[personal profile] recursiveparadox
For those that remember the last post about people finding cisgendered offensive based on some of the most fallacious and stupid reasoning applicable, don't forget, trans people are just as capable of fallacious silliness.

When in comes to fallacious arguments and pseudoscience, no one does it better than the Harry Benjamin Syndrome proponents. To give you a reasonably good idea of what they're claiming would require me to suspend about 90% of my biology knowledge, beat my head against my desk until it became numb and try very hard not to make the wtf face that my friends are so very familiar with nowadays.

I will do my best for you. But first, there may be uninformed cisgendered people here. Cisgendered people who (provided they haven't ran off from being so offended by the word cis) may want to know what Gender Identity Disorder (which is certainly not HBS) entails first. A point of comparison if you will. It's blindingly simple to describe so it isn't necessary to make an entire For The Uninformed post for it (but to be helpful, I will put a tag for GID and a For The Uniformed tag on this post).

For the Uninformed Mini Section: Gender Identity Disorder

Put simply Gender Identity Disorder (or GID for short) is a mental disorder wherein one exhibits a persistent (meaning it doesn't go away) urge to exhibit traits of a different sex. These traits may be the somewhat ethereal and short lived cultural elements assigned to a given sex. Or these traits may be a simple self conceptualization and involvement with the social group of a given sex. Or these traits may be the actual physical bodily structures that arise from the developmental path of a given sex (not necessarily all of them either). Or all three. GID doesn't specify, so it covers an epic shit ton (technical word) of symptoms.

GID is often characterized by dysphoria, which causes this urge and is persistent in and of itself. This dysphoria has triggers and normally the triggers are traits of one's birth sex. It's often described as a feeling of foreignness or wrongness to one's body parts and/or social and cultural roles and expectations and/or sociological group and conceptual description as assigned at birth.

Okay, maybe not so simple. My fault for being a biologist and loving technical terms. To make it a little bit less sciencetastic: Your body's sexed traits (penis, breasts, vagina etc) and/or your grouping in society (guys, chicks or androgynes), and/or your social/cultural roles and expected expressions (how society expects you to behave) causes you to hurt a lot and makes you want to change one or more of those things.

Ending of For the Uniformed Mini Section!

Transsexuality is more of a phenomenon then a disorder, it's the phenomenon in which individuals with the conditions described by GID (or other folk with different issues) seek out, attain or finish a process known as transition. This transition can be physical or it can be social or it can be both.

So what does this have to do with HBS? After all, HBS's website claims that it is an intersexual condition wherein the mind is the only section that possesses the traits of another sex (whereas more commonly intersexed folk may have genitalia and physical structures that do not strictly follow a male or a female development path alone). That doesn't sound much like GID right?

Well actually, "HBS sufferers" (you will find out why I used quotes shortly) experience dysphoria, often seek out physical and social transition and are pretty much entirely medically and conceptually described by the phrases "GID" and "transsexuality". In fact, the HBS people like to claim that HBS is "true transsexuality". Well shit. So that makes things a lot more interesting now, doesn't it?

First problem: HBS claiming "true transsexualism" (as a medical version of the word transsexuality, which is a fabrication in and of itself, as transsexualism is essentially the exact same damn thing) is a No True Scotsman Fallacy. In case you abhor hyperlinks, a no true scotsman fallacy is based around circular reasoning wherein the actual data or definition of a concept is ignored and counterexamples are dismissed as not being true so and so.

So if I were to say, "all MtF transsexuals like high heels," and then someone else were to dispute that by saying, "I don't like high heels and I'm an MtF transsexual" and I responded with, "you're not a true transsexual, therefore your example doesn't do anything" it would be circular fallacious reasoning based on misuse or complete ignorance of a definition.

Transsexual's definition does not specify a brain intersexed condition. It doesn't even really specify dysphoria or GID. So to make claims about "true transsexuality" or worse yet to attempt to pretend that transsexualism is a medical term replacing a political term, when those claims involve things that have nothing to do with its definition (while simultaneously dismissing all counter examples as not real transsexuals) is the textbook example of No True Scotsman.

