Update: I just banned commenters for hijacking this diary about horizontal violence within the trans (and LGBT) community to engage in horizontal violence against each other in the thread for the diary.

Unbelievable — I’m not even going to try and sort that one out.

~~A~~

Note: Pam and I have considered that this thread may generate many comments. And, that’s because the subject matter of this diary includes discussion of Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS). If one is going to comment about my opinions regarding HBS expressed in this diary, or opinions expressed later in the discussion thread for this diary, one should read the Pam’s House Blend Site Terms And Conditions, and read the additional expounding on what offensive language towards trans people is not acceptable on Pam’s House Blend found in the PHB diary Transgender? Transsexual? Trans-Ghettoized?

Commenters on this thread are certainly allowed to disagree my opinions as expressed in this in this diary without being disagreeable; without violating the PHB Site Terms And Conditions. If individual commenters won’t follow the commenting policies on PHB, and use widely offensive language directed against trans people to make points; however, then Pam, my peer baristas, and I will be aggressively enforcing the site policies regarding widely offensive language towards these individual commenters who can’t “stay between the lines” of appropriate language.

Right after I highlighted Dan Caleb’s comment on my Light A Candle For Angie Facebook photo — the one where he said I that I looked like an ugly man — an ugly woman came out of my past.

And no, I don’t mean a woman who is ugly on the outside, but one who is ugly on the inside. This woman has identified herself as having Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS), as being a “woman of transsexual history.” Below is her letter to me, that I received during the Angie Zapata trial (emphasis added):

You don’t look alike a woman at all.

You and most of those you guys who hanb [sic] out in the gay ghetto look like men.

I could sight example after example.

You are not a woman you are a man with a fetish.

quoting you;

“Dan trollishly questions my gender identity by calling me ugly; telling me I look like a man trying to be a woman. So I’m not “deceptive”: Instead, I’m just ugly.”

The truth is you walk, talk, and behave like a man with breasts.

Get voice lesions and learn how to walk and talk like a woman.

I have been to Greeley CO. people ther saw me as nothing more than a middle age woman. You have never applied for a job as a woman like many of us have. you live in a protected environment where politically corerct [sic] language is the only fair allowed.

Angie and Gwen are human beings who chose to deceive the man they chose to have intimate company with.

that was totally stupid on their part and you know it.

Your just using this incident to put Autumn in the spotlight, to get attention at their expense.

You are the ultimate parasite feeding on false ideals false claims and a misplaced sense of truth.

Thankfully the only thing you can do to me is post a photo shopped picture from someone who should have never transitioned who has seething jealousy toward me.

Go ahead make my day,

You people are an embarrassment to those of us who are real.

Grow up and get a real life.

I’m not going to identify the woman who sent this to me — or show any photos of what she looks like — because what her name is, and what her physical appearance is, aren’t the points of this piece. The horizontal violence she expresses as a woman of transsexual history towards me as a publicly pre-operative transsexual, and a publicly transgender identified person; however, is the point.

[Below the fold, a significant voice within the trans community talks about having once embraced HBS, but having a problem with those who support it now because of bigoted, anti-trans and anti-LGBT attitudes expressed by many, if not most, of those who embrace Harry Benjamin Syndrome.

Also below the fold, how horizontal violence is also found within the broader LGBT community, and is something we who care about human rights should care about.]Laura Amato, the Laura of Laura’s Playground (of one of the largest transgender forums on the web), sums up a problem of bigotry that many (if not most) of those who embrace Harry Benjamin Syndrome. In her piece Laura’s Harry Benjamin Syndrome HBS: A Peer Review (cleaned up for spelling), she wries about that bigotry (included emphasis is original author’s):

…The facts are that HBS SOC is NOT medically approved by a single Doctor. The Current and only Medically approved SOC are HBIGDA version 6 which is now administered by WPATH. They are a professional group of Doctors and therapists, unlike HBS…

…As the owner of a Transsexual, Transgender web site I have always provided the latest information on Transsexual research on my site long before HBS was first uttered. So the research on HBS sites was very familiar to me. In order to learn more I joined the Official Yahoo HBS Support Group. What I learned had little to do with HBS. It instead turned out 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 rights were banned simply for supporting them. Several that were diagnosed by those without medical degrees were affirmed post-ops with similar stories to mine. One thing Yahoos HBS groups are not is an HBS Support Group. The group moderator defends the constant anti-GLBT slurs as member venting. While I have the posts to prove this it isn’t necessary yet as you can visit the group to see for yourself…

…Certainly I don’t tell Charlotte [Goiar, a proponent of the term Harry Benjamin Syndrome] how to run her anti-LGBT hate group. In the days that followed Charlotte’s Moderator attacked my forums and it’s users under several fake names with all kinds of anti-transgender rhetoric, while telling users they weren’t prejudiced. This despite the fact anyone can see the venom in her groups posts. While Charlotte disavows hate her users still denigrate this site and me personally in her group. Why, because I pointed out that the LGBT slurs and anti-transgender messages in HBS documents were going to have a negative effect on HBS itself? It already has. No Medical Professional or Therapist is going to back a Syndrome based on subjectivity, hate and prejudice. In fact the American Medical Association (AMA) just wrote a document banning prejudice against those with gender Identity and Transgender issues. Doctors will not discriminate to validate HBS as written.

The writer of the email to me I quoted at the beginning of this piece is known to me from when she herself was a transgender activist in San Diego, who worked at a LGBT publication entitled Update. She’s one who has embraced HBS, as well as the HBS attitude that Laura describes above (including diagnosing people without formal medical or psychological training), and has decided that I’m personally not a transsexual. Instead, she’s called me a “transvestite” (she’s called me that in previous e-correspondence not included with this diary), and in this piece of correspondence stated I “walk, talk, and behave like a man with breasts,” and stated that I hang out in the “gay ghetto.”

This is, in my mind, an example of what horizontal violence — violence expressed toward members of the same  group or other oppressed groups — looks like.

Horizontal violence is harmful behavior, via attitudes, actions, words, and other behaviors that are directed towards members of an oppressed group who could be defined as belonging to the same group, belonging to competing groups that fall under an umbrella group, or belonging to an entirely separated oppressed group. Horizontal violence controls, humiliates, denigrates or injures the dignity of others. Horizontal violence indicates a lack of mutual respect and value for the worth of the individual and denies others’ fundamental, human rights.*

Horizontal violence is something I believe we should begin noting within broader communities. We often see a bit of gay and lesbian horizontal violence towards transgender people with regards to federal hate crimes and employment non-discrimination legislation. However, what’s not highlighted as often is when we have horizontal violence between gays, between lesbians, between people who could fall under the accepted definitions of transgender and transsexual, and between members of the subcommunities of the broader lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community towards members of other subcommunities of the broader LGBT community.

Those of us who see LGBT civil rights as being part of a broader agenda of human rights need to pay attention to horizontal violence within broader communities. Horizontal violence not only hurts the cause of human rights, but this kind of intra-community violence also hurts those minority group identified individuals to whom this violence is personally directed.

___

* I referenced the Horizontal Violence Position Statement in developing the defining characteristics of Horizontal Violence used in this diary.

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