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In Defense of Pretenders
Written by Claire on Wednesday, July 16, 2008
In his private blog, Rorshach wrote an interesting response to my post on BIID vs. Pretending for kicks. We had a friendly e-mail exchange, during which he graciously gave me permission to re-post his post here. Thanks Ror!
From Rorshach’s private blog, reposted with permission.
In Defense of Pretenders
There are these odd strains of elitism that run even amongst the socially outcast. All of us privy to this scene are odd in some way and would more than likely suffer socially if exposed and yet there is still infighting amongst us over whose desires are more valid. Frankly, right now it all seems like a lot of bullshit.
The first place I ever encountered it was with the Amp wannabes (some of whom would later become the Amp TA). They assert, rather oddly in my mind, that they are the true wannabes and that those who desire other conditions do not share the same genuine experiences which they do. This trend has, as I’ve heard, continued with the rise of definitions like BIID, and TA. I have no idea how amputation specifically can drive one’s experience of desire ot be more genuine that that of another, but apparently for some there is something special there which I will never understand (though there is also apparently a U.F.O. behind the Hale-Bopp comet which will take you to Heaven if you commit suicide wearing black Nikes).
This of course happened outside of the Amp scene too though.
Recently I have been taking notice of the bad name which Pretending is acquiring in light of the rise of TA and BIID (mind you this is on the "wheelchair/paralysis scene" as I am not familiar with the others). It appears to me that some of the TA have been and still are attempting to distance themselves from the Pretenders. A large part of this involves not only pointing out the differences between them, but also in some ways putting down and even vilifying Pretending if one doesn’t have BIID or at least identify as TA.
I personally do not believe that one should need a medical condition in order to use a wheelchair. This is in spite of the fact that using a wheelchair has proven helpful not only in the management of certain types of paralysis but also in that of BIID (BIID is still awaiting official approval).
It certainly is a nice justification, but I don’ t believe that it should be the only reason that we allow people to use wheelchairs (or canes, crutches, casts, or whatever the hell other medical devices they want). In my mind if someone wants to wheel then it is out of politeness and consideration that they would provide anyone in the world with a reason for their doing so. There is no obligation on the part of the wheeler to have a reason, just as the disabled (non-BIID) person is under no obligation to share how they "got there".
…
I don’t think it really matters why someone is drawn to a wheelchair or any other device or condition. Whether it is from a physical need, a psychological fixation (i.e. the Pretenders), or those who have BIID, in the end all find themselves pushing rims(at least in the case of those who end up with a manual wheelchair). At some point they share a common experience and yet thus far many of the groups have seemed to focus on the differences between themselves as opposed to what it is they share.
At some point the Pretender and the BIID sufferer have very similar experiences as far as their social perception both when their pretending is hidden and when it is exposed (though upon exposure some differences may arise these experiences share fundamental similarities). When hidden both groups share what appear to be identical experiences with the disabled in this realm. It is my belief that this actually may be the reason why pretending may be so effective for some people as a form of stress management etc. I remember reading a blog by a Pretender/BIID (I can’t recall which it was, and part of my point here is to point out that it doesn’t really matter so this is anything but a disadvantage for me) who still went through the rigors of bumping up steps etc. in front of a friend who knew she was pretending. For her, she said, it was important to be perceived as disabled by someone even if they knew that she was just pretending. This was actually so important to her that she commented on how she never wanted this person to see/meet/etc. her out of her chair (and worked to make that so). It was important that this person only ever know her as disabled. In some way this made her experience more real and genuine. In short social perception was a very important and in some ways driving aspect of her Pretending.
There is value not only in how we see ourselves, but in how others see us. Some people may have a disorder wherein certain neurological characteristics cause them to have a “disrupted” body image and thus may seek to use a chair, however this is not to invalidate the experience of those who use for other reasons.