And that is exactly what HBS proponents do.

Wait, it gets worse.

GID is established in the medical community for America and written into the DSM (diagnostic statistical manual, the book used to diagnose and keep track of the disorders that the psychological sciences know of). It has essential equivalents in the ICD (what the World Health Organization uses for the same purposes as the DSM). It's backed by the psychological field and biological field's research and the methodology of treatment has been tested and is detailed in the standards of care put forward by WPATH an organization of medical doctors, psychiatrists and other biology and psychology related scientists. It's also accepted by the American Medical Association (which is usually a good sign for its scientific authenticity)

What does HBS have establishing it? Well... nothing actually. It's a theory presented by a layman (an admittedly latently sexist word for non-scientist) named Charlotte Goiar and expanded on by more laymen, all of whom are transsexual and personally invested in HBS being taken as reality by the medical field. This theory is based on a flawed study that tested the brains of dead transsexuals who had already undergone hormone replacement therapy against the brains of dead cisgendered folk of the same birth sex who underwent no HRT. A study done in the 1990's I might add.

The reason why this is flawed? Because exposure to estrogen or testosterone changes the brain, as established in this study published in 2006. Oh and the fun part? They based this study on a group of people with GID and a group of people without it, took brain tests using MRIs and whatnot and then exposed the people with GID to hormone replacement therapy. Which not only tests to see whether HRT changes the brain but also establishes what a pre HRT transsexual's brain looks like.

The information revealed is pretty damning. The transsexual individuals had brains identical to cisgendered people of the same birth sex. After HRT, the transsexual individuals had brains nearly identical to cisgendered people of the same sex as their target sex. So this idea that trans people have intersexed brains? Completely and utterly unscientific. To the point where you can arguably state that the evidence used to back up the hypothesis has been scientifically disproven.

As a note: This is not to say that there couldn't be elements of the brain's structure that we can't detect with current methods that are sex specific and could contribute to or actually inflict GID on someone if they were mismatched with the external birth sex. But the only study used to back up the idea of "intersexed minds" has been disproven so HBS has been relegated back to layman unbacked hypothesis. Any attempt to claim that it is scientific, empirically proven or backed by research is at best shoddy pseudoscience and at worst outright willfully ignorant lying

So the whole HBS thing? Fallacy and a lack of scientific backing. Good times. As Laura from Laura's Playground has cautioned one should not take the HBS proponent's standards of care seriously, nor should one take what they say seriously. The fact that they continue to peddle this abhorrent pseudoscientific garbage as scientific and medical fact is a pretty good indicator of either willful ignorance or outright self inflicted delusion. Not a great bunch to be taking advice from.

There are a few people though (especially because of the note above) that would ask, "well isn't it possible that they're still sort of right? That there might be an intersexed brain condition or something causing GID?"

Perhaps. But something that is important to remember is that anyone who claims that they know the single cause of GID is either full of shit or doesn't understand how the disorder is named and defined.

You see, when I went over GID above, you'll notice that it is (basically) a name assigned to a collection of symptoms. The name doesn't yield a whole lot of idea about what might cause these symptoms and if you look around, you'll find that there's not a lot of ideas on what any causes might be. Considering the sheer numbers of substantially different experiences of dysphoria, transition and whatnot had by various trans people who still meet the definition for transsexual and meet the diagnosis of GID one would be hard pressed to make a viable argument that GID had one single unifying cause.

Like most disorders named after a collection of symptoms (like Multiple Personality Disorder was before it became DID) you really don't know if there's multiple causes. Whereas a disorder that is named including a causative agent (Dissociative Identity Disorder, same effects as MPD, but caused by dissociation fragmenting one's identity and self conceptualization into multiple individuals) can definitely be shown to have a single cause.

