The Trans Separatist Betrayal Lives on in a New Form

Blair White is one of the most aggressive
trans separatists today, and she is actively
making fun of trans women who do not
live up to her conservative standards.

Those who have followed my blogs for a while, will know that I have argued against transgender separatism, people who think they are so much more trans than other transgender people that they have the right to decide who is in and who is out.

These "Harry Benjamin Sydrome supporters" and, more lately,  "truscum" or "transmedicalists", have all bought into the extreme gender binary and hate the idea that "normal people" should think of them as anything but a 100 percent man or woman.

(As if any cis man or woman is 100 percent male or female...)

Quite a few of them (but not all, I am glad to say) then  throw all other trans people under the bus, using a lot of traditional transphobic arguments in the process, the most obvious being that (”false”) trans women are scary, sexual, predators.

These two videos by karviday give a very good, although depressing, view into the world of transgender panics and how transphobic bullying tacts  are used by younger transgender separatists. None of this is OK.

Americans believe "transgender" means "transsexual"

Those who have followed the transsexual/transgender debate (or "war", rather), will have seen that a major argument made by so called "classic transsexuals" against the umbrella term "transgender" is that it mixes up real transsexuals with crossdressers, crossdreamers and the genderqueer.

Because of this, they are trying to change the meaning of "transgender". They use it as a term for every type of transgender condition they do not like, and would like to keep the term "transsexual" for the real women.

Transsexual is not the same as transgender

I have no problem with limiting the use of the word transsexual those that have undergone surgery, who plan to do so or who want to transition. But the attempts at splitting at turning the umbrella term "transgender" into a label for everything perverted, makes me angry.

This is not because all crossdressers and crossdreamers are the same as transsexuals. Most of them are not.  Most of the male to female crossdreamers and crossdressers do not even identify as women. Nor do the female to male crossdreamers and crossdressers always identify as men.

Click on comic to enlarge!

That does not stop them from having a lot in common with transsexuals, though. They all are, like the transsexual men and women, suppressed by people who feel threatened by those who do not adhere to the gender stereotypes of the day.

And whatever the classic transsexuals say or believe: The real bigots out there do not accept any male bodied person who feel like a woman.

What is even more important, though, is that there a quite a few crossdreamers and crossdressers who actually suffer from severe gender dysphoria. Some of them again are actually transwomen.

If you ban every transwoman or transman who has ever crossdressed or crossdreamed from the transsexual family, there won't be that many left.

The American public supports transsexuals

It now turns out that the term "transgender" does not undermine the status of transwomen and transmen in the eyes of the American public.

It, is in fact, the non-transsexual transgender who are under threat, including many of the readers of this blog.

A study made by the Public Religion Research Institute seems to indicate that overwhelming majorities of Americans agree that transgender people should have the same general rights and legal protections as others.

Here is what they say:

• Overwhelming majorities of all major religious groups agree that transgender people should have the same rights and protections as other Americans, including approximately 8-in-10 (83%) white evangelical Protestants, and roughly 9-in-10 Catholics (93%), white mainline Protestants (90%), and the unaffiliated (95%).
• Overwhelming majorities of Republicans (86%), Independents (94%), and Democrats (92%) also agree.

Given the toxic atmosphere of current American politics, these are mind blowing numbers, indeed.

It gets better:

HBS 3: What Harry Benjamin really meant

In this post I will take a look at what one of the giants of trans research, Harry Benjamin, really meant about what he called "transvestites" and "transsexuals".

The discussion of Rose White's book on the Harry Benjamin Syndrome and the idea that "true trans women" and crossdreamers belong to different species continues.

Read parts 1 and 2 first!

What about Harry Benjamin?

"So who are these HBS people that hold themselves clear and distinct from all other people on the planet?" Rose White asks. (Yes, that was a direct quote!)

"Put simply an HBS is a person who from first memory feels to be trapped in the wrong body just as Harry Benjamin described back in 1966."