I think that for Pretenders there may be (at least) four strains. Those who pretend for the feeling of using a chair because they have a fixation with it, those who pretend so they feel disabled, those who pretend so that they are perceived as disabled, and lastly those who do so for for a mixture of these feelings (given the constant flux of the human psyche it is arguable that st some point most of these feeling will be at least accessed and at most integrated into the desired experience). I believe, as was implied in the movie Quid Pro Quo, that the ultimate purpose driving this is a feeling of security. It strikes me that people will go a long way to feel secure in the many levels of environment which they experience (from their body all the way up to their social perception), and the documented attempts by Pretenders to integrate their Pretending experiences into their lives, no simple task mind you, says to me that this is not to be written off as some lesser experience.
I think that the pretenders are getting a bit of a bad name now because others in our scene desire a greater sense of self worth and it is a wholly human tactic to rate ourselves in accordance to others so the lowering of the status of another individual or group is certainly one method of improving our feelings about ourselves; and when self worth is as low as it gets around here I think it is entirely human to forsake the well being of another in exchange for one’s own sense of well being.
Often the argument is made that the Pretender knows nothing of what it is to be disabled because of the temporary nature of their relationship to their chair. I disagree. Simply because it does not capture the entire experience does not mean that Pretending is a valueless experience. Nor does it mean that the disabled experience is any more valid, or relevant other than by how it may apply to the person pretending. For some the disabled experience may indeed be the apex of their experience, though for others simply achieving the social perception is enough and for others simply using a chair once in a while may be satiating. Indeed someone who has spent any real time pretending has far greater empathy than those who have only observed. Furthermore Pretending in all of its flavors carries a degree of anxiety which the disabled know nothing of. The disabled don’t have to worry about the social backlash of using an assistive apparatus without socially recognized need.
There is less meaning in why one wheels than there is in that one wheels at all.
Why do people care what reason a person may have for wheeling? Whether they wheel to feel more secure, to bring an incomplete body image into focus, or to fill a social role they feel that they need to perform, the point is that they are drawn to it, and it isn’t hurting other people.
Quite frankly I think that we have been stuck thinking of the dominant group, in this situation the disabled, as having some sort of social privilege regarding the experience of wheeling. The fact is that while they may be the group with the largest population they by no means have the final say on the experience of wheeling. The experience of Pretending is unique unto itself and it frankly doesn’t matter what reason someone chooses to wheel.
We have the problem of a pigeonholed definition. We think of the disabled as the only group, or at least the first group, that wheels because that is the socially constructed view. As such this limits our definition of people on wheels. However; clearly that is not the case. I imagine that most of those reading this are actually keenly aware of the other groups which wheel (Pretenders, BIID, et al). So the previous definition of people on wheels must be changed if we wish to accurately reflect the entire population which uses wheelchairs. Now we can try splitting that down to pare off the Pretenders and BIID by saying something like, “those who use wheelchairs on a permanent basis”, but there are many exceptions to that. So you have to go even further and say, “Those who wheel on a permanent basis without choice” and while this does begin to scrape away the population of Pretenders, it certainly does nothing to get rid of those with BIID.
So at this point it seems that further specifying to say, “Those who wheel permanently because of a physical disability” which seems to work except for the fact that there are those who wheel only temporarily and have a disability. What of them? Is someone with MS less disabled because they are not dependent on their wheelchair daily? Does this invalidate their experience?
I mean of course Quadriplegia is radically different from MS, however at some point both are disabled in a very real sense and must share some common experiences which unite them. I say that such is the case for Pretenders and those with BIID.
I argue that it matters not the causes that bring one to wheels (et. al.) but rather the effect. I think that in some way we all share a common effect, and in that we would do well to take heart.
Addendum:
I was responding to a comment and was reminded of one tiny yet important last point that I had wanted to make.
I am also annoyed at the prorogation of a binary system of identification. I don’t think that it is as simple as some people having BIID and some people being Pretenders and there being no relation whatsoever. I’m sure that it is quite possible for someone with BIID to also have the same Psychological fixations which make someone a Pretender. The more we generalize and simplify the way we define people the more of the population we end up marginalizing and the more people who do not fit neatly into one of our two created categories will suffer from feelings of doubt, confusion etc. as they attempt to mold themselves to our socially constructed model.
Categorization only such a minimal level actually hurts us more. What helps is hyper-categorization, because it helps us to see how irrelevant all of it is. We all have feelings that we would like respected and not one of us is any better than the other for it.
