could you please tell us more about the person you mentioned in this sentence of yours:

“The author also knows of someone who has succesfully managed her transability just through therapy, and went from needing to be a DAK to being quite happy being AB and not have a disability.”

How did she do it? What kind of therapy? How is she now?

Thank you, best wishes
Phil

Pretending: Dunno if the world is ready for this yet. If people decide they DON’T want it, will the pretending episode mark them for life as outcasts. I guess it already does for GID people. Anyone have any experience? Until the world accepts people with BIID, and THEN accepts they could get it wrong and want to back out, could see reasons to make a good cover story for why one was in the chair/blind/deaf/limb restricted.

Pretending the difficulty of being an amputee would be relatively easy with a plaster cast. if anything it’s more difficult to get around with a stiff, straight leg than with a stump or a decent prosthetic. Would certainly make the ‘pretender’ appreciate what being on crutches is really like. And if they don’t like it, the cast comes off, in a ‘plausibly deniable’ way. All that assumed leg amputee, I’m sure similar can be done for arm amp.

First, I agree, this cannot be cured. It’s part of who we are. Doesn’t mean it can’t be treated. This is why I’m discussing treatment options. Not to cure, but to help dealing with it. As you know, being transabled affects different people differently, but a majority of us are unhappy.

Second, I must disagree with you on devotee and wannabe going hand in hand. Yes, they often occur in the same people and have some degree of relationship (in that it focuses on disabilities), but I think it’s a mistake to say they go hand in hand. It would be a little bit like thinking that HIV/AIDS and gay guys go hand in hand. It’s not because you have HIV that you’re gay, nor because you’re gay you’ll automatically get aids. Same thing for wannabes. You may or may not be a devotee as well, but one doesn’t automatically mean you’ll be the other as well.

Finally, while I understand your comparison to paedophilia, I think it’s a very dangerous analogy. The problem is that a majority of us who understand the issues behind being transabled and/or devotee can see the single most biggest difference: We are not dangerous to others. But for others who aren’t transabled, and don’t know about devs and our world, this comparison is entirely too easy, and as it is wrong, it isn’t something I tend to suggest.

It’s one of the reasons I don’t like to think of this in terms of a “philia”, which gives the idea of *deviance*. There may be devs who are sexually deviant, but I don’t think that in and of itself devs are perverts. And there may be some wannabes who get turned on at the idea of being an amputee, blind or paralysed, but that’s not the majority of the people I have contact with (incidentally, those wannabes who are sexually turned on at the idea of being disabled have tended to be, in my experience, individuals who were also devotees).

I have grown to deeply respect your out look and your opinions. I\’ll never forget the first time I found this website and saw the word \”transabled\”. I think the floor actually shook and lights became brighter. It was like \”yes, yes, yes, that\’s it\” The perfect word to describe us.

I just want to say to this article….I believe that this cannot be cured. It can not be cured anymore than someone can be cured for having white skin or red hair. It is not about being cured, it is about being who we are, how we were made. Before I found all of you out there, I thought something was wrong with me….I thought I had this deep dark secret that I could never ever share with anyone, I know these feelings were the cause of my total lack of self-esteem when I was younger….I could look in the mirror and see a pretty girl with a nice body….but I could not look her in the eyes….these feelings inside would build and build until you have to do some kind of pretending just so you don\’t explode, but my God the guilt I felt afterwards. I just knew that there was a glitch somewhere in my makeup. Somewhere along the line I learned a little about sexual fantasies and fetishes….I started thinkin that maybe that is all this is, but I knew it was more, this was a need. It has been about 4 years now since I first decided to take the plunge, find out how to erase the history from my computer and start searching. I know each and every one of you knows the feeling of elation and relief I felt when I saw that I was not alone. There were only a few sites then and most were on amputees, but they were there…I am so happy with the way we have grown, online at least if not yet mainstream. The one thing that I know now with absolute certainty is that we were all born this way….gays, lesbians, transgendered, transabled. It is there, it has always been there and it is not going away. We may need help dealing with it or accomplishing it, but it is there to stay.

That said, I am going to take it one step further, and this is where I may get into trouble….but not only did I think I was a freak for needing to sit in a wheelchair, but I also am attracted to blind men, and have even done some blind pretending myself, although, I know that was done out of curiousity and not need. I believe that these \”devotee\” feelings go hand in hand with being \”transabled\” I have encountered many people that were just one or the other, but alot that were both. These feelings are just there as well, they are part of our programming and can also not be cured. One thing that I have struggled with immensely is that all of the philia\’s are the same way. They are there, they are not going anywhere…some of them are very very bad…but I have to apply the same rules to all. People cannot be cured of pedophilia any more than they could be cured of amaurophilia, and as much as I don\’t like to be put in the same category, I can only say that we need to have a harmless and harmful category for the philia\’s. I guess we could take this information of knowing that this can\’t be cured into account when we think about releasing \”reformed pedophiles\” CANT BE DONE There is no reform…..there is no cure….it is what it is. Here is where I struggle as a mom, as a christian and as a amaurophile, these people are like us. They might be totally normal people except for this urge they can\’t shake. I would be willing to bet that 95% of us are just normal everyday people with normal everyday problems and not monsters….some may percieve us that way even, but we aren\’t….what about those others?? Now that is some difficult stuff to think about.

Again, relating things to the gender community, some insurance companies pick up cost of hormone/srs, some don’t, but everyone knows they have that option to work towards.