, and who would not allow this blogger to respond on womensspace. She also aggressively moderates her blog to keep dissenting viewpoints to a minimum, and has been known to aggressively edit some of those dissenting viewpoints.

In my opinion, Heart presumes too much. She believes that it is impossible for trans women to understand womanhood, but is also more than willing to describe every aspect of a trans woman’s experience - this is a contradiction, but one inherent to privilege. It’s normal for people with white privilege to tell people of color what their lives are like, for able-bodied people to tell people with disabilities what their lives are like, for heterosexual people to tell gay men and lesbian women what their lives are like, and for cissexual people to tell transsexual people what their lives are like.

But this is a contradiction, a paradox. If a cis woman’s life is completely opaque to me as a trans woman, then I fail to see how a cis woman could possibly understand my life. If Heart wants to make sense, she should either stop describing what she thinks trans lives are like (considering that she’s so tied up in her prejudices, she’s pretty much always wrong), or she should accept that trans women experience more of womanhood than many radical feminists are willing to admit.

I’m not really addressing Heart’s basic argument - most of my early posts already address the foundations of radical transphobia and she literally has nothing new to add on this front, and hasn’t for the six years I’ve seen her online.

The beautiful and talented Queen Emily adds this in comments, which I wish I’d thought to say:

Yeah. The patently obvious problem is this:

HBS people advocate rights for only one kind of trans* person - a post-operative trans person. They not only sneer and disrespect any other version of transgender, but actively campaign against other trans* people having rights before surgery. The comments on Transadvocate, where the HBS Leigh said she’d fire pre-operative transgendered people, report them to the police, and so on are indicative of this.

This HBS woman suggests that a transgendered world would end in paedophilia and constant rape, in the lurid terms fundamentalist Christians use to describe gays and lesbians:

http://ts-si.org/content/view/2872/995/

“Shut the hell up and don’t trouble the gender binary” is the very clear message from HBS. How exactly this fits with Heart’s brand of womyn-identified-womyn radical feminism I do not know. HBS is not progressive, indeed at worst it’s actively opposed to some pretty basic tenets of feminism. As you point out, it’s hugely homophobic.

In contrast, the transgendered organisation I work for supports rights trans* people NO MATTER their surgical status, and we have a very clear feminist ethos. But I guess, the enemy of my enemy is my friend for Heart..

* Heart should be aware that HBS advocates are fond of homophobic posturing, and Bailey has written on eugenics, and wrote a paper on why it’s morally okay to abort homosexual fetuses identified in the womb. Just being transphobic (internalized or externalized) probably shouldn’t be the best reason to rush to their side and join in on the trannie condemnation, you know?

Burning Bridges, Building Walls, Selling Out: Transphobes in Trans Woman’s Clothing

I nipped over to Questioning Transgender’s bibliography page, and found a link to an article titled “Building Bridges,” by Jenny Roberts, who is on the transfeminine spectrum, but clearly states “As to M to F transsexuals, we can never be real women.” This article is hosted on the Vancouver Rape Relief website, along with their other transphobic articles.

Of course, there’s nothing that keeps trans people from also being transphobic. Going back to The Unapologetic Mexican’s glossary, I find The White Lens, which describes how people can see the world through the lens of white privilege, even if they’re not white themselves. Similarly, trans people can see the world through the lens of cisgender privilege, even though they’re not cisgender themselves. This is even easier for trans people to do, as we’re extended cisgender privilege until we out ourselves as transgender. If people realize we don’t fit quite as well into our gender as one would expect, they might assume that we’re gay or lesbian, but they’re not usually going to expect that we want to change our bodies to match the other sex. The defining element of cisgender privilege is the belief that trans people’s genders are not as valid as cis people’s genders - or “you can never be a real (wo)man.” Trans people can hold this belief - the first trans woman I met, right before I transitioned, held that belief. I believed it for several years. Jenny Roberts clearly believes it. I’ve had trans women tell me that keeping trans women out of women-only spaces is not in fact discrimination.

In addition, for white trans people, there’s usually a serious lack of understanding of what it means to be a minority, and beginning transition puts you into minority status. As Monica Roberts points out:

The other insane thing in the transgender community is turning a blind eye to people who sell us out. To my white transgender brothers and sisters, frankly you are newbies at operating in the political world as a minority. You not only needed people of color involved in your organzations from the outset because we have intimate knowledge of the coalition politics necessary to operate in this environment, we’re used to it. Transsexuality cuts across all cultural, racial, economic and demographic lines and the leadership in the community needs to reflect that reality.

You can no longer think and act the way you did when you were part of the majority group. You have to have morally principled leaders as the heads of your organizations. Selling out cannot be tolerated or rewarded. If these sellouts prioritize their personal ambitions over advancing the group as a whole and are going to act as facilitators in concert with our oppressors to divide and conquer us and cripple our community, then they need to be isolated and expunged from further political activity on behalf of that group they have betrayed.