Tags: BIID, pretenders, Transabled, Wheelchair
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15 Comments
I find myself occasionally - rarely - in some bizarre middle ground. I feel a physical and psychical need to crutch or wheel. I have the means to crutch and have done so at home and literally, very close to home to prepare for surgery that is ever pushed-back by circumstances. Afterwards, I am sore, exhausted, aware of how out of shape I am, and yet there is something soothed within me.
Then again, maybe I just needed the exercise…
I also find myself wary of those who “pretend for fun” but almost any other reason for wheeling is justified, in my view. As long as you don’t make a fool out of yourself or do stupid things. That make be a really simplistic view, but that’s how I feel.
The one “real-life” friend who knows about my BIID wants to try out my wheelchair one day. She doesn’t need to use one for therapeutic reasons or whatever, but I once touched on letting her use my chair for a day trip sometime so she would get a sense of how it feels to be wheeling, and how many obstacles I have to face. That is the other situation where wheeling is acceptable in my view.
Dear Clair,
Today has been a very hecktic and crazy day for me…I am just now getting home at 11:00 so I don’t really feel like talking much after having been up since 5 this morning and working all day and night. I would like to email you privately on this matter, but I will also make a post on here later consering the way I feel about this matter. In time I will respond when I finally get out from being so crazyly busy. Sorry…
-Wheelman
5 On 16 July, 2008, Sean said:
Wheelman, you know, you don’t help yourself with your poor spelling and how you repeatedly mis-spell people’s name. Her name is Claire. Claire with an E at the end.
6 On 16 July, 2008, Sean said:
I want to thank Rorshach for allowing Claire to repost this here. I always have a bit of a problem when important posts are made on closed/private blogs. This is an important topic that deserves to be discussed in public, for all to see and participate.
I’ll try to address this very topic a bit more at length in a post of my own. Comments are not the place to write long stuff, and I do have a lot to say on this issue.
There are two things that I need to mention here, however.
1- I take offense at the accusation that we are talking against the “pretenders for fun” merely because it makes us feel better. We are not pushing people down, much less pushing them down to increase our sense of self-worth.
2- Contrary to Rorschach, I think that why/how you do something has a lot to do with acceptability. In other words, it’s not *what* you do, but *why* you it. Taking an extreme example - If I shoot you in the head, people might think me a horrible man. Especially if I have no good reason to do so. But if I shoot you in the head because we’re stuck in the wilderness and you are being slowly crushed to death by a large boulder, and we’re alone and there’s no way we can move the rock or get to help in time, and being shot dead is a kinder way to go than slow, painful suffocation, then, the story is quite different. But I’ll explore that more in depth in my promised post :)
These things *are* important and need to be discussed.
7 On 16 July, 2008, Sophie said:
I’ll be honest, I’ve never quite understood how someone can “pretend for kicks” and show no regard for how it affects the disabled community. I have not let this affect how I treat them though as we are all people and I know I went through a spiral of self doubt, guilt all of that when I didn’t know I transabled and I wanted to use a wheelchair “because it looks good”. I’m generalising things here with myself, I hope I’m just getting my point across.
In my mind it’s the way things are, I’ve always struggled with these sorts of issues from being brought up in a christian home where transexuality and cross dressing is considered a sin.
There is a lot to digest here but for now I want to respond to Sean’s comment.
First I don’t like having my blog be private but I have seen many people online be exploited and mocked for being different and exploring this publicly. As a result I have kept my blog only open to Friends and friends of friends in hopes that I would still reach the community without leaving my self open to this. In any case I have changed that now.
1. Yes, this is where communication becomes tricky. Claire’s blog made me want to write my own and the quite embarrassing part here is that I both read Claire’s blog, and wrote my response while drunk which no doubt affected my perceptions. Rereading her entry now it really lacks the same tone of attack that I read into it earlier. In any case I was taking a conclusion that I had read from one of my Sociology texts regarding economically marginalized populations in the U.S. and how they would kill each other for items of luxury (i.e. expensive clothes etc.) because this was a way of having self esteem which was in low supply there.
After talking with Claire it is quite apparent to me that I was drastically off base in my interpretation of her blog in that respect.