But would Harry Benjamin have embraced White's book if he was alive today?

I can with great certainty say that he would have hated it!

Harry Benjamin

Harry Benjamin (1885-1986) was a German endocrinologist who late in life, in the US, started treating and doing research on trans women. His patient Christine Jorgensen made transexuals known in the US. His pioneering work remains very influential.

Benjamin was a man of his time and his use of language reflects that period, but all in all he was a very tolerant and loving man who embraced all trans women, including the crossdreamers, who he -- using the lingo of the day -- called transvestites.

Beyond the binary

In his book the Transsexual Phenomenon from 1966 Benjamin observes that:

"For the simple man in the street, there are only two sexes. A person is either male or female, Adam or Eve. With more learning comes more doubt. The more sophisticated realize that every Adam contains elements of Eve and every Eve harbors traces of Adam, physically as well as psychologically."

Because of this Benjamin does not operate with a binary system as the one of White (or Ray Blanchard for that matter):

"Coming back to the differences between transvestism and transsexualism, another simpler and more unifying concept and a corresponding definition may have to be considered. That is, that transvestites with their more or less pronounced sex and gender indecision may actually all be transsexuals, but in varying degrees of intensity.

"A low degree of largely unconscious transsexualism can be appeased through cross-dressing and demands no other therapy for emotional comfort. These are transvestites (Group 1).

A medium degree of transsexualism makes greater demands in order to restore or maintain an emotional balance. The identification with the female cannot be satisfied by wearing her clothes alone. Some physical changes, especially breast development, are requirements for easing the emotional tension. Some of these patients waver between transvestitic indulgences and transsexual demands for transformation (Group 2).

"For patients of a high degree of transsexualism (the 'true and full-fledged transsexual'), a conversion operation is the all-consuming urge, as mentioned earlier and as a later chapter will show still more fully. Cross-dressing is an insufficient help, as aspirin for a brain tumor headache would be (Group 3)."

Harry Benjamin was a "transgenderist"

So, according to Benjamin crossdressers and "true" transsexuals are different positions on a scale. Their "transsexuality" is the same (at least for some "transvestites" and transsexuals), while the degree of transsexuality differs.

He also refers to crossdressers who gradually move towards transitioning, exactly the kind of development White cannot accept.

"Nature does not abide by rigid systems," Benjamin says. "The vicissitudes

of life and love cause ebbs and flows in the emotions so that fixed boundaries cannot be drawn."

The Benjamin model

So how has it been possible for White to misinterpret Benjamin in this way? Well, she is probably projecting her own prejudices onto the book, reading what she wants to read.

Benjamin developed an interesting typology of the trans phenomena. Click on the image below to see his table.

Benjamin explicitly and repeatedly says that there are no clear boundaries between the columns, but White and others like her read it this way, because it gives them the order and exclusivity they so desperately need.

Benjamin does not deny the sexual slant to crossdressing. He also upholds the traditional theory that there are fetishistic transvestites, i.e. where the main focus of interest is on feminine garments. This he considers a sexual deviation. But at the same time he has a category of transvestites with a latent transsexual trend, where there is a "gender disharmony":

<- Harry Benjamin

"The second inception of transvestism is not fetishistic but in all probability the result of an inborn or early acquired transsexual trend of 'latent' character. (S.O.S. III). Those patients (like true transsexuals), invariably date the beginning of their deviation to earliest childhood. 'As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a girl' is a frequent part of their history.

"While it is quite possible that such statements may merely express the wish that it may be so, most evidence gained not only from patients but also from relatives points to the fact that transvestitic tendencies, in the great majority of all cases, were noted in the first five or six years of the child's life."

