One of the latest such efforts comes on A Gender Variance Who's Who which used to be Gender Variant Biography:
Previously I had commented that it was particularly rude of HBS persons to pretend that non-HBS transsexuals do not exist when non-HBS are over 99% of transsexuals. I received a couple of replies that my figures were way off, but now I see that Charlotte Goiar agrees with me. She has revamped her web site and now says that HBS is “an extremely rare condition [1:100,000]”. (She previously used the now discredited 1:30,000.)
Let us spell this out.
I am assuming that transsexuals are 1:500, a cautious ratio from the Conway-Olyslager study.
A transsexual is someone who has sexual affirmation surgery and does not regret it afterwards.
1:100,000 is 10 in a million.
1:500 is 2000 in a million.
Thus there are 200 transsexuals for every HBS if Goiar is right (although she gives no rational for her number). HBS are only a fraction of 1% of transsexuals.
Now, there is so much wrong here, it is hard to decide exactly where to begin. First off, I should point out that Charlotte Goiar does not speak for the entirety of the HBS community. Goiar is a very controversial figure from Spain who insists on the incorrect form "Harry Benjamin's Syndrome." In naming a syndrome, it is considered improper to use a possessive. Harry Benjamin neither had the condition, nor did he own it.
Now, it should be noted that the entire concept behind HBS is simply to suggest this as a new label for what is otherwise known as "true transsexualism" or "classic transsexualism." In another words, it would be applied to those who have had a lifelong knowledge that their internal sense of what their sex should be did not match their body, and a desire to correct it as much as possible.
Now, the way the author of A Gender Variance Who's Who defines transsexualism is a less common one. It is also not the definition that Conway uses. Conway herself that only counting those who have actually had surgery will result in a lower number.
Now, I have not idea where Goiar gets her number from. A figure of 1:100,000 is pretty silly. I also think that 1:500 is too far in the opposite direction.
No, the bottom line is, HBS is synonymous with true or classic transsexualism. Yes, there are people who have sex affirmation surgery who are not HBS, but they are also not really transsexual. For example, there are autogynephiles. There are also those who make mistakes, but who refuse to openly admit this.
The article on A Gender Variance Who's Who is just another attempt, and not the first by that author, to discredit the idea of HBS. For something they want to claim is rather rare, they seem to fear it a lot.
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