So to sum it up GID does not contain a cause mention, nor do scientists really know the cause(s). And people with GID have had really radically different experiences. What does this say, logically? That it is highly likely that GID is multicausal. This means that there could be an intersex brain condition version of GID (maybe called Neurological Intersexuality Disorder if it exists, is discovered and split off). This means that there could be a sociologically and psychologically induced dysphoria version of GID (after all, there's a few folks out there for whom the body is not the issue but the way society treats them is). This means that there could be a self conceptualization version of GID, unrelated to society (which would probably still be called GID if others are split off, honestly). This means, overall, that there could actually be quite a few different types of GID caused by different things (going beyond even what I listed above).

All of these versions (with the exception of hypothetical ones that defy what we do know about the brain, body and GID) are possible because nothing about what we know of GID suggests that any single cause is responsible for every case of it. So when people start talking about "true GID" or "real GID" or "the real cause of GID" they are, for lack of a better way to say it, full of shit.

Always good to keep that in mind for medical trans discussions.

Re: Two points

Date: 2009-09-09 05:01 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dyssonance.wordpress.com
Sibyl,

The limitations of your argument are quite dependent on your knowledge base.

To start with, you or I, as individuals, knowing a few people who agree with us is not evidentiary of support for positions.

Indeed, it's projective and appropriative to speak on behalf of others by saying what they are or are not solely on the basis of those yu know when there are obviously others who claim the same thing in direct oppositon.

Were your thesis to be formed on the basis of such and submitted, it would fail within your first couple paragraphs alone, and npt because of any philosophical disagreement, but on that singular basis of it being an unfounded speculation.

In short, the very thing you are accusing this "TG" complement of doing is the same thing you are doing, in assserting so -- especially without a basis in any sort of widely accepted factual understanding.

The definiton of transsexual, as a medical condition, is what drives the understanding of the general public's conception of transsexuals. A conception that is substantially identical to the general public's understanding of transgender as well -- tht is, in the mind of the public, a transgender peson *is* a transsexual, and vice versa -- which was the point of using those definitions in my essays.

To speak more specifically about who is and who isn't, you do have to go to the mdeical definitions, and there you find that the idea of a transsexual is not so rigidly fixed that your argument holds up, as a matter of current fact.

So, again, you are using a personal and unfounded opinion as a qualitative measure, which is not only unscientific, but extremely risky in terms of social argument, since it would, ultimately, end up turning on you.

The definitions of transsexuals for the last 55 years at least have expressly and explicitly included non-ops -- making your assertion more a political statement than an actuality. This was also something I showed in my golden calves essays. The first one, in fact, lol.

Which is fine by me -- you are welcome to create your own personal identity group and call it whatever you wish -- even transsexual. However, if you are going to use transsexual, then you really can't exactly sit there and complain when its pointed out that your discriminatory use of such is actually predicated on what, in the most basic of realities, is a lie.

Because you are then trying to assert your personal illusion over the understanding of the rest of the world.

No, I don't actually think that you intend to belittle anyone. I think you are going to great lengths to have a reasonable conversation.

In sociology, that "human desire for neatness" you note is called social reductionism. Fewest categories to cover the most common structures. It is not neat and clean, and is not inherently meant to be so, linguisitically (This is why "man" still has the sense of neutrality behind it).

In the overwhelming majority of cultural forms, that reduction has led to a conflation of GI and SO and resulted in the creation of a third gender structure in the society, even in situations where the particulars of the language may be dichotomous or binary.

This includes in western cultures -- its the superimposition of the religious basis and structure that created the strongly perceived binary itself, and our current understanding of that binary was pretty fixed in the 1500's or so.

Interstingly enough, this "unified theory of gender issues" you are speaking of is something that is unique to the populations of people who an be grouped under descriptive concept of trans. That is, the only people to speak of a "unified theory" deal are trans folks -- by which I mean transsexuals, transgender, cross dressers and the whole host of other ones.

