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

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La Paix

Fuck this place
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Jan 14, 2015
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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.

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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.


“The person could want to become deaf, blind, amputee, paraplegic. It’s a really, really strong desire.”

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. 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.

National Post


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

maurice

Posting Machine
Oct 21, 2015
1,361
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"Most crave an amputation or paralysis, though he has interviewed one person who wants his penis removed."

Only one?
 

Wintermute

Putin is gay
Apr 24, 2015
5,816
9,202
Great, go for it, but first: sign a waiver that you're self-imposing a disability and you give up your rights to public support or assistance from the government. You don't get to cut off your leg and park in a handicapped spot. Fuck you.
 

silentsinger

Momofuku
Jun 23, 2015
21,038
14,484
What's that thing where some amputees feel like they still have a limb after losing them.

Bet this Jason bloke'd feel like a right knob if that happened to him.
 

Onetrickpony

Stay gold
Nov 21, 2016
14,042
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I thought this must be an onion article but unfortunately no, it isn't.

What the fuck is wrong with people.
 

Team Bisping

TMMAC Addict
First 100
Jan 16, 2015
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This might sound ignorant, but it seems like a cry for help, a cry to be acknowledged as not perfect, by having a physical impairment (obvious to the world) so others treat them different and/or with compassion/empathy.
 

Onetrickpony

Stay gold
Nov 21, 2016
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This might sound ignorant, but it seems like a cry for help, a cry to be acknowledged as not perfect, by having a physical impairment (obvious to the world) so others treat them different and/or with compassion/empathy.
If I ever met someone that hacked off a limb so they could get compassion or empathy from complete strangers I can't even explain the level of disgust I would have for them.
 

Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
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This is a bizarre expression of mental illness. I'm having a hard time understanding how anybody could intentionally disable themselves and view it as a beneficial or positive factor in their life.
 

DiSmAnTLeR

Well-Known Member
Apr 5, 2016
906
890
This is just more proof that we have become too soft due to our luxuries.

I guarantee that no one wanted to lop a leg off and hop down the Oregon trail behind their covered wagon.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
This is a bizarre expression of mental illness. I'm having a hard time understanding how anybody could intentionally disable themselves and view it as a beneficial or positive factor in their life.
and that's my issue with something like this. It's a fine line between predisposition to something and full on mental illness. To me the most logical line is essentially whether or not your actions harm yourself or those around you. If we're going to start letting people cut off appendages because "they feel like they should" we're not that far from condoning full on pedophilia.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
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Honest question:

What's the difference between this and being transgendered to the point that it takes surgery to treat your condition?
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
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This might sound ignorant, but it seems like a cry for help, a cry to be acknowledged as not perfect, by having a physical impairment (obvious to the world) so others treat them different and/or with compassion/empathy.

The core component is different. They actually feel disgust and despair at having their limb.

This is a bizarre expression of mental illness. I'm having a hard time understanding how anybody could intentionally disable themselves and view it as a beneficial or positive factor in their life.

Read about Deaf (capital D) parents wanting to select embryos that will make sure they don't have a hearing child.
 

Grateful Dude

TMMAC Addict
May 30, 2016
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Read about Deaf (capital D) parents wanting to select embryos that will make sure they don't have a hearing child.
Jesus. Makes no sense to me. We had to do IVF to get our son, so that hits close to home to me. In our experience the doctor and embryologist are looking for the healthiest embryo to transfer. You can test for genetic and congenital issues in order to screen out "bad" embryos, and you can find out if the embryos will be predisposed to a number things. It's actually pretty amazing how many things they can test for. I could ramble on, but the point is that effort is made to find the best embryo. After going through that a few times, I cannot imagine selecting one that isn't as healthy as possible. It kind of disgusts me that someone would do that. And based on what I've seen from our doctor, I don't think they would support you intentionally selecting a less than ideal embryo. Seems like a weird ethical line for a doctor to approach.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
Honest question:

What's the difference between this and being transgendered to the point that it takes surgery to treat your condition?
Hard to say. For me personally the 2 main differences are that 1) I'm not expected to pay for the procedure of someone under going a sex change. 2) I feel someone is less likely to attempt self removal of a sex organ than the person who apparently felt the need to cut their arm off with a circular saw.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,547
56,268
To add a little on to the above. Someone causing themselves to be disabled would require them to be accommodated differently than the general population. That doesn't apply to someone who's transgendered.