She’s talking about political activism, but since Jenny Roberts is trying to engage in political activism, I believe it’s relevant. Specifically, Jenny doesn’t get that you don’t earn respect by selling yourself or your sisters out, that you don’t get anything in return when you barter away a piece of yourself. That voluntarily tokenizing yourself as a model minority for a group that hates you only marginalizes you further.

You can read the entire letter here.

It may be a women’s hostel, a rape-crisis centre or women-only social space. But, increasingly, women’s groups all over the country are experiencing a difficult conflict: whether or not to admit M to F transsexuals. Understandably, many lesbians have reservations and some are totally opposed. It is, after all, an ex-man, insisting that she is a woman, who is demanding equal treatment. Quite naturally, there are fears about the dynamics of the group, about the vulnerability of some members and perhaps, if we are honest, a feeling that the transsexual is an alien being whose presence is simply not appropriate — or comfortable.

Notice that she immediately defines three types of spaces a trans woman might not be welcome in. One of those spaces is a rape-crisis center. She is saying that because trans women are “ex-men” (thus validating the beliefs that transphobies hold about us - that we really were men who wanted to become women), that we’re “an alien being whose presence is simply not appropriate.” Now, I can just imagine a trans woman who is a victim of rape or domestic violence, who needs protection, a safe space, needs to recover, being told that she’s too alien to be allowed into these shelters. Seriously, I can’t imagine calling any human being “too alien” based on any traits not under their control. Just how badly does Jenny Roberts regard trans women that she can say we’re not deserving of needed protection, that our safety is not as important as others? She might argue that she was only describing how the women at these places might view trans women, but I think it’s telling that she lays it on the table without hesitation.

The problem here is that she’s not trying to build a bridge. She’s trying to burn one, or perhaps just build a wall. She’s saying “We can’t expect inclusion because we’re too weird and unsettling for real women,” which means she’s already surrendered her gender’s validity without a fight.

She talks about how trans women will feel upset and rejected if not allowed into these places, and says:

Inevitably, dispute and upset follows. Some of the women feel threatened, and differences and divisions often occur over what should be done. Meanwhile, the rejection leads the transsexual’s insecurity and battered self-value and she often responds in the only way she knows — with male aggression and anger. The resulting conflict damages us all — transsexuals and born-women alike — and it particularly upsets those of us who understand what it means to live among other women and share a community.

She correctly points out that the rejection will lead to trans women suffering insecurity and battered self-value - which isn’t surprising. I mean, if you’re told you can’t come in because you’re a second-class woman, not the equal of any real woman, you’re not going to feel too chipper about it. This is doubly true if you’ve suffered domestic violence and need protection because your spouse might decide to beat you up some more, or maybe even kill you, or if you’ve suffered rape. Imagine telling a rape victim that she can’t seek rape counselling because she’s black, or lesbian, or because she has a disability, and these traits unsettle the other women at the shelter? Jenny then goes on to assert that trans women respond to these insults in the only way available to us - with male aggression and anger. Okay, so what is male aggression and anger in this case? It’s a stereotype, like the offensive statement that “trans women take up too much social space.” Our anger is labeled as male because we were born male. It’s almost like the Original Sin. She then finishes with a statement that this male anger upsets the rest of us who know how to live among other women. There we go - she really believes that she has a higher consciousness, a higher sense of awareness, a greater connection to women, because she’s willing to throw all the other trans women under the bus?

She continues with an explanation that, as I quote at the start of the article, “Well, let’s be clear on one thing from the start. As to M to F transsexuals, we can never be real women.” She goes on to explain that we all grow up with male privilege (original sin again!) and can never shed it. That we’ve been taught to demand what we want and compete for it. And she manages to slip in the stereotype that trans women see womanhood as a superficial thing, with hormones, dresses, and makeup. She’s in full-blown sellout mode here, and has internalized one of the central radical feminist attitudes about trans women: That we grow up immersed in uncomplicated male privilege. That our lives before transition are, internally and externally, completely identical to those of cis men.

I’ll acknowledge that trans women have experienced male privilege. But, and this is huge, most of us grow up absorbing mixed signals. We perceive ourselves as girls, but we have boys’ bodies and are treated as boys. Many of us are feminine, and the world is not kind to those seen as feminine boys. So, we grow up, seeing ourselves as girls, seeing what’s expected of girls, absorbing that, seeing what’s expected of boys, and trying to mask ourselves with that. We can’t help the absorbing, nor do I think would we want to. We have to do the masking, it’s a matter of survival. I know that I was aware of male privilege - I could see how other girls were treated, how boys were treated, and how I was treated. I didn’t know it was called male privilege, and I probably didn’t spot every instance. I know that getting bullied from kindergarten through the 12th grade, that being mocked for being gay, that hating every minute of being seen as a boy, did not give me the kind of upbringing one would expect a cisgender boy to experience. But further, that statement underlies the assumption that genitals trumps everything - that every male-bodied child grows up the same, that every female-bodied child grows up the same, and that other factors don’t matter. That class, race and other factors don’t have any effect - or if they do acknowledge that other factors are important, growing up trans is still dismissed as “growing up with uncomplicated male privilege.”

