Transableism - Tumblr Bullshit Comes Full Circle

[Jaimas]

So, I didn't know where else to post this, so let's get this out of the way.

Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies

There are now people whom believe they are transabled. As in, they have no problems, but say they experience dysphoria because they are not currently disabled, often citing privilege. Almost immediately, this nonsense has caught on with some of the rabble on Tumblr, who even invented a new term for it: "Body Integrity Identity Disorder." Last time I checked the DSM-IV-TR, there was no such diagnosis, but whatever, I'm not an Identity Politics maniac, I'm not fucking insane.

This shit's notable for even a fair number of SJWs calling bullshit on this one. But let's drop all pretexts of sanity, check our faith in humanity at the door, and see how deep into the madness this goes.

OTTAWA — When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident.

But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.

“My goal was to get the job done with no hope of reconstruction or re-attachment, and I wanted some method that I could actually bring myself to do,” he told the body modification website ModBlog.

His goal was to become disabled.

People like Jason have been classified as ‘‘transabled’’ — feeling like imposters in their bodies, their arms and legs in full working order.

“We define transability as the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment,” says Alexandre Baril, a Quebec born academic who will present on “transability” at this week’s Congress of the Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Ottawa.

Researchers in Canada are trying to better understand how transabled people think and feel. Clive Baldwin, a Canada Research Chair in Narrative Studies who teaches social work at St. Thomas University in Fredericton, N.B., has interviewed 37 people worldwide who identify as transabled.

Most of them are men. About half are in Germany and Switzerland, but he knows of a few in Canada. Most crave an amputation or paralysis, though he has interviewed one person who wants his penis removed. Another wants to be blind.

Many people, like One Hand Jason, arrange “accidents” to help achieve the goal. One dropped an incredibly heavy concrete block on his legs — an attempt to injure himself so bad an amputation would be necessary. But doctors saved the leg. He limps, but it’s not the disability he wanted.

The transabled are very secretive and often keep their desires to themselves, Baldwin says. One 78-year-old man told Baldwin he’d lived with the secret for 60 years and never told his wife.

Some of his study participants do draw parallels to the experience many transgender people express of not feeling like they’re in the right body. Baldwin says this disorder is starting to be thought of as a neurological problem with the body’s mapping, rather than a mental illness.

It’s a problem for individuals because it’s distressing. But lots of things are.” He suggests this is just another form of body diversity — like transgenderism — and amputation may help someone achieve similar goals as someone who, say, undergoes cosmetic surgery to look more like who they believe their ideal selves to be.

In the late 1990s, Scottish surgeon Dr. Robert Smith amputated the legs of two patients at their request. While the surgery involved National Health Service staff, each patient paid nearly $6,000 for their procedures.

As the public begins to embrace people who identify as transgender, the trans people within the disability movement are also seeking their due, or at very least a bit of understanding in a public that cannot fathom why anyone would want to be anything other than healthy and mobile.

But this has been met with great resistance in both the disability activist community and in transgender circles, argues Baril, a visiting scholar of feminist, gender and sexuality studies at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.

“They tend to see transabled people as dishonest people, people who try to steal resources from the community, people who would be disrespectful by denying or fetishizing or romanticizing disability reality,” Baril says, adding people in both transgender and disabled circles tend to make judgmental or prejudicial statements about transabled people. “Each try to distance themselves.”

Baril — who is himself disabled and transgender — believes the transgender community distances itself because it has worked very hard to de-pathologize what’s known as ‘gender dysphoria,’ and sought its removal from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Transability is also known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder, which was only just added to the “emerging measures and models” appendix section of the DSM-5 in 2013. (Jaimas Note: No, it fucking wasn't. What is covered by that section is Apotemnophilia). Many transabled people want to see it fully added to the psychiatric bible because it might legitimize their experience in the field of medicine, Baril notes.

The crazy train has no brakes....

 

[pussydoodles]

But do you have any examples specifically from tumblr or tumblr communities? That story is almost 10 years old and looks like it just got regurgitated recently.

 

[Conrix]

Even Tumblr seems to think it's bullshit. At least for the first few posts.

 

[Petronella]

IMO, this is just self mutilation dressed up as a ~mental disorder~ to make it more acceptable in SJW circles.

 

[Jaimas]

Even Tumblr seems to think it's bullshit. At least for the first few posts.

And then.... It begins. It just slowly gets worse.

I pray fervently to god that the bulk of these are joke accounts, because if they aren't, I'm fairly sure they're a sign that humanity has failed.