Benjamin is clearly confused about the cause of the different types of "transvestites". At the same time as he upholds a difference in etiology (cause) for the two types, fetishists vs. latent transsexual, he also opens up for biological men developing from fetishists to transsexuals:

"A sharp differentiation between a fetishistic and a latent transsexual inception of transvestism is not always possible. The fetishistic can gradually develop into the (basically) transsexual variety, as case histories have repeatedly shown me. The former, however, may well contain elements of the latter from the very beginning. Otherwise the initial morbid interest in one or several articles of female wardrobe would hardly have evolved into the desire for total 'dressing.' The basic transsexualism may therefore explain an occasional and, seemingly, progressive nature of transvestism."

How a fetishist can develop into a transsexual is not explained, but this is clearly what he says.

Closeted gay men

White repeatedly talks about crossdressers as being homosexuals. They are not, Benjamin says:

"The idea that transvestism may be a latent or masked form of homosexuality was expressed by several writers but particularly by the Viennese psychoanalyst, Wilhelm Stekel, and is still favored by some of his followers.

"The explanation seems simple enough, but to the unprejudiced clinical observer it does not ring true. Kinsey and his collaborators also consider it incorrect. There are too many clearly heterosexual transvestites and it could do no good to saddle them with another (the homosexual) emotional burden, a deviation that they often greatly resent and reject."

Benjamin does not conclude on the general etiology (cause) of all these phenomena, but it is clear that he is supportive of an "inborn, organic, but not necessarily hereditary origin."

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that White has not read Benjamin, she has not understood him or she is deliberately misusing his name for political purposes. I, a much detested "autogyne", am much closer to Benjamin's real position than White. Crossdreaming is definitely a Harry Benjamin Syndrome.

The Controversy

White's book is born out of an alliance of HBS trans women who aggressively fight crossdressers and crossdreamers, and who uphold the dogma that only they can be considered real women.

The Harry Benjamin Syndrome site is down at the moment. I have not been able to find out what has happened to it. "The Original Harry Benjamin Syndrome" site is up and running, though.

The group has been strongly criticized by people from the transgender community:

Laura of Laura's Playground originally sat up a site in support of HBS. She later turned it into a site against the HBS. She explains why:

"With such an impressive name you must be wondering how many medical doctors invented this medical syndrome? The answer is none. The inventor of this syndrome is a non-medical lay person. Charlotte Goiar claims to own the originating web site. Does this give her authorship? In addition permission was never obtained from Dr Benjamin's heirs to use his name. Can a layperson invent a Medical Syndrome? NO! Can A layperson write Medical Standards of Care for anyone? No! Can a layman change terms and definitions established for Transsexuals by Medical Doctors? NO!"

She says that in order to learn more she joined the Official Yahoo HBS Support Group, and found it to be an anti-GLBT group:

"People who asked simple questions and needed support, were diagnosed by militant members as being transgendered, perverts and fetishists. Gays and lesbians were also denigrated with frequent slurs. In fact those who did support GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] rights were banned simply for supporting them. "

Is this important?

Why do I bother writing about this? Well, like all transgendered persons many crossdressers and crossdreamers struggle with guilt, shame, confusion, depression and grief. The growth of the Internet have given them a new arena where they can reach out and get in touch with other transgender people -- a place to get help.

Too often their cries for help are met with hateful and derogatory comments from HBS trans women. These comments seem to confirm the prejudices found in the rest of society. I have been in touch with crossdreaming teenagers who have considered suicide after meeting such an aggressive lack of compassion. It is important that crossdreamers and crossdressers realize that this group does not represent trans women in general.

The HSB/CT position can be defended

My point is not that it is wrong to uphold the belief that "HBS women" or "classical transsexuals" are completely different from crossdreamers. I disagree with this approach, but the position remains a valid point of view. It is this hateful way of communicating I cannot stand.

Ironically it is actually easier to defend such a standpoint using a more complex approach (gender identity as the combined result of a large number of biological variables) rather than the essentialist position of the HBS group and the "classic transsexuals".

They need to find one and only one part of the brain that makes them female, which puts them completely at the mercy of a handful of researchers. One thing is certain: science constantly develops and what is considered the truth today may very well be considered to be old prejudices tomorrow.

