The HBS Controversy and the Fun of Fallacious Reasoning (And For The Uninformed: GID)

[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.

Comments

Points not taken...

[tgnonsense.wordpress.com]

HBS was an attempt to further remove and define those who were Benjamin Type V and Type VI True Transsexuals from the transgender movement after they, the transgender, hijacked the term transsexual and sanctioned its use by anyone on the planet who presented some form of gender variance. And, as a note, you say that “true transsexualism” is a fabricated word which is completely false. Benjamin used that term too many times to count to differentiate that group from transvestites, crossdressers, and everyone else that is not considered “transgendered.” Many of the more fanatical proponents of HBS have succeeded in giving it a reputation that few ascribe to. Nonetheless, the concept was admirable even if the approach has so far failed miserably.

At the onset, I might say you are quite right in saying that no absolute definitive cause for transsexualism has been found, but there is a general consensus that it is due to hormonal anomalies occurring in the very initial stages of pregnancy. And, to that, one can add roughly 200 other papers to the premise that transsexuality is a medical issue and anything but a sociological one…so I wouldn’t be discarding your biology just yet.

On dysonnance’s blog and related to you essay you say:

“Transsexual is still a scientific term. Just like you said, it isn’t up to us. And even if we do wrest control and own the word eventually, there will still be a scientific term describing the phenomenon of transsexual folk and will be inclusive or non inclusive to those not “pure” enough by the HBS folks, the transsexual separatists, the transsexual gender essentialists or whatnot’s standards, based entirely on the standards of science. Not on the standards of anyone outside of science. So really, why are people thinking that gay folk and whatnot are responsible for the way transsexual is set up? The gay, lesbian and bisexual folks, with the trans folks that wouldn’t be categorized as transsexual did not make these categories. Science did.”

No offense, but that paragraph says quite a lot about your lack of knowledge on the issue you are writing about. Particularly the part of where you say: “So really, why are people thinking that gay folk and whatnot are responsible for the way transsexual is set up? The gay, lesbian and bisexual folks, with the trans folks that wouldn’t be categorized as transsexual did not make these categories. Science did.”

Science had nothing to do with setting up transgender, the term was and is an invented word popularized by those not transsexual, but gender variants primarily associated with the GLB. The transgender then decided that transsexual was a part of that group; nothing could be further from the truth…the only people who believe that are the transgender themselves. It may surprise you, but if you had been around 15 years or so ago and said you were transgender most of the people who you were talking to wouldn’t have even had a clue what you meant.

Those of us who are true transsexuals are not separatists for that implies that at some point we were actually a part of the transgender…and we have never been. We are not elitists either, we are no better than they are. But…we are very different. We are not something less than or other than women…we are female. And we have no intrinsic tie to the GLB or Homosexual T “just because”. We have the same position as the mainstream does…a women can’t have a penis…and males can’t have babies. No female on the planet would ever, ever want to retain their penis…guys simply don’t want to conceive children…all of that is the result of the transgender gender benders everyday clap trap and living in the fantasy that anyone can just say they are something and they will be it.

You also say above in your blog post:

“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.”

That’s also incorrect. Just because someone is gender variant, transition to female, and even though you don’t mention it, even be successful, doesn’t mean the person is transsexual, it only means that it is a man who is successfully living as a female in a social role. True transsexuals transition in a social way and much more importantly, do so physically as well via GRS…surgery being the dividing line between true transsexuals and everyone else. And while there evidence, though not definitive proof as to a medical, biophysiological reason for true transsexualism, there is exactly no proof that transsexualism has a social cause.

And, finally, you say:

”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.”

You are right, that there are many, many different experiences of GID. But even though true transsexualism is listed as a GID (initially done so in part to legitimize our GRS), the story of our experiences are all generally the same: we knew we were different from an extremely early age, and as soon as we realized GRS was an option we moved hell and high water to have our surgery.

HBS

[(Anonymous)]

Whether Harry Benjamine Syndrome(HBS) is or is not a real medically defined condition, or whether or not it is linked in any way to an intersexed condition, it is besides the point of what HBS proponants are trying to accomplish.

The original concept of HBS, which appears flawed and irreversibly damaged, was to differentiate Type V and Type VI transsexuals from the transgender who hijacked the term and sanctioned its use by every other gender variant on the planet. I am not an HBS'r myself, and I have argued against their claims to intersexuality and specifically, that all HBS individuals are aware of their intersexuality prior to 4 years old. Personnally, I cant even remember that far back in my timeline, but I am sure I was not concerned with pink v's blue diapers or what mum and dad refered to me as.

