June 2, 2015

"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."

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

83 comments:

Sebastian said...

Yeah, but is it covered by Obamacare?

Wince said...

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...

We indulge one at taxpayer expense, and not the other?

Discrimination!

Virgil Hilts said...

If you don't have an allergy or disability, if you haven't been the victim of some horrible assault, if your parents and teachers didn't abuse you -- then you don't get to be in the parade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nqj6B9N9Qgc

Rae said...

A man believes he is an elephant.

A man believes he is a woman.

The first man is considered delusional. Why not the second? Why do we treat these case differently?

damikesc said...

Mental health "science" is making itself a joke.

At a certain point, you have to say "Dude, you're fucking nuts".

Stop trying to pretend that a desire to have a limb amputated is anything more than a mental illness.

Wilbur said...

Just when you think you've heard it all ...
And I think I've got issues. Wow.


My grandfather lost two and a half fingers on his right hand in a work accident at Armour Meat. As a child it made me a bit squeamish to shake his hand or even much look at it.

He wasn't looking for disability, because there wasn't any. He kept on working there for a couple of decades.

MadisonMan said...

From the Article:

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

It's a really, really strong mental disease, but I guess one mustn't judge.

Browndog said...

At a certain point, you have to say "Dude, you're fucking nuts".

The Transsane have been too long kept in the closet. They are as loving and hard working as the sane, maybe more so.

"You're fucking nuts" is intolerant hate speech; hurtful and triggering.

damikesc said...

The Transsane have been too long kept in the closet. They are as loving and hard working as the sane, maybe more so.

"You're fucking nuts" is intolerant hate speech; hurtful and triggering.


You'll see schizophrenia relabelled as that eventually.

"He's not crazy. He doesn't see people and hear voices that aren't there. He's totally sane and YOU are crazy for not noticing"

Skyler said...

"parallels to the experience many transgender people"

Exactly. They're not quite right in the head.

The same SHOULD be said of homosexuality. But that's considered hate speech.

Darcy said...

@MadisonMan

And we mustn't create pretty euphemismistic terms for it. But hey, maybe a Vanity Fair cover in the future. (I went there.)

Larry J said...

Wilbur said...
Just when you think you've heard it all ...
And I think I've got issues. Wow.


While some people have issues, others have lifetime subscriptions.

Dave D said...

I've often (mostly jokingly) stated that I would trade a leg for the lucrative settlements some of these PI TV Schiesters claim they get for their clients. Are we sure that lifetime disability is not the "sane" goal of some of these attempts?

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"parallels to the experience many transgender people"

Different mental illnesses can share symptoms. That's hardly surprising.

Anonymous said...

What inquiring minds want to know is if you can then qualify for SSI? If so, the next thing people want to know is if you can qualify for SSI for just thinking it's a good idea for you, but not, you know cutting parts off.


PS: I think it ought to be covered by Obamacare, but you need to be required to get the operation that makes you perfect, with drugs.

TCR James said...

Defining DSM-IV downward...

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Any man would have my respect who had his lower legs amputated and changed his name to Neil.

Bob Boyd said...

Look it's simply bigoted to refer to someone who has taken their own life as a "Suicide." The word is freighted with so many negative preconceptions. I encourage people to call those who have chosen an alternative state as Transanimate.
We define Transanimate as the desire or need for a person identified as alive by other people to transform his or her body in to something much cooler and less active.
Its not so much these individuals feel like they are in the wrong body as that they feel like they want to be a body.

Rocketeer said...

I've said it before, and will say it again and again and again: as a society we are doing a tremendous disservice to the mentally ill by indulging and even celebrating their assertions that their mental illnesses are not mental illnesses. Bruce Jenner is on the cover of Vanity Fair in this month, but someday (I suspect in the not-too-distant future), when our understanding of the science behind these mental illnesses is mature enough and we are honest enough as a society to admit it, we will be horrified at how instead of helping actually treat them, we pandered to these delusions. I don't say that to judge them - who are trying to deal with a serious problem (albeit in a self-destructive manner) - but rather to judge the rest of us.

Julie C said...

The things people will do to get a handicapped placard.

Kyzer SoSay said...

I'm just happy that, in the event of the apocalypse, these nutjobs will be the first to go. I plan to make sure of that.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Quick question: does anyone here NOT think that transgendered people are really just suffering from a combination of mental illness with some possible hormonal imbalance? Because that's my opinion, and I think if we had researchers brave enough to speak out, we'd find that science backs it up.