2. I can definitely see where you are coming from but I think it would be premature to respond at this time when you have a bigger and better detailed argument in the works (one which I am very much looking forward to!)
I would like to say that I was worried over how this would be perceived and I am quite happy to see that we are able to share disagreement in such an open and stimulating way.
9 On 17 July, 2008, Claire said:
@Gordo: one of my problems is that with the best intentions, you can do harm without meaning to.
@Wheelman: of course you can email me privately. :o)
@Sean: settle down!
@Sophie: it never ceases to amaze me how many different ways we arrive at this.
@Rorschach: Dude, I am thoroughly impressed that you can write so well while drunk! I’d love to see what you’d come up with while sober. ;o)
Well, I agree that under certain circumstances pretending is NOT ok (like using disabled parking).
I have a problem, though. You’re at a supermarket, and you see 2 teenage girls obviously pretending. No one cares. Then, you pretend, and for some odd reason people take offense? Huh? I mean, I am a teenager, and teens do stupid and embarrassing stuff. But come on! You couldn’t possibly have seen that many /teen/ pretenders! Is there a trust problem here?
Sorry if this is in the wrong spot, it seemed like a good place to put it.
Dear Claire,
I believe most of us also feel that we must uphold and respect the disabled community…it comes with the territory. We are here, using devices by choice, or not depending on how you look at it, that some people use because they simply have no other choice and they feel as if their life is hell or that they are imprisoned and such. I dare say that most of us feel that we have to respect the disabled people and to do everything we can to not only lift ourselves, but also lift them as well.
When I started pretending when I was 12, like all of us, I didn’t understand it, all I knew was that I enjoyed the feeling of braces against my legs and seeing the straps and metal across them and the way they felt as I moved around in them. I didn’t understand it and it scared the crap out of me and I felt very guilt for my feelings…like we all did and do. It took years and a lot of pain and thinking before I finally managed to get some understanding of myself and the way I feel.
It wasn’t until I met and became close friends with a girl with CP in my middle teenage years that I really began to understand my feelings fully and be able to accept them fully. When I finally reached that point I realized that I could only do what I do and be whom I am if I first take care to recognize the disabled world. Sure I was already attracted to disabled people and was fascinated by them and wanted to be included in some part of their world, but I didn’t really realize my role or the requirements of me till that moment and I made a commitment to myself…I can’t be who I am and do what I do unless somehow I do everything I can to help the disabled world and the people I come in contact with by helping them feel better about themselves and try to help them in their live by learning new tricks or discovering new things they enjoy doing.
Too many disabled people in our world feel the way they do about themselves and hate their disability and are miserable because they have yet to accept their disability and have yet to learn new things in their life that they enjoy because they are just thrown back into the world and left to find things out on their own and all they know is basics of how to live and survive, but not always things that are important that make their live enjoyable or easier. Once people get over that hurtle and find those things, many of them even admit that they enjoy life more now than they did before.
So…what I do in my life…is I do my best to influence those around me and those I come in contact with. What few disabled friends I have had over the years I have shown them things in their lives and helped them to enjoy their lives much more…sure there were disagreements and arguments along the way because they misconceptivily felt that since I was a pretender that I felt that…well I am sure you know what I am talking about, it’s hard to put into words…but soon they realize that wasn’t the case and they then began to enjoy me and my life and their lives as well.
As for the general able body public seeing us and them seeing us maybe not acting as though we are disabled and their opinions and feelings being changed negatively by us… I actually think you couldn’t be any more wrong. I think we help the general public in a lot of ways because we help them see that a disabled is not a sad thing that they must feel sorry about or feel that they have to take pity or treat people differently because of it.
I know in my life I try my best to make it a point to act happy and energetic when I am out and about with people. I try to give off the idea that I am happy and that I am pleased and out going and that I don’t need people’s sympathy or their help. I try to show them that they don’t need to feel differently about someone just because they are in a wheelchair.
