by Hontas
The belief in the transsexual etiology known as Harry Benjamin's syndrome is a cult. Like all cults it has one kernel of truth fact to it that can be interpreted many ways. For Harry Benjamin Syndrome this truth is that one very limited study found a difference in the hypothalamus of transsexuals and non- transsexuals. From that one fact a whole belief system is extrapolated and presented in the cloak of science.
What is Harry Benjamin's syndrome.
I will let the websites of it's proponents speak for themselves. (www.Harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org ) I encourage anyone who is interested in this topic to read those websites and be fully informed. I will however point out three rather poignant passages.
Harry Benjamin's Syndrome (HBS) is a congenital intersex condition that develops before birth, involving the differentiation between male and female. It is believed that every 1 in 500 is born with this condition. Therefore a girl with Harry Benjamin's Syndrome would have a females brain sex but her genitals would appear male. The boys born under this condition have female genitalia even thought their brains are male. So far it's impossible to diagnose this condition at the moment of birth causing the babies to be raised in the wrong gender role. [1]
Of the diagnosis of Harry Benjamin Syndrome that same website states.
Harry Benjamin's Syndrome is distinctive in that it is a self-diagnosed condition; that is, people with HBS are exclusively aware of its presence and the onus for articulating its existence lies with them. Regrettably, most HBS patients are aware of it from early childhood, long before they are old enough to articulate its essence. As a result, they invariably suffer an existence of prolonged isolation and confusion. Ironically, once capable of understanding the nature of their dilemma, they are almost universally stigmatized into keeping it secret until such time as they can no longer tolerate suffering its destructive effects.[2]
On the feeling of having Harry Benjamin's Syndrome , same website says Ellen says:
By contrast, transgenders who claim they are transsexual, usually do not have SAS. Thye oftentimes use excuses such as: they have health problems (something which would never stop a HBSer from having SAS); or they don't want a loss of sexual sensation (this is a non-issue for a HBSer), or my wife will leave me if I have SAS, etc. Autogynephillics have no problem with their bodies (unlike HBSers). In their case, it seems to be a case of crossdressing being taken to an extreme. For them it isn't just enough to wear women's clothes, they also want to wear a woman's body, because they find the thought of having a woman's body to be a sexual turn-on. Transgenders and autogynephillics who have SAS, oftentimes wind up having serious regrets about having it, due to the fact that their fantasy turns out not to be the be-all end-all they thought it would be.
Unfortunately, due to the fact that many Transgenders,and autogynephiles have had SAS, they have given the public the misconception that they are the same as HBSers. People who suffer from HBS are actually pretty rare compared to transgenders and autogynephiles. Identifying those whose condition was biological in nature, as having HBS, separates us from the transsexual classification, and the negative connotations, that have become associated with this word. It also helps to emphasize the fact that once you have had SAS, you have dealt with HBS, and are done dealing with the condition, which helps to avoid one of the weaknesses that the the word transsexual has HBSers who are are past-SAS still considering themselves aspost-op transsexuals, even though the transing of sex is done. [3]
In the words of it's advocates that is Harry Benjamin Syndrome.
Venerating the goddess within.
In the passages above and throughout the websites I referred to there is a strong belief in a certain kind of authentic femaleness. That their exist within every transsexual who is not a transgender or Autogynphile. That this brand of femininity is one that can only be known from within and self diagnosed. A diagnosis that cannot be questioned or challenged. Furthermore there is a belief among them that their belief is a scientific fact.
This all has the same features as a religion or cult. In a religion there is a infallible leader or revered figure Jesus s.a., Muhammad s.a.s. , or Buddha, and now Harry Benjamin. The works of this figure are often misinterpreted or twisted to fit the beliefs of the believers. For example HBS is most often claimed as an etiology by non-homosexual transsexuals. According to Benjamin's original work transsexuals who were not attracted to men were not candidates for SRS. The venerated, revealed text in the case of the HBS notion seems to be certain books. The transsexual phenomena is not one of them. Instead Zhou's study as well as select biographies such as Second Serve by Rene Richards, and Crossings by the illustrious Dr. Diedre McCloskey.
The result of all of this is a growing cadre of transsexuals who want to lobby for the removal of GID from the DSM and it's replacement with the intersex condition HBS. This religion has won converts in all kinds of levels of the transsexual community. However the strong hold of this belief systems strong hold would be in the support groups of heterosexual cross dressers.
This is a community of the transsgendered umbrella which is poorly misunderstood and self flagellating to a high degree. For many many years those among them who came out as transsexual would be shunned by their former cross dressing friends. If people like them showed up at a place known for transsexuals they were usually hopelessly unable to fit in. They were usually inept at dressing, much older and their was a generation gap. If they sought psychological help they would be assessed according to the Benjamin scale and called secondary transsexuals. They would be treated like crap. This was all very wrong and should never have been done to them. With HBS they have found a organized way of articulating what they have believed about themselves.