The rest of the world is divided into two camps: the general population, and academia. Academia is behind the concept of gender and gender structures itself -- and has been for a very, very, very long time (I've tracked at least 70 years, thus far), and the people who did so were nice and simple cisfolk. And they postulated, as early as 1952 in peer reviewed publications, that it was a continuum, or, more accurately, an inverse wavewith male on one end and female on the other. And this was separate from the work done on SO.

So, again, the suggestion that this is a new thing is unfounded. What *is* new is that now we know that gender identity and sex identity are inherent within an individal, are two separate things. This is a signifacant change as it was thought until '99 or so (only 10 years ago) that both these things were learned with any certainty (and what a certainty it was).

So, in fact, they *are* a muddy mess. And always have been.

Except among the general public, for whom the basis of primary and secondary sex characteristics was "good enough for government work".

The backlash you are talking about is not due to the complicated nature of that fact -- if such were the case, then it would have been that way in the 1960's.

And this is because as far as the science shows, they are, indeed, not separate issues.

There are separate needs for the varying effects of that, but the underlying commnalites are greater. In short, all suffer from some form of dysphoria, with transsexuals suffering it to the greatest degrees. This is also reflected in the treatments for the diagnosis. However, it was not always that way. Due to prejudice and sexism, for a long while the only one's to get treatment were white people (because it was decided that ethnic folks couldn't have it and thusly this was a "white" disease) who conformed to social sex roles as described under pre-1970's terms. This held until the mid 80's.

Nor does the right see us as the cutting edge of destroying family values -- its only been the last 18 months that we've seriously een on their radar, and they still have issues attacking us (indeed their most effective methods for dealing with us are to actually talk about something else).

And I can say that with absolute certainty because I taught them a lot of the tactics to use in that fight in the 97 to 04 years.

For them, as long as one passes, they don't give a damn, just don't come within a thousand feet of them.

Gay peeps on the other hand, are a whole different story.

In short, *they* know there is a difference.

You get read more now because of media exposure. Stories and information put out about us. In the last 5 years there were as many stories published about trans issues as in the entire 40 year prior to that.

The fastest growing segement of the porn industry is transsexual porn -- and its *only* market is straight males.

In short, the last 5 years have meant a 3000 percent increase in exposure to us. That, more than anything, is what scares you.

Oh, and the idnetification issues are all directly related to the security measures taken following 9/11. All of which happened *before* the increase in exposure.

Diamond is the leading researcher -- not the only one. Indeed, he's pretty much past his heyday in terms of papers, much as Blanchard is today. He's just the most influential because he's always held that it was inherent (inborn).

Literally thousands of others have done the research. THe top minds in the field are probably about 350 total across 9 different sciences.

And all of them feel that the *best* treatment is to stop you from ever needing to change. That is, change your mind, not your body.

Just so you know that.

The current treatment protocols are the best they can come up with for the capabilities of the day.

Lastly, the only people who seem to feel the way you do are a relatively few transsexuals, like myself, predominantly white or white identifiedm from a middle class backgrond, typically with ties to the more conservative parts of the country in their childhoods.

Otherwise transsexuals know when they are transsexuals. The rest are still trying to figure out what they are and how their voices sound. They all know, quite well, they they are not transsexuals, and are extremely vocal about not liking to be called transsexuals.

Genderbitch: In ur gender, revealing ur privilege

Hi.

This is a blog. About transsexuality, feminism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, GLBT stuff and etcetera (check my tags for more on that). This is also an angry blog.

You might see me as slightly antagonistic. Oh well. I incite because I am trying to push people into thinking, discussing and breaking out of the stagnant bullshit of privilege. Which needs a nice firm kick quite a bit. Sometimes to the head. If I need a nice firm kick too, make sure to distribute it because well, I'm not immune to privilege either. XD

Anonymous (account-less) commenting is allowed but please sign it with an alias or name. I reserve the right to delete useless trolling, hate language and attempts to out my name or out anyone else here.

Welcome to my space. Take your shoes off, stay a while. Use the fucking coasters.

~R.P.

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