As I have told you in the past, or at least tried too, like you, I don’t enjoy lying to people and trying to claim that I am disabled. Like most of us, I try to avoid the question all together, if I can’t I give my standard, “I have back problems, or, I have scoliosis”, and move on…both of which are slightly true. When I do finally sit down with someone and begin to get close to them and get involved in deep personal conversation, I guess when one would normally start considering that person as a friend, I come out and tell that person the truth that I am simply a pretender and that I am not really disabled. Over the course of my life I can’t even begin to try and count exactly how many I have told…I know it has been well over 3 dozen and I am sure more, most of their faces I could see, but every time I stop and think I have got them all another face pops up in my mind.
As for the fact that there are those perverts out there who do the things you mentioned and try and take sexual pleasure from people and enjoy the attention and playing like they are disabled completely and dependent so they get a sexual thrill out of it…well they are what you call fetishist…they are simply pretenders by loose definition because they like choosing use a chair, but they don’t feel the same way us real pretenders do. For you to put down and claim all us pretenders for their actions isn’t anymore fair or right for you to do than it is for a normal able person to claim that you, a BIID person, are like them either.
Just because we pretenders feel different about our feelings and feel complete and happy and that simply choosing, or as I see it, sacrificing the ability to walking by choosing to wheel and not feeling like we must be actually disabled, does not make us feel any different than you. Sure we all have different opinions inside of us about why we feel the way we do…some of us feel differently and feel that we were created to be able choose to be this way instead of actually having to go threw with becoming disabled. There are different things that draw us to feel the way we do. From what I have come to understand, and this is something I have mentioned before…for some they feel that the disability is what attracts them and what interest them and what makes them feel complete…and that makes perfect since. For some of us though, we feel an attraction for the disability devices, the chair, the braces, whatever. It’s the actual tools and devices that is used that brings us to our longings and our feelings. For me, that is why I can simply choose to wheel because I feel happy for being in the chair because the chair is what matters to me…not the disability.
As I am sure you know, I am perfectly guilty of being one of those who wheels one minute and then the next gets up and walks around and even does hard physical labor the next like it is nothing. Yes I am aware that a normal SCI and most of the disability world out there doesn’t have that ability, but do I think that it effects society negatively…no. I believe society does not need to feel the way they do. I feel that they putt too much pity and sorry ness into disabled people. They feel to weird and different by them. By doing what I do I feel that perhaps they feel more comfortable and put down their defenses a little because they see that not all disabled people are fully out right broken…so the next disabled person they see…maybe they won’t feel like they can’t do absolutely nothing and so they will respond more positively to the disabled person and will not just feel they are 100% broken so no point in even giving them a chance or even acknowledging them. I am also positive you are aware that there are disabilities out there that allow people to be able to walk one minute and wheel the next, and it is also a true statement that most disabled people still have at least some ability to walk or move a little.
For myself personally, I consider myself a pretender…that is who I am and I am proud of that. I am proud of what I have become and for who I am. I am proud each time I sit down in my chair and wheel threw church or the store or what have you. I am proud that I am able to choose to wheel and to be the person I believe God created me to be. I believe that I am who I am and that I do what I do because I am who I am meant to be. So when I do what I do by wheeling one minute and then walking or working physically the next I do it because I am a pretender and I am proud to choose to get up and work when needed because that is my job and that is what I have been trained to do for my job…sure at the same time I am concerned about the disability community and how they feel and they are perceived…as I said earlier that comes with the turf, but also…I am a pretender, I am not disabled…I think sometimes we have to stand up for ourselves and say this is who we are…we are not disabled, we are pretenders…I use my wheelchair by choice and by need…but just because I have too.
I honestly do not put myself into the BIID crowd or even the transbled crowd, although I could easily be clamed that way as my reasons and feelings do come in line with those definitions loosely…but again…the BIID crowd has their definitions and their wishes to be actually disabled…I do not. Also, I feel that the BIID crowd has taken over our community and has started down right bashing us pretenders and devotees and trying to shun us out and say we are not important and even that we are sick, unacceptable, and that we should not be allowed to exist or be listened too or given a chance to speak because we are not good enough to be BIID because we do not feel like we have to be disabled and we do not help their cause of getting the surgery’s that yall almost addictively desire like a drug attic on rehab craves for his fix. I honestly am behind you in your desires and hope that one day you can get what you want, but I do not agree with some of the lengths you go to for your desires and how you cry out to the doctors and beg of them and demand and present yourselves as helpless children sometimes. I most definitely don’t agree with how you push those others around you down to try and promote yourselves and get only your feelings heard.