As a post op women of transsexual history with 24 years since SRS and almost 30 years since I first attended the Charing Cross Gender Clinic, I prefer to think of my history as a "classic" Transsexual, i.e. one that conforms to Benjamine's original hypothosis on transsexuality. That does not make me an HBS'r, yet I am accused of such. I do believe that there are "true" transsexuals, I am not so sure it's an intersexed condition.

The concept behind HBS, and one that I support, is that a line is drawn between the notion that anyone, at any age, and with any background, can claim to be a transsexual, and that the numbers of such people doing so, are growing exponentially. Gender variants, from Crossdressers to Gender Queers are claiming transsexuality where none exists. They use the transgender and GLB platforms to assimilate and colonize classic transsexuality, replacing long recognized medical acceptance with gender theory and gender spectrums. They would seek to create laws suited only to their world view, adjust sociatal norms to a grudging acceptance of their ideas that a woman can have a penis, or that a man can give birth.

As a classic transsexual, these "new transsexuals" are no more than fakers to me. I know of no true transsexuals that are willing to retain their birth anatomy. HBS may be a made up term, but then so is transgender. Colonization of transsexuality by the gender spectrum advocates, demeans those transsexuals that have sought to simply resolve a birth defect and assimilate into their target gender. ost of us, HBS or not, have no wish to be a part of any group, not HBS or Transgender, and certainly not the GLB which seeks to affiliate anyone it can under its roof to build it's percieved numbers and approval.

In either regard, transgender dogma that states that all transsexuals are also transgender, is a form of colonization in the same way as when termites invade a house, the purpose is not to live as one with the house, but to devour the house. HBS advocates and classic transsexuals are not willing to allow that to happen.

[snugglebitch]

The information revealed is pretty damning. The transsexual individuals had brains identical to cisgendered people of the same birth sex.

They studied seven trans people. Seven. Six trans women and one trans man.

You have taken statistics, right?

[(Anonymous)]

You have dealt with some thorny issues here and you should be commended for that courage. Too bad that in your clear intent to be provocative you allowed personal bias and a lack of current knowledge to destroy your argument and as a result I’m afraid you’re going to find yourself sucking on your foot.

HBS was a concept established with the intent to take transsexual out of transgender which is after all a social and political construct. Since transsexual is a recognisable and clearly defined medical condition it has no place in an artificial social construct like transgender. The intent of HBS supporters was commendable but unfortunately failed to make it clear that the standards of care they established were intended only as suggestions to the professional medical bodies concerned. Whether that was as a result of Charlotte Goiar or her supporters handicap of language is probably moot. The fact is the intent of the movement was to take back ownership of transsexual from those who had no fundamental right to it in the first place. In short the concept was correct the execution awful.

It’s interesting you have chosen too cling to GID and the DSM to legitimise your position. GID as a diagnosis and it’s presence in the DSM is as I am sure you are aware currently under review. In any event it was a diagnosis created by John money based on a premise that we are born without a pre ordained gender. His belief was that gender was a learned through social conditioning. His proof was an experiment conducted with the Reimer twins. 20 or more years on the twin raised female was suffering extreme trauma and reverted to the birth sex. Money’s great experiment failed. So the whole GID concept was proven a farce.

Most people fail to understand the difference between sex and gender. Sex is not solely the act of copulation. It is also the genitalia of a mammal insect reptile fish or plant for that matter. In human terms we uniquely are “self aware” and a part of self awareness is which sex we are. In the case of transsexuals that self awareness is in direct conflict with genitalia. Gender expression plays a very secondary role in that unlike other more psychological syndromes or paraphilias.

You refer to research work in your essay that deals with the effect of hormones on the structure of the brain. It is interesting research and is in it’s very early stages and by no means complete or conclusive. There are a great many things that remain in question. Some pretty conclusive research shows that transsexuals are born with a hypothalamus more typical of the sex opposite the genitalia. If the research to which you refer was at all conclusive one might suppose that flooding a male to female transsexual with a female hypothalamus with testosterone may cure the patient of their transsexuality. Unfortunately it’s been tried and simply caused a great deal more distress than transition would ever have caused.

One thing is very much established the definition of transsexual centres around the sexual identity of an individual in relation to genitalia. Where a person is able to function in a gender role or lifestyle opposite to their sexual organs there is no valid diagnosis of transsexuality possible.

Evangelina

Whoa

[ariablue.wordpress.com]

You seem smart, if unfocused. I think you can do better.