Transabled
Written by Sean on Wednesday, August 17, 2005
This is a word I coined that better fits than the word wannabe. It hinges on the concept of ‘transexual’, and does not play in the ideas of "differently abled".
Transabled, to me, is someone who desperatly wants, or needs, to be disabled in some ways. The most often heard of desire is undeniably a need for amputations. Less often, those who need to be paraplegic (that’s where I fall). There are also some who see blindness as their goal (pun intended).
It is generally not a sexually related desire, unlike the attraction of devotees, or the "games" of pretenders.
I believe that it doesn’t matter what disability it is you are after, we all share the same feelings and emotions. This saddly appears to be contrary to the thinking of most amputee transabled folks.
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3 Comments
2 On 20 April, 2007, Sean said:
Thank you Kyla, this is so true, yet so very sad :(
I am reminded of a chant we used to sing at protests: “united, we will never be defeated”.
Oh humm
Unfortunately, there’s a painfully accurate saying that I grew up with: “The road to social progress can only be paved with the blood of martyrs.” The first generation (and frequently the first several) pushing for a particular social change will inevitably be tortured and slaughtered mercilessly - if not literally, at least figuratively.
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1 On 20 April, 2007, Kyla said:
“This sadly appears to be contrary to the thinking of most amputee transabled folks.”
Unfortunately, this is not the only place where this phenomenon of infighting to further weaken the ranks of an already-marginalised group.
It always seems to take the form of slicing off a piece of the group and saying “Look! They’re even stranger than we are - so our subset of the group should be taken seriously, as long as we don’t associate with THEM OVER THERE.” While it may have some limited success in short-term actions, in the long-term, it’s detrimental to all parts of the group.
To draw an example from my personal situation: I’m transsexual and transabled. However, if I admit to being transabled, I automatically disqualify myself from eligibility for GRS to treat the transsexuality - so I’m forced to ‘distance’ myself from the TA community. Of course, this doesn’t stop me from speaking about it - here, or other places - but it does mean that I need to be EXTRA careful about protecting my identity.