Amichel said...

I find it interesting how unscientific this latest quackery of transgenderism and disablism is. How can the concept of a man being born in a woman's body, or vice versa, make any sort of sense unless there is some sort of soul? Something that exists separately from someone's body, and that this soul itself can be gendered male or female. It's an inherently spiritual view of the human person that betrays it's trumped up scientific pretentions.

ALP said...

Insert Chris Rock's "whatever happened to crazy?" routine right here...

Smilin' Jack said...

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.

I question his sincerity. A chainsaw would be much easier and more reliable. If you really want good results, use the right tool for the job.

Kyzer SoSay said...

How sad for our daughters to have "woman" reduced like that...

How sad for you to be so hetero-nonmutilated-cis-normative. These comments are horribly triggering, but the moderator seems to have a light touch these days . . .

Kyzer SoSay said...

@ Smilin' Jack

Easiest way to lose a leg? Jack up your car, take the wheel off, put your thigh under the brake rotor hub, and throw the release valve on the jack.

Saves the surgeon time too. At that point, if done right, he would barely need scissors.

Kyzer SoSay said...

I first posted:
I'm just happy that, in the event of the apocalypse, these nutjobs will be the first to go. I plan to make sure of that.

Referring to the article about nutjobs who lop off limbs, which was the salient point of this comment thread.

Then I posted:
Quick question: does anyone here NOT think that transgendered people are really just suffering from a combination of mental illness with some possible hormonal imbalance? Because that's my opinion, and I think if we had researchers brave enough to speak out, we'd find that science backs it up.

Note the use of "transgendered", specifying that here I am explicitly talking about that particular form of mental illness. How you read my original post to apply to both transgendered people and nutjobs who disfigure themselves is beyond me. I retract nothing I've said to this point.

YOU brought up the transexuals, and the violence against them.

I brought them up in context to mental illness, not violence. Chill out.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Besides, if I don't help the poor dears who want their toesies and legsies to be gone so they feel more like themselves, who will? In the apocalypse, this means more food for me, cuz a one legged man can't hunt as well as I can or run from the banditos as fast as I can. So if he wants me to lop off a limb, I've already got my machete sharpened.

Kyzer SoSay said...

LOL, you're nuts. And maybe hormonal. You're assigning meaning to my posts based on nothing aside from the context you feel will offend you most. As for backing down, I clearly stated that I retract nothing, and I meant everything I said in exactly the way I explained it.

Do you . . . just maybe . . . need a crying room?

Kyzer SoSay said...

If 'Caitlyn' wants me to lop something off, I ain't doing it for free.

A) It's not (yet) the apocalypse.
B) She's got money to burn.
C) She'd probably want it televised, being so starved for attention.

traditionalguy said...

Man has always desired to transform himself into another being. Literature has been fascinated with that since Oedipus Rex helped the Greeks understand their minds.

What Freud said about not knowing what a woman wants applies to men too. Freud ran a business of treating crazy/angry women for big money paid by their rich husbands. So he pretended the women were the problem.

Kyzer SoSay said...

OK, you're still at it then.
What type of tools do you plan to use to "help" them? Will you kill them, or just make them suffer, "the poor dears"?


Oh dear Lord. Not sure you're understanding that I'm not talking about lopping limbs off of transexuals, but rather the people who are mentally ill enough to strongly desire to lose a limb, and only in the event of the apocalypse.

Being whimsical, I'll answer these inane queries.

Machete
No killing (they're crazy, but not suicidal - I hope)
No, I would offer them my finest scotch to numb the pain. Civil War soldiers didn't always have it so good.

Kyzer SoSay said...

I think Mary is trying to tell us something. Mary . . . do you feel as if you should have been born "differently abled"?

Kyzer SoSay said...

That's all I want.

Sorry snowflake. We don't always get what we want. The Rolling Stones sang about that once. If Mick shows up, you oughta ask him about it.

Kyzer SoSay said...

No, and if you threaten me, I will take action.

Speaking of talking big on the internet. Wowzers, someone took a bitchy pill today.

Lewis Wetzel said...

The addition or subtraction of body parts is arbitrary. In the end, there is no difference between feeling that you are in the wrong body because you have a penis and feeling that you are in the wrong body because you don't have two heads. The only real public policy decision to be made is, as Sebastion wrote, " . . . is it covered by Obamacare?"