 

[sikotik]

@Jaimas

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/the-transableism-movement.10048/

 

[fartknocker]

Oh this shit is nothing new. I remember years ago someone I followed at one point arguing with someone who was a "transabled quadriplegic" who would use wheelchairs from stores and such to try to act out on their "true deep down quadriplegia". They also said they wanted to try to get themselves hit by a car so they could actually become paralyzed.

The person I was following was actually disabled as well so no wonder they were pissed off.

 

[SpessCaptain]

You'd suppose typing with one hand would stop them or slow them from posting on tumblr.

 

[Rüdiger Gamm]

and see how deep into the madness this goes.

There is one sentence in this article that would also make sense in a not-that-insane way:

Most of them are men. About half are in Germany and Switzerland, but he knows of a few in Canada.

I know that in Germany and Switzerland this has been a common thing for ages. Not because those people are 'transable' but because they are lazy fucks who know that such a disability (if not self-inflicted) will give them a live-long free ride on the wellfare train.

Many of them fuck it up because they are plain stupid and the inscurance companies will always triple-check those cases before they pay a shit-ton of money.

So I'm missing some statistcs in this article because I think a majority of people with self-inflicted disabilities did it for the financial and social support.

Edit: Think about it: if you would try to screw the wellfare system and you get caught, you have basically terminated your whole social life because even you family would think that you are a lazy pile of shit. The only kind of damage control in this situation would be claiming that you are fucking insane and 'transable'.

 

[APerson]

And then.... It begins. It just slowly gets worse.

I pray fervently to god that the bulk of these are joke accounts, because if they aren't, I'm fairly sure they're a sign that humanity has failed.

Well, the first one you cited is a joke account.

 

[Piga Dgrifm]

"My arms and legs work too well" is the epitome of first-world problems. Let's send these nutjobs off to the third world for a little while and see if they still want to rip off their arms when they get back.

 

[Erica]

The term you described in the original post is actually pre-tumblr. Though I really doubt psychologists are jumping on the train to amputate perfectly functioning limbs off of healthy people. I don't even think it's been officially decided whether or not people are actually feeling alien limbs or if it's just some weird fetish.

Like a lot of mental disorders, I think some tumblrina just found this one and was like "hey, I wanna sit on my ass all day, I must want both my legs amputated!"

 

[Alberto Balsalm]

I stumbled across this guy's blog once. He claims to be a sufferer of BIID, and has a lot of detailed posts criticizing the "transabled" movement as a perversion of a legitimate mental issue. Judge for yourselves, I suppose.

 

[MrsGoodman]

Eh, I hesitate to call this bullshit. Isn't this a form of BDD? Or BIID?

 

[An Ounce of Vagina]

"My arms and legs work too well" is the epitome of first-world problems. Let's send these nutjobs off to the third world for a little while and see if they still want to rip off their arms when they get back.

Do we have to take them back?

 

[AnOminous]

Eh, I hesitate to call this bullshit. Isn't this a form of BDD? Or BIID?

It would be if it actually existed in these people, which I would only believe if it were diagnosed by an actual medical professional, since tumblr self-diagnosers are notorious idiots who make shit up constantly.

 

[Meowthkip]

@Jaimas

https://kiwifarms.net/threads/the-transableism-movement.10048/

We should merge these threads, methinks.

 

[Rüdiger Gamm]

The term you described in the original post is actually pre-tumblr. Though I really doubt psychologists are jumping on the train to amputate perfectly functioning limbs off of healthy people. I don't even think it's been officially decided whether or not people are actually feeling alien limbs or if it's just some weird fetish.

Like a lot of mental disorders, I think some tumblrina just found this one and was like "hey, I wanna sit on my ass all day, I must want both my legs amputated!"

Well I found an interesting article from 2000 about a scottish surgeon who really did this shit for 3000£
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/625680.stm

I became increasingly convinced that the patients had had very little success from their treatments by psychiatrists and psychologists over the years.
Dr Robert Smith, surgeon

 

[Erica]

Well I found an interesting article from 2000 about a scottish surgeon who really did this shit for 3000£
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/625680.stm

Yikes, never knew some doctor would be crazy enough to do it. Though I think there is a clear distinction between the "transabled" crowd, and people who take their obsession this far, in that the tumblrinas just want to pretend they're disabled on the Internet for oppression points, and don't actually demonstrate anything that would indicate they are. "Transabled" really is the pinnacle of being a special snowflake. You don't even have to be inhibited in any way. All you need is maximal whining abilities that it was always your destiny to be disabled.

 

[Sniper Monkey]

On one hand, I want to call bullshit on this. On the other hand, Poe's Law. Either way, it's stupid as hell.