True Transsexual: Dr Harry Benjamin

The Ur Source Definition of Transsexual

It was recently suggested to me that I explain what I meant by the term ‘True Trans’.

In a previous piece I wrote explaining that I don’t use that term since ‘trans’ has now become such an all inclusive term, but I do use the term ‘True Transsexual’ since it specifies those of us who inhabit such a specific category as opposed to the catch all inclusive term of all gender non-conformity ‘trans’. But what precisely is the nature of that category you may ask?

So I went back to what is pretty much the source work for this term, given that Dr Magnus Hirschfeld’s work has almost entirely been lost. That work? The Transsexual Phenomenon by Dr Harry Benjamin, published in 1967. I am fortunate to have an original copy of this seminal work, and here is what he says as early as pages 13 and 14.

“True transsexuals [my emphasis] feel that they belong to the other sex, they want to be and function as the opposite sex, not only to appear as such” You can read more in the shot of the original piece below.

I would add here that the term transvestite has gone out of fashion in recent years to be replaced by transgender.

I was recently attacked on a comments thread for saying that transgenders don’t seek surgical reassignment but it is clear from the outset that transvestites don’t seek medical reassignment and many transgenders attack transsexuals claiming that they are the true trans and that they don’t need surgical reassignment to prove it. Queen of the GenCrits Helen Joyce makes much of how few transgenders have surgical reassignment and this is one criticism of hers I cannot argue with.

It would seem then that since it is recognised that most transgenders (M>F identifying) don’t have or want to have genital reassignment surgery that they thus fit into the category of transvestite as explained by Dr Benjamin who was the medical researcher who put this subject on the map but who said nothing about multiple genders since he clearly never thought in such terms. Sadly his work has been discarded by those such as Judith Butler who seek to reduce the entire field to one of social construction and social convention, a position I reject.

Below are the short excerpts from his book in which this is explained clearly and in a few paragraphs.