Using the much hated "transgender" approach you can argue that a female gender identity appears when a sufficient number of "feminine" traits are present in a sufficiently strong degree. You could say that a biological male is female when the combination of traits have reached critical mass. If you pass that tipping point the gender dysphoria becomes acute, and it is impossible for that person to live a harmonious life in her male body. Using this approach it becomes perfectly clear that a trans woman is very different from your average crossdresser, even if they share the same etiology (cause).

The reason the HBS group is not following this approach is probably because it cannot be used to stigmatize crossdressers, crossdreamers and feminine gay men as perverts. Their fear of being associated with these groups stops them from taking the obvious route, even if this is the route Harry Benjamin took in the real world, and not in the fantasy world of White.

For them it is important to be understood as stereotypical women, so that there can be no doubt as regards their right to call themselves women. The very existence of crossdressers and transsexual prostitutes means that they may be associated with people they believe are perverts and degenerates. Regular men and women may suspect that they too are "perverts" of this kind, which is why they so desperately try to keep a distance from them.

They take this as far as trying to change the meaning of words in order to achieve this goal. To White the word "transsexual" has become tainted because of all the crossdreamer trans women. Hence the need for the HBS term. For "classical transsexuals" using the word "transgender" as an umbrella term embracing all types of gender variation is offensive, because the word indicates that they have something in common with people like me. The fact that they offend me by finding me so toxic, does not seem to bother them. The goal apparently justifies the means.

I would love to see a constructive and fruitful discussion on the various forms of transgender lives, what causes them and how you can learn to live with them, but that means that the HBS group will have to find a way of communicating that is more constructive than the one of White.

Further reading:

Charlotte Goiar, the founder of the HSB movement, has written a knol that describes the syndrome.

For a a more serious defense of the "classical transsexual" position, see Anonymous T Girl. She is also highly critical of the HBS culture.

Harry Benjamin Syndrome Revealed: The naked bigotry of some transwomen against others (Hontas Farmer).

I'm Glad I'm Not Like You (TransGriot)

Harry Benjamin Derangement Syndrome (Below the Belt)

Rose White’s Harry Benjamin Syndrome Review – a review (Zagria)

Harry Benjamin Syndrome - Transgender-haters putting the BS in HBS (Transboutique)

Three models of transsexuality (Mercedes Allen)

HBS 2: The science behind the Harry Benjamin Syndrome

In this post I continue to the discussion of Rose White's book HBS The Harry Benjamin Syndrome Comes of Age.

Continues from part 1.

She blinded me with science

Rose White argues that crossdressers and real trans women (who she calls HBS) have nothing in common. The origins of the two conditions are completely different. While HBS trans women have a natural brain based femininity, the crossdressers have not, she argues.

So what about the science White is pointing to? Does science really prove that HBS trans women belong to a different race than crossdreamers who choose to transition?

Misquoting

White quotes an article by Zhou, Hofman, Gooren and Swaab from Nature 1997 (my emphasis):

"HBSS Harry Benjamin Syndrome Sufferers have strong feeling, often from childhood onwards, of having been born the wrong sex. - A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female HBS's -- the size was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. - Investigation of genetics, gonads, genitalia or hormone levels have so far produced any results that explain HBS."

Those of you who have followed this blog know about this research already. It does indeed indicate that gender dysphoria may be connected to a biological male having a female sized BSTc - a brain region reckoned to be associated withgender identity. However, I could not remember that the four authors had mentioned the Harry Benjamin Syndrome explicitly.

I checked. This is what the paper actually says (and it is from 1995, not 1997, my emphasis):

"Transsexuals have a strong feeling, often from childhood onwards, of having been born the wrong sex. The possible psychogenetic or biological aetiology of transsexuality has been the subject of debate for many years. Here we show that the volume of the central subdivision of the bed nucleus of the stria terminalis (BSTc), a brain area that is essential for sexual behaviour, is larger in men than in women. A female-sized BSTc was found in male-to-female transsexuals. The size of the BSTc was not influenced by sex hormones in adulthood and was independent of sexual orientation. Our study is the first to show a female brain structure in genetically male transsexuals and supports the hypothesis that gender identity develops as a result of an interaction between the developing brain and sex hormones."