Kyzer SoSay said...

It might as well be. Everything else is. Besides, Obama already insinuated that surgeons love to amputate limbs for extra cash. Not covering this would be bigotry of the highest order, according to some.

Bad Lieutenant said...

I might call for them to be forcibly committed and treated for this disorder, because after all we do not live in a state of nature; but I have no animus for such people. Probably the less said about it the better. Our hostess probably thinks we can't read and are still on about fag related issues. This is generic weirdo stuff. She really needs to up her game.

Seriously though why are you here? Talk about a light touch!

buwaya said...

Interesting thing about the subjects of madness and eccentricity - that is, the expressed desires/interests/obsessions of the mad. They follow fashion.

There was a time, long ago, when people would imagine, or pretend, they were Napoleon.
Or some analogous figure. Such as the case of "Emperor Norton". Napoleon was a popular celebrity image of the day.

Before that, I believe many such persons would insist on some religious expression - seeing visions, etc. There is still a bit of that.

Now some of them imagine they are women, or furry creatures, or, as in this case, limbless.

The fault here is not the mad or eccentric, who cant help it, and whom we would always have with us, but the social and media milieu that promotes the forms their madness takes.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Your threats will be deleted by close of day.
I'm quite certain of that.


Oh noes. Is someone gonna tattle on me? Report me to mommy? Do you honestly think I give a rat's ass? People already read it. You're the only numbskull to take it out of context and get bent out of shape. You're also an example of a good little fascist, calling for censorship when none is needed.

Lol, it's not talk, girlfriend.
"don't believe me, just watch..."


I'm watching. Nothing to see, and nothing to believe. Nothing seems to be the sum total of your contributions to this thread.

Fritz said...

Can we harvest their parts for people who don't have them and want them?

Bad Lieutenant said...

Somebody better line up five justices to flush whatever toilet that opinion is hiding in. This constant invocation of law, or the Constitution, to normalize the abnormal, is literally and without hyperbole, the quickest route to realizing that not only is the Constitution not a suicide pact, it's a piece of paper, and thenceforth it's a short trip to the aforementioned state of nature. Curious, is that what you want?

Lewis Wetzel said...

Buwaya wrote:
"Interesting thing about the subjects of madness and eccentricity - that is, the expressed desires/interests/obsessions of the mad. They follow fashion."

It has been noted that many of the tales of abduction by "aliens" follow the pre-modern pattern stories about abductions by elves or fairies. Little people people take the abducted to a timeless place where they interact with them through rituals, and the victims are never quite the same after they return to mortal lands.

Fabi said...

Clearly we need some common sense restrictions on cinder blocks!

Bad Lieutenant said...

I'm always minded of the fact that whiplash injuries are reportedly nonexistent in countries where there is no financial recourse for whiplash.

Tank said...

Unknown said...

I'm always minded of the fact that whiplash injuries are reportedly nonexistent in countries where there is no financial recourse for whiplash.


Well, don't trust everything you read, I got hit from behind at a yield sign last week and got a very nice whiplash sprain (that happily healed quite nicely in a few days).

Joe said...

Just to be clear; doing research into the causes of people thinking they are something they clearly aren't is advocating doing violence to them?

buwaya said...

There you go. Alien abductions were fashionable once upon a time.
And then there was mind control.
Recently its transgender stuff.
Next decade, something else no doubt.

buwaya said...

The advantage of wanting to be Napoleon, or aliens, or oppression by the mind controlling state, is that none of these involves irreversible surgery or hormone treatment.

Kyzer SoSay said...

Just to be clear; doing research into the causes of people thinking they are something they clearly aren't is advocating doing violence to them?

In Mary's sad little world, yes, apparently it is.

Apparently refusing to retract ones statements is also evidence of "backing down".

She also can see the future, apparently, and think that preserving a few lines of text on the internet is really really important to some of us.

One wonders if she also wishes her given name were Marty.

jr565 said...

Body integrity Identity disorders are very similar to transgenderism. In both cases the person is suffering from dysphoria over a belief that is fundamentally not true.
Women suffering from anorexia have a similar distorted view of reality. They may think they're fat despite all objective proof to the contrary. Does it help anorexics to kow tow to their delusions? Maybe doctors should be giving them diet pills and accept the subjective reality that they are fat because they say so.
In fact though the way they treat anorexia is to first force those suffering from it to tecognize they have a problem.
It's not anorexia phobia to express a plain truth about anorexia. And if doctors treated anorexia the way they are treating transgendered people would be dying left and right.

