Why the Obsession With HBS?

It seems that a lot of the silliness oozing out from under the transgender rock has to do with an odd creature known as an HBSer. This, of course, is another neologism from the transgender kooks. Neologisms are, along with chauvinism, and logical fallacies, one of the major exports of that group. BTW, a neologism is the correct term for what is commonly referred to as "a made up word." Well, actually, an even better term, which ironically is a bit of a neologism would be "protologism" which Wiktionary defines as a newly coined word or phrase defined in the hope that it will become common; a recently created term possibly in narrow use but not yet acknowledged. BTW, protologism is a word used mainly as jargon at the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., the parent organization of Wiktionary and other projects.

So, that brings us back to the question of, what is an HBSer?  Well, it is how the transgender kooks have taken to referring to what they were calling a transsexual separatist.  They can't really use that much anymore, since Mr. Cristan Williams rather arrogantly, and quite dishonestly, declared that movement dead.  He does that sort of thing an awful lot.

To understand this rather fanciful concept (most of those to whom the term is applied had nothing to with either of the two branches associated with HBS) I guess you would need to start with the question of what HBS is.  What horrible abuses lie within?

Well, the simple fact is, HBS refers to "Harry Benjamin Syndrome," which is a proposed term to replace "transsexualism" in medical nomenclature.  Now, why, you might ask, would a new term be needed?  There were two basic motivations.  The first was the effort by the transgender extremists to co-opt transsexualism as a sort of beard for transgender behavior, and the second was the fact that "transsexual" was, for a time, increasingly associated with a particularly disturbing form of pornography that had nothing to do with the actual transsexualism.

While the term has been used in some cases as a medical term, it has not yet, and may never, achieve widespread acceptance.  Most of the people I was associated with have lost interest in advocating for its use, and have moved on.  There is still a group in Europe, led by a person known as Charlotte Goiar whom the group I was affiliated with disassociated from over some fundamental philosophical differences.  It should be noted that the transgender extremists try to ignore these facts and conflate the two groups in their effort to create a straw man to argue against.  Interestingly enough, the Goiar originally used the improper form, Harry Benjamin's Syndrome, but has since adopted the correct usage.  When a disease or syndrome is named in honor of someone, a possessive is not proper as they neither own, or (usually) suffered from that condition.  Of course, this technicality is often ignored by the media, and thus people more often say Alzheimer's disease, instead of the technically correct Alzheimer disease.

As the term HBS began to catch on in some circles, the transgender kooks began to panic.  I rather suspect that hey feared that a term they had invested a lot of effort into co-opting would be replaced by a concept that would specifically exclude them. In other words, the truth might come out and they could not have that.  

As I say, the effort to encourage adoption of the term has waned.  It seems to be stronger in Europe, but most here lost interest.  But, the label HBSer seems more popular than ever.  And some, like Suzan Cooke seem obsessed with HBS.  Granted, Cooke originally had no problem with the term, and her earlier opposition seems more related to personalities and the fact that HBS was competing with Cooke's "Women Born Transsexual" meme, which now seems silly in light of Cooke's adoption of the transgender mindset.

So, when you see someone using "HBSer," you can safely assume that they are most likely presenting a classic straw man argument.  Then again, even if they don't use the term, that is one of several logical fallacies they are very fond of....