-Wheelman
Dear Sean,
I have already apologized to Claire personally and explained to her a little about my English, spelling, and grammar problems in my life and why I have the problems I do when I write. I am sorry you were offended or upset by my misspelling, I do understand how it can get under a English person’s (a person who is very fluent and good at English grammar and the like) skin, just like math does for me. I won’t go into as much detail as I did when I was speaking to Claire but do understand that I am one of those Math brained type guys who’s life revolves around math and who punches numbers for everything in life like everything in life has a mathematical value to it. As I am sure you probably aware, studies have shown that those good in math are poor in English, and those good in English are bad I math. It’s all part of how the brain works. Anyway, I am sorry that misspelling got on your nerves, usually I try my best to use spell check and to try to write well, but in my last post here it was late and I simply just wrote a quick comment in the Webpage box and went on and didn’t first take the time to write it in Word and then spell check it and copy it.
With that being said…I don’t really appreciate you jumping on me about it though as if I was calling her names or trying to be disrespectful because I wasn’t, it was simply a misspelling and a mistake on my part, it happens. For you to judge me and to say that shouldn’t speak or give my opinion because I can’t spell isn’t fair or just. Judge me on my personality and what I believe, not on how I spell it or even how I present it. Your statement made me feel as if you already have come built in biaist against me, simply because I chose to speak out…like I am not worth the time…like just because I have a different opinion it somehow gives you the right to just write me off as not important and to just talk down to me. That’s not fair.
My blog is also considered a private blog…I have had my 360 now for over a year and a half…Currently I believe I have close to 40 friends on there. The reason I keep my blog private is because I like to take a since of privacy and ownership. My blog is a big intention of my life. All of my life, like you I have kept some type of written account and have found that writing is very therapeutic to express how you feel and to relieve stress and express yourself. When I started my 360 I found a whole new world where I could actually publish my thoughts and my feelings and actually feel like I was sharing them with people very important in my life, my friends who were close to me in my life, now, I don’t know all the people on my 360, infact far from it, but I have felt that they shared the same interest as me, so let them read, what could it hurt. So I keep my blog private because I want the since of privacy that I am sharing my inner, deepest, darkest feelings with only my closest of friends who I know understand me and accept me.
In the past I have responded to things I have seen on forums and the like in my personal blog, in fact many times. The reason I do that is simple, because many times I have been the victim of yelling, people cutting me down, name calling, hurt, disgust, and all sorts of things, simply because I offered a different opinion and people didn’t want to hear it and simply felt the right thing to do was to stomp out the person who was different and not let them speak.
I know a good bit of other pretenders and others like myself who have left the “community” that now exist. They, along with myself, got tired of every time they went to the forum and read something or tired to converse in a normal way they went away being attacked or hurt by everyone else. It has gotten to the point where for a good many of us we are simply tired of every time we make a different opinion that we have to be hurt because it, that is why I sometimes write a response to something on my blog because at least there I am in control and won’t be hurt by my friends.
A while back I wrote a blog entry in my blog entitled The community is dead it was the last time I really spoke about us as a community type basis…I wrote in there a little of our group’s history and how for years we were all together and lived pretty much in harmony and how we all got along and how we all held different beliefs, but we all still enjoyed each other and lived with each other and everyone was free….and then I talked about the whole BIID movement and how that has taken over our community and has now started ripping us all apart and has turned our community against each other and is hurting us more than it is helping us. Yes the BIID movement has done wonders in how it has brought the spot light on us finally, but it has also hurt us and turned us against each other as well. I have also expressed some of this in my recent post on here, but I point of talking about my blog was to show that this is something that I have been feeling for some time now.
As for this “Pretending for fun…” I will not say that I pretend or use my chair simply because I find that it is so much fun or that I use my chair for people’s attention and for them to help me and such…however I think deep down inside all of us there is a little of this in all of us.