Skipper said...

Until recently, weren't all these "feelings" called mental illness, whatever that is?

Emil Blatz said...

"...never told his wife."

Never told his wife what?

Kyzer SoSay said...

No. Just a man who really tires of explaining things to obstinate randoms on the internet.

traditionalguy said...

Bruce Jenner was like Oedipus the king of Thebes who was an Olympic hero man that under a Big Mistake decided to kill off the man/Father side of himself and become one with the Mother side of himself.

Man never changes.

Kyzer SoSay said...

And you're a lying coward who uses threats of violence to try and silence others.

Oh please. Are you dyslexic?

Kyzer SoSay said...

For someone so upset and jarred by my comments, you seem to have no problem leveling personal attacks. Maybe I'm reading this all wrong. Is this a plea? Do you feel you have a few fingers or toes too many? Or, like all good fascists, do you just like harassing folks who say things you don't like in order to feel better about yourself?

Jeff Gee said...

Errol Morris' second movie, Vernon, Florida, was originally going to be called "Nub City." "Vernon became known as "nub city" in the 1950s and 1960s for the high number of limb loss insurance claims made in the area," sez its Wiki page. Morris 'rethought' the subject matter after getting death threats (or so he says) from the nubbies. He includes no mention of all this limb-lopping in the movie, and didn't have to, since Vernon is still a pretty wiggy place without it.

I'm not sure that the Vernon nubbies suffer from 'transability.' If 'suffer from' is the phrase I want. I doubt it's any less nuts to desire fewer legs because you'll receive a disability benefit than it is to desire it because you just want fewer legs. Well, maybe a little.

buwaya said...

Anorexia is another case of fashionable madness.
There is scant historical record of such, and then it exploded into prominence in the 1970's, rose through @2000 I think, and since then seems to have declined substantially.
And the fact that incidence of these things varies greatly from country to country.
And in the US anyway, it varies greatly by race/culture.
If they were independent of culture they wouldn't vary by time or culture.

n.n said...

Embrace the rainbow. We are still only a few shades past monochromatic. There are more orientations and behaviors than dreamed in the trans-equivalence campaign. While resurrecting sacrificial rites (e.g. selective-child) was a good beginning, in order to avoid creating moral hazards through selective inclusion/exclusion (i.e. pro-choice doctrine), the "secular" Church will need to step away from its insular form and expand its myopic perspective to normalize progressive (i.e. unqualified, monotonic) spectrum disorders. The Age of Progressive Confusion is upon us. Forward!

Michael K said...

Man, feeding the troll has become an art form here.

""You're fucking nuts" is intolerant hate speech; hurtful and triggering."

Actually, these people are crazy. Johns Hopkins (I keep pointing this out) had the first sex change program in the US. They closed that clinic several years ago after concluding this was mental illness.

Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

They had a number of patients who came back and wanted to be changed back to the original sex.

Lewis Wetzel said...

Gosh, Michael K., it may be hate speech to say it openly, but it almost seems like this whole trans-gender and sexual orientation business is about politics and not about science.

jr565 said...

From Michael K's link:
Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

But of course. They are suffering from dysphoria. They are almost suicidal if they don't get the surgery. That's not normal behavior. Only people suffering from some sort of identity disorder acts that way. But as he says "sex changes are impoosible"
Better to treat this with drugs and therapy than chopping off peoples dicks.

n.n said...

Michael K:

Didn't psychiatry originally classify trans behaviors (e.g. homosexual, transgender, bestiality, transability - by choice, not circumstance, elective abortion) as dysfunctional, but with the normalization of pro-choice doctrine overturned objective standards (e.g. evolutionary fitness, human rights) for classifying behaviors, and specifically dysfunctional and deviant behaviors?

The question people need to answer for classifying and addressing behaviors and progressive orientations is whether they should be normalized (i.e. promoted), tolerated, or rejected; and whether in the latter two classifications, the people exhibiting or expressing the symptoms should be treated or isolated.

jr565 said...