(Zhou, Hofman, Gooren, Swaab: "A sex difference in the human brain and its relation to transsexuality." Nature 378, 68-70, 1995)

HBS 1: The Harry Benjamin Syndrome Part 1

Some of you may have heard about the so-called Harry Benjamin Syndrome. It is a term developed by trans women who vehemently oppose any association between them and what I have called crossdreamers, among them crossdressers.

The argument is that science has proved that this particular group of trans women, the HBS women, are real women brain wise, and that transitioning crossdreamers and crossdressers are not.

In three posts I will take a look at a new book from the Harry Benjamin Syndrome camp, and see if their arguments hold water.

Please note that these blog posts refer to a use of language that many crossdreamers might find offensive.

Not in the Wikipedia

Fleur Black tried to get the following paragraphs into the Wikipedia:

"Harry Benjamin Syndrome is not the same as transsexualism or transsexuality but is the medical correct term for the very small group of people who genuinely feel to be trapped in bodies that do not match their brain.

"All who claims to be similar, but refuse to to accept the logic, tests, evidence and accuracy of HBS - Harry Benjamin Syndrome are bigots, fools, transgenders, transvestites, crossdressers or autocunniphilics."

(I love the word "autocunniphilics", a great pun on Blanchard's "autogynephilia".)

Violet Grey quotes this Wikipedia entry in her introduction to the book HBS Harry Benjamin Syndrome Comes of Age, a book written by Rose White.

"Unfortunately," Grey writes, "the Wiki board (...) allowed HBS to be lumped in with the transexualism label that many non-HBS crossdressing men claim in order to legitimise their autogynism and homosexual urges."

Harry Benjamin Part 2

Rose White is explicitly considering her book a continuation of Harry Benjamin's enormously important work The Transsexual Phenomenon. Benjamin had indeed argued that there were biological men who felt themselves trapped in a man's body.

White goes on explain why there is a natural continuation from his book, to the idea that the HBS syndrome is completely different from what people like me call other types of transgender conditions:

"Harry advanced the study of truly transexed people and codified diagnostic criteria that has still not been improved on despite the protestations of generations of transgenders and it is only fitting that the condition should actually be known as Harry Benjamin Syndrome - or HBS - to separate its sufferers from all the gay, lesbian, bisexual, crossdressers, transvestites, transgenders, genderqueers, autogynes, non-ops and others who claim to be afflicted with exactly the same condition that Harry found when in fact they have nothing but various degrees of mis-nurturing to account for their weird urges."

Not transsexual

One major point in the book is the need for a term that does not associate the HBS trans women with "transgenders". You may already have met classical transsexual activists that redefine the word "transgender" to mean autogynephiliacs and effeminate gay men only. White takes this line of argument to the next level, by arguing that the word "transsexual" has become tainted as well.

"In practices HBS do not like to have the word 'transsexual' applied to them as it has been adopted by a vast number of people who are not but not merely give the impression of being of opposite sex and/or gender to that they really are. Thus crossdressers, transvestites, genderqueers and similar claim the label 'transsexual' when in fact they are perfectly happy with their bodies and genitals and would not accept genital surgery if offered to them."

Naturally feminine

White argues that only HBS (and, I presume, XX women) are naturally feminine. All other transgender, wannabies, crossdressers, maningas (men how have SRS just for sex), non-ops are not.

The proof is that HBS' have a second puberty when taking female hormones, argues White:

"The MtF HBS shows it by behaving like stereotypical late teenage girls in taking delight in the changes brought to their bodies and faces by the estrogen regime and indulging in the love of shopping for fashions, makeup and accessories that so mark the teenage girls. (...)