We all like going and hanging out in our chairs right? We all enjoy going to the mall or shopping or whatever, just to be out in our chairs and to enjoy ourselves and have general fun. We also all have commented on how we enjoy being seen by people in our chairs and the way people respond more acceptable and happy towards us and how people seam to respect us more and to treat us differently (more nicer and such) simply because we are wheeling.
So deep down inside ourselves, we all have a little bit of what we would call, “wheeling for fun” as we enjoy ourselves, who we are, and what we do. When you take pride in yourself and what you do, you naturally find it fun and pleasing…so that’s naturally part of life, having fun and doing things that we enjoy so we have fun. Again, it is those few extremist and fetishist who cross so many borders and boundaries all simply because they can’t control themselves enough to keep from doing it…I don’t understand them any better than the rest of us, but I believe it has something to do with their upbringing and the manners and things they were taught and how much attention they received from their parents and where their parents might have done around them that they learned.
To simply try and say that any happiness derived from wheeling is wrong is unfair and unjust, yes there is a limit, but I know deep down we all enjoy and have fun in our chairs and in the things we do…yes it also gives us other pleasures such as emotional happiness and making us feel as if we are complete and whole and that for once in our life that we are attractive or acceptable socially…and that we can actually approach people and feel good deep inside…but there is also a element of enjoyment and happiness we receive as well.
hi, im wondering if theres any transabled ppl in england?
i would love to tlk to them privatly if possible because even though were all in the same boat i havent discused this before so its hard suddenly sharing it with all x
so if anyone could email me id apreciate it
im so confused and ashamed i just need somene who understands
15 On 17 April, 2009, Sean said:
Hi, I’m sorry you’re feeling lost. It certainly isn’t easy to live with these feelings.
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1 On 16 July, 2008, Claire said:
I do think pretending can hurt people, if one is not careful. I, myself, have done things that could have hurt the disabled community in some way. If you go back into the Golden Age of the wheelchairpretenders group on Yahoo, there has been a whole lot of idiocy among certain “factions” of the pretender spectrum. For example:
- asking a stranger to change your diaper (a disabled person would NOT do this!)
- taking disabled parking spaces
- leaping out of your chair to walk/run to overcome some obstacle, such as stairs or an escalator, giving people the impression that these things aren’t obstacles
- getting irate with people (store owners, etc) about some accessibility issue
- being seen by someone in your chair, then being seen and recognized by the same person walking perfectly normally, thereby giving that person the impression that people who use chairs can walk well
- reveling in the attention and special treatment you get, thereby manipulating others to get your kicks
I realize not everyone does all of these things, and most are certainly careful about what they do. But I think most of us do some of these kids of things (and more) to some extent, even if not realizing the damage they could be doing. I myself have done some of these things, and I am very, very conscious about representing the disabled well (note to the disabled community: I do not think of myself as your representative! I only mean that strangers take me to be disabled, and that makes me a representative of the community, in their eyes). I think that if you have BIID or some disorder that requires wheeling for relief of symptoms, then using a wheelchair is justified, because you ARE disabled, mentally, and wheeling is not a choice. You MUST wheel, or go crazy. You also MUST work very hard not to do anything that might hurt someone else, regardless! But if you’re doing these things in the name of “fun” then I don’t think it’s justified. You mention someone doing it for stress-management. That’s not “pretending for fun”. That’s pretending for therapy (of some kind), which I’m not against at all. I think that there may be more than one pathology that might lead someone to pretend. All of those, whatever they are, even if unidentified and not given a name, are valid. I think you, and Andy, who is also mad at me, have some kind of pathology, if not BIID. Fine.
I am only targeting those who seem to think it’s just “fun” to use a chair. The ones who have NOTHING WRONG with them and yet they play around in chairs for the fun of it. Some have wrote about loving the attention, it’s fun when people open doors for you, you get great seats at the restaurant, you get off on it (sexually), etc. That’s manipulative of others, and it can hurt the disabled community. Some of them have outright said “Who cares what the disabled community thinks anyway? I have the right to do whatever I want.” That’s what I’m questioning. Those people, from what I can tell, are in the minority of pretenders. But I don’t think it’s right.
Does that make more sense now?