Springfield, VA, USA. TS-Si.org is not a “tranny” site. It is a professionally run science and medicine resource and a journalistic and legal watchdog that covers the frontiers of research on the human animal. 

 

We especially scout those frontiers that might shed light on the birth condition known as Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS) and the lives of those born with HBS.

 

As such, much of our content provides glimpses into the neurobiology of the human brain, the impact of gene expression on fetal development, and the interactions between male and female that suggest future avenues of research that might prove beneficial to understanding the root causes of HBS, ultimately leading to better and earlier treatment options.

 

In other words, we are not a so-called “tranny” site. We are trans-nothing and certainly not transgendered. Except for the sexual orientation of some of our staff, we are barely even queer. We have no political viewpoint other than Thomas Jefferson and the American Founding Fathers:  

 

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

 

Somehow this viewpoint gets us in trouble with both the extreme left and the extreme right (both of whom we suspect of equally fascist, self-righteous, and officious leanings). We can only judge by our experience, but apparently, if you are unwilling to accept a particular political catechism as infallible and unchanging, the fervent faithful feel it is their duty to cast you into whatever version of hell they find most despicable.

 

For socialists, liberals, and progressives, that hell seems to be anything that is thought of as Republican; for the religious right, social conservatives, and knee-jerk reactionaries, hell is anything ever mentioned by or any idea that originated from the Antichrist triumvirate of Roosevelt, Kennedy, and Clinton. We are not leftists; we are not the far right; we are neither democrat nor republican nor socialist nor capitalist.

 

As for religion, if we have to chose between our own philosophical beliefs and the scientific evidence, TS-Si defaults to the science and makes the necessary corrections to our philosophical beliefs, no matter what personal pain that may cause us. We have no particular bent, both believing with the founding fathers that

 

or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

 

And agreeing with Carl Sagan that

 

than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring.

 

We go where the science leads us and, if what we find disagrees with your religious beliefs, we will wish you well as you go on your way, but continue on with the science. We will not vacate the public discussion simply to make you feel better about your particular beliefs.

 

As Sagan pointed out

 

you can pray or you can inoculate....Try science.

 

TS-Si.org will always try the science first and discard any personal beliefs that are contradicted by the scientific method and subsequent hard science research. We do not subscribe to the soft anti-intellectual babbling of pop-psychology, gender theory, or idealistic social engineering unless the research is supported by hard scientific evidence (not opinion, not conjecture, not moral assumptions).

 

We support family, raising children (between us we have eight), and giving back to the community and find ourselves attacked by those who think we are not queer or radical enough. But visitors to this site leave public comments that are generally supportive and thoughtful even in disagreement — and often profoundly touching.

 

We support the working and middle classes (both of us have held minimum pay jobs beside working class men and women) and choose to work within the existing social and political structure to bring about change and discover we are attacked because we support capitalism over socialism or communism.

 

We understand heterosexuality to be the default human condition, while bisexuality and homosexuality are equally valid sexualities. We note that the human species primarily divides into male and female except for the few Intersex variations. Because of this, we often are denounced as insufficiently radical and being blindly supportive of the patriarchy.

 

We see no scientific evidence that the gender spectrum is anything other than a comforting opinion that has been elevated to a noisy political movement that focuses on collecting disparate and arbitrary lifestyles under a single banner. It defies specific definition and, when we ask for definition, clarification, and proof, we find ourselves labeled reactionary conservatives opposed to proper social thinking by university students, aging leftist propagandists, and cross-dressing males who want most of all to be validated by society at large.

 

When we lay out the scientific support for HBS, delineating the significant differences between HBS men and women and those who call themselves transgender, we hear ourselves called separatists. When we point out that the neurobiological gender of HBS men and women remains constant from birth, we are called elitists. When we work to bring about social and legal changes specifically designed to help HBS men and women before, during, and after transition, we are called hateful for not including the transgendered. And, when we talk about the driving need of HBS men and women to obtain Sex Reassignment Surgery (SRS), critics say we are crazy and deluded extremists.

 

It is not elitist to point out the differences between the HBS-born and the transgendered.  Providing support for people born HBS does not mean we are against the transgendered, crossdressers, or gender queers: it merely means our focus is elsewhere. We support equal rights for TGs and deny no one their rights; saying otherwise misreads the TS-Si mission and what we have written. 

 

What we do not do is take the politically correct position that we are all the same. We admit we are not all things to all people and, as such, we are an easy target for those who like to pick out words and phrases for their objections and would rather argue the parts than argue the whole (a typical example of post-modern deconstructionism).

 

The principal complaint we receive from our HBS correspondents has nothing to do with transgenders or their right to exist, but the inclusion of those of us born HBS under a socio-political umbrella that has been singularly ineffective in advancing our rights.

 

If TS-Si.org were a typical “tranny” site, you would see little science, little rationality, and pages upon pages of unprocessed emotional social babble about “passing” and the trials and tribulations of going out in public. We dissociate ourselves from the "tranny" sites and the culture that encourages them.

 

HBS men and women are “trans” only as an historical footnote. Not only is the term “transsexual” outdated (superseded by Harry Benjamin Syndrome), the “TS” word itself has been appropriated by the transgender political movement which is attempting to expand the definition to include transgenders, crossdressers, and transvestites.

 

For all those reasons, TS-Si.org is not and never has been a “tranny site”, just as Science and Nature magazines or the Public Library of Science are not New Age, Wicca or Astrology web sites.

 

We are what we are: middle aged women scientists and writers, unsupported by government grant or welfare, who hold the radical belief that science and rationality are more important than liberal or conservative orthodoxy, finding ourselves once again in agreement with Carl Sagan that

 

and a basic understanding of how the world works.

 

And so TS-Si.org is here and so we shall remain.

 

You have our word.

 

 

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