In regards to the statements of Dr McHugh, of course sex changes are impossible. THey dont' change your genes. And in regards to whether its' a mental disorder. Of course it is. People who need to change their body to match their sex suffer from dysphoria. Definitionally then a mental disorder.
it doenst mean I hate them or wish them ill. But what they want is simply not possible.

Gahrie said...

A man believes he is an elephant.

A man believes he is a woman.

The first man is considered delusional. Why not the second? Why do we treat these case differently?


The 19th Amendment didn't give elephants the right to vote.

Michael K said...

"Anorexia is another case of fashionable madness."

Anorexia nervosa is successfully treated with anti-depressants. It is an example of somatic complaints in depression with women. Male cases of anorexia nervosa are rare or unknown.

The eating disorders literature has focussed on females and little is known of the male experience.

And There is consequently a pressing need to address the dearth of research examining eating disorders in males.

Of course since there is none.

David said...

Another quote from the article MICHAEL K LINKS:

(CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.

He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”


The article also points to a study that the suicide rate for transgendered people is 20 times that of non-transgendered.

Seems it's even more complicated that it appears, and that is pretty complicated.

virgil xenophon said...

@Michael K/

Certain facts, logic and biology mean as of nothing to the LGBT cultists...if you had somehow gained access to Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine and were magically transported back to the EXACT MIDDLE OF THE FIELD at Hitlers 1936 Nuremberg Rally with 400,000 loudly chanting Nazis surrounding you, you would have had a better chance of having your points being heard and understood shouting them amidst that cacophony than arguing with today's leftist ideologues.

jr565 said...

Gahrie wrote:
The 19th Amendment didn't give elephants the right to vote

We don't remove the mans right to vote simply because he says he's an elephant. Because unlike him, we aren't suffering from delusions that he's actually an elephant. He still has the right to vote.

jr565 said...

My fear is that because its treated like a civil right, doing the responsible thing (treating with drugs and therapy trying to disabuse them of the notion that a) they really are the opposite gender, and b) that there is anything wwrong with them now) we instead will treat actual therapy like gay conversion therapy.
As in, its actually immoral to view this as a mental disorder at all.

Scott said...

“It reminds me of that old joke- you know, a guy walks into a psychiatrist's office and says, hey doc, my brother's crazy! He thinks he's a chicken. Then the doc says, why don't you turn him in? Then the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. I guess that's how I feel about relationships. They're totally crazy, irrational, and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs.”

--Woody Allen

buwaya said...

No reason these somatic complaints shouldn't differ by sex.
I would think there is an irreducible number of people with active cases of depression, or whatever psychological malady is relevant, that can choose to express it in a variety of ways, and the expression they hit upon is at least partially determined by what happens to be popular at the time.

Scott said...

Can a person have a right to a personality disorder?

n.n said...

Gahrie:

Women were never denied the right to vote other than in exceptional cases. In fact, it wasn't until the Fourteenth Amendment that the notion of gender was introduced into The Constitution. The Nineteenth Amendment affirmed the right of women to vote and made it uniform throughout The Constitution's jurisdiction.

Owen said...

How are these behaviors categorized for purposes of psychiatric or other intervention? For reimbursement?

If I deliberately mutilate myself while at work, do I owe the employer an apology for screwing up his record with OSHA? Should I pay for the hike in his insurance premium?

If I do it with some machine, do I get to sue the manufacturer for failing to prevent me?

Are taxpayers funding this?

If there were a database with names and addresses, I'm sure freelancing taxpayers would do the work for less.

buwaya said...

"Can a person have a right to a personality disorder?"
To the same extent that he can have a right to alcoholism or cancer or malaria I guess.
There is no way to force a sick adult to seek treatment, unless he makes himself a public nuisance.

Patrick said...

I just think it's a hoax.

Patrick said...

I just think it's a hoax.

Gahrie said...

We don't remove the mans right to vote simply because he says he's an elephant. Because unlike him, we aren't suffering from delusions that he's actually an elephant. He still has the right to vote.

Yes, but if elephants could vote, we'd give him the right to become an elephant, to pander to the elephant votes.

exhelodrvr1 said...

So when teenage girls cut themselves, we should not stop them?

Peter said...

"Anorexia nervosa is successfully treated with anti-depressants. It is an example of somatic complaints in depression with women."

So, perhaps we've re-discovered hysteria and put a more PC term on it?

If the problem is in your head, isn't that the body part that should be treated?