"Now that we know about BSTc [a brain section that is thought to indicate a female gender identity] it is easy to realise that the truly-HBS brain will respond to the estrogen regime exactly as does the pubescent girl. If a wannabe transsexual does not show this adolescence to any great extent with an estrogen regime then the truth of the matter is simply that they do not have a female brain trapped i their male body!"

White goes on to say that watching a group of HBS women will be like watching a group of non-transgender girls:

"..the body and face language, ways of sitting, holding glasses or cups, and socially interacting will be totally female without any of the effeminacy displayed by gay men or the TGs. In comparison the TGs will sit and look exactly like blokes in frocks..."

The HBS girls are exactly the same as a non-transgender woman, White says. They even share their enthusiasm for high heels, colorful makeup, and bright jewelery. The book has a separate chapter on why HBS women love shopping.

(Seriously! I am not making this up!)

Painted nails

There is also a sales site for the book called The Harry Benjamin Syndrome Review. The site has a picture of a HBS woman's hand with painted fingernails. The ad explains that the picture was chosen to show that

"(...) to a HBS women finding time to do her nails and the money for pretty rings is important - those who claim to be HBS women but angrily assert they should not 'have to' follow such female pastimes are not really HBS or else they would 'want to' - this conundrum is explained in Chapter 14."

It isn't really. Explained in Chapter 14, I mean. Exactly how this test is supposed to exclude transitioning crossdressers is unclear to me. One thing is certain: trans women who find "pretty rings" less important are not real women, according to White.

What this means for non-transgender XX women with no interest in such female pastimes is not explained, either.

Crossdreamers are gay men in denial

White argues that her theory is corroborated by TGs [trangender people] being predominantly late transitioners with homosexual proclivities:

"I know one person like this who was the effeminate little boy and is now a unhappy unconvincing homosexual post-op who sits legs gaping and has zero femaleness -- not even a handbag! Others I have had short contact with dress as male as possible and hate women's shops!"

Th HBS women may "goodhumouredly" make fun of a real HBS woman's bad choice of an outfit, White says, but...

"...they will not sneer and snigger as they do over the simple crossdresser who they can see and sense has zero femaleness and only dresses for masturbation or to invade the woman's camp for some reason. These older women are all well aware that most men (sic!) get sexual thrills from dressing and that they look ridiculous with their lack of femaleness perfectly obvious in the ill-chosen finery."

HBS FTM transmen, on the other hand, will find that transitioning with hormones bring an increased enjoyment in drinks, cars, girls, and sports, according to White.

The bad and the ugly

White has a complex list of categories that helps her sort out the bad seeds: transgenders, maningas, amazons, fetishists, amputation fetishists, autogyne (a variant of autogynephile; she truly hates Blanchard but find his terms useful when it comes to dismiss fake trans women), malignant bisexual, homosexual, lesbian, pseudo-transsexual, regretters, drag kings, perverts, hermaphrodites, dual-moders, and so on and so forth.

The reason she makes this long list is to make sure that people know the difference between a real woman and the pseudo-trans women. In spite of her second puberty theory, White admits that it can be difficult to see the difference between a HBS and another person who has had surgery. I guess some of the "perverts" even have hand bags.

Her test of sorting out male perverts who want to look like women, by checking if they want to keep their male genitalia, is not fool proof either, as there are "autogynes" who go for the full surgery package.

"When these patients are healed and emerge they may be perfectly passable as the opposite sex or they may conceal their body modifications under the exactly the same styles of clothing they have wore all their mature life. Thus it can be impossible to know without direct confrontation and intrusive questioning if the person leaving the clinic is a HBS waiting to disappear into stealth, a lesbian too long on vaginal estorgen who now feels a flat chest better sums her up or just a man who got a vagina because he has seen the porn queens writhing and moaning in constant climax and thinks that if he had a vagina he would be able to have the same endless orgasms."

However, elsewhere she argues that a HSB person can easily spot another HBS among all the transgenders jostling under the transgender umbrella and instantly feel an affinity with them that is different from the feelings all the others engender: "How they do it is a mystery known only to HBS, " White says. She is right about that.