HBS in relation to other intersexed conditions.
HBS is the ultimate colonization of the intersexed life story. These people probably saw stories on 20/20 about how some intersexed people would grow to adult hood. Then on a doctors visit have the physician tell them they are intersexed. That they are a man with a uterus (Persistent mullerian duct syndrome), that they were born with micro penis and reassigned at birth etc. The best exampel that of Caroline Tula Cossy. Who was found well after having transitioned that she had a variant of Klienfelters syndrome.
Where HBS flies in the face of everything we know about intersexed conditions is that unlike the others there is no medical test for it. As HBS has been defined there is only one way to diagnose HBS, introsepction. Once HBS has been diagnosed the single minded goal of the person is SRS. Not hormones not a feminine voice, not hair removal or training in deportment. They are supposed to be totally unconcerned with the practical matter of post operative sexual function or sensation. All of these services are to be provided on demand and without hesitation by health care service providers ( a psychologist in England, Russell Reid was recently sued and demoted for doing precisely that when some patients regretted their decisions). Carrying out those actions in a single minded fashion is the definition of HBS. It is based in part on behavior and none of it has anything to do with being intersexed.
Most intersexed people are in fact fine with the gender assigned to them at birth and feel no need to change it.
What would the Blanchardian theory say about this?
Based on the words of the HBS faithful themselves I say that they are almost to a woman autogynephilic transsexuals. What they have done is take a scientifically plausible idea brain sex and pervert it into this belief system. A system of beliefs where they are real womenTM. Furthermore they and they alone are able to decide who is a transsegender (reading between the lines that seems to be synonymous with homosexual transsexual )and who is an autogynephile while themselves, being intersexed by their own diagnosis are immune to these labels. Which is as some people have pointed out about somebody (ahem! as Andrea James has said of Kiira Triea) can look really convenient. The difference is that Kirra actually is really and truly intersexed. The believers in the church of Harry Benjamin Syndrome are not. Further in spite of that Kirra has taken stock of her life and in sum total has lived the life of a homosexual transsexual. Even though strictly speaking she not a transsexual in the traditional sense of the word (she is also real as real as I am).
Further based on the words of the HBS'ers their ideal behavior seeking SRS and never wavering (except of course for the fact they were 40 or 50 when they decided they wanted to be women). Their lack of concern for their appearance to others. Last but not least their need to believe in the women within as being real and authentic which to them means biological. All of these are features of autogynephilia.
This is by no means universal. Their may be some homosexual transsexuals in the world. Those who feel a need to describe themselves in a more socially acceptable way who would use the HBS terms. For the most part a transsexual who says they are a devotee of the HBS notion is probably an autogynephile.
Summary
In conclusion the notion of Harry Benjamin Syndrome is a idea with no scientific merit. It is in contradiction to the observed behaviors of other intersexed people. It takes a idea worth further investigation (brain sex*) and inadvertently discredits it by taking ownership of it. This notion also sets up a power hierarchy where transsexuals who admit a sexual component to their motivation are given what the people who like HBS would see as a less valuable label as being transgendered.
*I personally am not 100% hostile to the notion of brain sex. There is plenty of evidence that suggest that sexual orientations are hard wired and cannot be changed. Furthermore as in [4] the pattern of brain activity in a male bodied person who is homosexual shows the same areas of the hypothalamus are activated in their brain as in a heterosexual females brain. There is also of course the controversial results of [6]. Which suggest that gender identitycould be controlled by a nucleus in the hypothalamus. If both of these results are true then it logically follows that some transsexuals will be hardwired to be transsexual and attracted to men. Some will be hardwired for transsexuality alone. If true those facts would imply the undeniable existence of two types of transsexual (terminally homosexual and non-homosexual or autogynephilic) with behavior as described by Blanchard.
Definition of Harry Benjamin Syndrome: www.Harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org , accessed 4:50pm CST 4/16/2007
Diagnosis and Treatment: www.Harrybenjaminsyndrome-info.org accessed 5:00PM CST 4/16/2007
WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THOSE WHO WERE BORN WITH HBS, Ellen accessed 6:30 PM CDST 5/26/2007
Klienfelters Syndrome a Personal Reflection, http://www.xyxo.org/isgi/Klinefelter.html accessed 10:15 PM CST 5/13/2007
Neuroscience, Brain response to putative pheromones in homosexual men, I. Savic, H. Berglund, P Lindström. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1129091
Archives of Sexual Behavior A neuroendocrine predisposition for homosexuality in men, G.Dorner http://www.springerlink.com/content/g1176x7289822289/
Zhou J.-N, Hofman M.A, Gooren L.J, Swaab D.F (1997) A Sex Difference in the Human Brain and its Relation to Transsexuality. IJT 1,1, http://www.symposion.com/ijt/ijtc0106.htm