This also ties into another problem. An assertive cis woman is self-confident; an assertive trans woman is exercising male privilege. An angry cis woman is angry; an angry trans woman is giving into male anger. A cis woman who enters a woman-only space is where she belongs; a trans woman who enters a woman-only space is an alien ex-man invading a space he doesn’t belong in. What is this? Other. Other. Other. Our experience among the male-bodied has - as Jennifer Roberts explained - othered us permanently. Rendered us less than human:

But, however understandable it may be, demanding equal treatment is not acceptable or productive. However strongly we may identify as women, as transsexuals we need to acknowledge that we are different. We don’t know what it’s like to grow up as a girl in a male-dominated society, we’ll never experience women’s puberty and menopause, we can’t conjure up the social experience of growing up female, or know what it’s like to bleed. Of course we approximate the physical shape and we may well consider that, inside, we are all the same as born-women fell. But, demonstrably — and however much you may wish otherwise — we cannot be the same. If we can learn to respect difference openly, then we can embrace the solution that it offers.

We are supposed to accept second-class treatment because of our trans status. What kind of language is that? She says we cannot be the same, but that’s not a problem. Black women are not all like white women, who are not all like chican@ women, who are not all like lesbian women (and many lesbians are black, white, chican@), and many women - lesbian, bisexual, or heterosexual, black, chican@, white, asian - are trans. We have so many intersections that make us different from each other before you take individuality into account. Take any two white women - they aren’t going to be the same. Any two black women? Not the same. Any two lesbians? Not the same. Any two trans women? Not the same. We’re all different, and when you pick an arbitrary difference and say that it is not acceptable or productive to demand equal treatment because of that difference, you are practicing discrimination, prejudice, bigotry, transphobia, transmisogyny, racism, homophobia, ableism, classism, sexism. I do not care if you belong to the minority you are deriding - being a trans woman does not mean anything you say cannot be transmisogynistic or transphobic. Being a woman doesn’t mean you can’t be sexist against women and misogynistic. Being a black man does not mean you cannot be racist against black people. You can’t claim minority status to excuse you from bigotry against your own minority. Own your shit, Jennifer Roberts.

She includes some advice on how to learn how to be a woman, you see…because trans women need special tutors and mentors to show us everything about being a woman. We can’t be trusted to get there without a cis woman to guide us. Now… I’ve learned a lot about womanhood from other women, but not once did I learn anything from a woman who paternalistically tried to tell me that I wasn’t being feminine enough - except, maybe, that some people are quick to spout self-serving criticisms to discredit you.

She closes with two paragraphs, starting with “Being accepted into the lesbian community is a gift that can only be given by others.” Now, for a cis woman, the only requirement for getting into the lesbian community is for her to say she’s a lesbian. Thanks to lesbian feminism, she might not even need to be an actual lesbian to get in on this, she can take the identity for political reasons, and for many women (including many lesbians), this is acceptable. Personally, as a lesbian, I find it pretty awful that heterosexual women are willing to claim the lesbian identity on the basis of refusing to sleep with men, rather than desiring to sleep with women. However, they get a free pass into lesbian country because they were born with a vagina. Now, trans women on the other hand, are supposed to earn our way into the lesbian community? Seriously? Even when we’re legitimately attracted to other women?

The basis for this need to earn welcome? Demanding equal treatment is not fair. We’re too mean, too demanding. Wanting to be treated like human beings - like women - is too much to ask of cis women, of lesbians. We have to work twice as hard to prove ourselves half as good.

Jenny goes on to say that this gift is a gift we earn “by respecting difference.” When she says that, she means respecting cis women’s differences, as cis women are not obligated at all to respect our differences. If we say that we’re women, and we deserve respect, then we “do not deserve acceptance.” That there is no excuse for “arrogant, confrontational behavior,” that we are damaging the community. That asking to be treated as equals undermines the efforts “the rest of us are making.”

Respect cannot be bought through a sex-change operation. It has to be earned. And if trans-women can both give and earn respect then our world and yours can be just fine.

I keep misreading that second sentence as “And if trans-women can give up respect, then our world and yours can be just fine.” She frames the situation as if both sides are equal - equal power, equal social standing, equal validity, but this is obviously not the case. Trans women do not have the power in this exchange - she advises that we give up what little we might have and allow others to define us to earn respect - but you do not earn respect by bartering away your identity. We do not have equal social standing - if we did, we’d be recognized as women without question, just as cis women are. Equal validity? That reduces our own sense of identity, our gender, to a matter of opinion. We believe we’re women, and the transphobic lesbian and feminist women believe we’re not. If we allow the debate to be held on those terms, we will never be regarded as women. When it comes to our identities, our genders, there can be no compromise. We must have self-determination, or we have nothing.

Jennifer Roberts bartered away her self-determination, identity, and gender in exchange for having a voice to barter away her sisters’ self-determination, identity, and gender. It seems to me that she got a bum deal. I won’t have any part of it.