No homos please, we are British

I have tried to find out whether White allows for homosexual HBS', i.e. gynephilic trans women. I think not:

"Obviously everyone varies but by and large a HBS will have an internal image of themselves with a man and that man will be as idealised as any other woman's. This is in itself a marker of the difference between HBS and all other people under the TG umbrella who get sex change and choose same sex partners or get the genital surgery with sex in mind."

The HBS have many enemies:

"The enemies are Fouratist homos, the public, the press, bigots and fools, ignorant medics, penny pinching political manipulators, BRSS dykes, religious pedophiles, closet homos and unfortunately the unaccepting homos a.k.a. Manginas who themselves try to become HBS in the vain hope that masquerading as a woman will help them refuse to confess that they are just homos and not HBS."

Blanchard is Belzebub

White, who is British, wants the EU to get out of the clutches of the American psychiatric manual, the DSM, as this one is dominated by arch enemy number 1: Ray Blanchard. (The fact that the Europeans do not follow the DSM is apparently of no importance).

She often refers to Blanchard and his followers as BLZB (for Blanchard, Lawrence, Zucker and Bailey = Belzebub):

"He [Blanchard] is personally fixated on dreaming up all sorts of silly names for what are basically natural human conditions and persuasions and by doing so ensures that vasts numbers of people with simple desire to cross gender lines or go as far as sex change are labelled perverts, queers and freaks -- or has he has it peedoheebeejeebies, autogynes etc."

White is of course doing exactly the same as Blanchard does in her book -- i.e. labeling all non-HSB's as perverts -- but that is all right, I guess.

What does this all mean for crossdreamers?

White's use of language and complete lack of serious argumentation tell much of the story. I find it very hard to respond to this book as if it was a scientific, philosophical or political work. It is more like a piece of hateful extremist propaganda. It is homophobic, sexist and -- who would have believed it possible? -- even transphobic. It definitely undermines any serious attempts at turning the Harry Benjamin Syndrome into an alternative to the transgender narrative that presently dominate research and health care.

It is hard to imagine what could have possibly made White write this book. It could be that she has been urged on by others taking part in HSB discussion forums. But that does not explain why she ended up in those circles in the first place.

I have no problem understanding the existence of gay-bashers, racists, sexists and transphobic persons. Such people are normally driven by a deep sense of insecurity and a need to sort everything into neat and clean categories of good and bad, the clean and the tainted. Normally such persons project their own dark sides out on others, especially on people that do not follow the norm and they do not understand. By doing this they are able to generate a feeling of superiority and they get an easy target for their own frustration and anger.

But White is a transsexual woman. She has most likely been the victim of prejudice and bigotry herself. Like many transpeople she has probably been called a sissy, a fag, and a pervert, and she should therefore know better than copying the practices of her own tormentors.

But maybe this is the explanation. Maybe the crossdressers and the crossdreamers remind her of her own past, and the very fact that she once had the body and maybe even the mannerisms of a man. She therefore constructs this strange tale about this ultra-feminine stereotype of a second puberty, to keep the distance from a part of herself she would like to forget. If that is the case, we are witnessing a personal tragedy of gigantic proportions. Unfortunately that does not excuse what she is doing.

The classic transsexuals

There are some more serious activists out there who share White's contempt for "the trangendered" and who agrees with her idea that crossdreamers have nothing in common with what they call "classic transsexuals" (CT), even if they are angered by the bigotry of the HBSers.

So even if White's book cannot be taken seriously, some of the arguments require a serious discussion.

In the next two parts I will look into the basis for White's arguments:

1. Does the research she refers do really prove that there is a difference between HBS and what she calls "pseudo-transsexuals?
   
   
2. Would Harry Benjamin have supported her?

Postscript

Zagria believes the colors of Black, Grey and White are all names for the same "flower" woman, which sounds plausible to me.