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Home / Thoughts / Sean's Thoughts / Real life "test"

Real life "test"

Written by Sean on Wednesday, July 28, 2004

Transgendered individuals have to spend some time (1 year? 2 years?) living as a woman, including work, shopping, etc before they can be accepted in a surgery program. This is often called a Real Life Test or some such.

I lived nearly 100% of my public life as a paraplegic, for 7 years. Including having friends with disabilities, working with people with disabilities. As much as a real life test as anyone can get, I think.

Of course, there are so many people with disabilities who say it’s not possible for someone to really know what it’s like. And to a point, I’d have to agree with them

I don’t think that if you were to sit yourself in a wheelchair and spend a couple hours going around, you would have any ideas of "what’s what". As a matter of fact, some studies have shown that so called disability awareness days, where people put a blindfold, use a chair, or stuff their ears with cotton, have a detrimental effect. Causing the "guinea pigs" to feel pity and only see the problems.

But that’s because they only experience a limitation for an hour, two on the outside. And I chose the word limitation carefuly. I am not saying that a disability is a limitation, if you are used to it. Whether we want to admit it or not, after living with a disability for a while, you adapt, and learn to do things differently. So a disability is not a limitation.

But if you only "try it out" for a few moments, you will likely be incapable of living what it’s like.

Other people with disabilities say that there is no way you know what the physical experience of disability is. And then, they point out that what we are after is the physical experience of disability. They are therefore saying, there is no way we can know.

This last bit supposes that people who are transabled are solely after a physical experience. I can’t deny that a big part of my desires stem from wanting to physically feel/no-feel being a paraplegic (with all that it entails). But it is not the only thing

I trully believe that I know the experience of living with a disability, as much as anyone can. I have experienced the discrimination in housing, the lack of access, the people talking to me louder and slower, people using the accessible bathroom stalls, and and and and. But these experiences sound like it’s all negative, when in fact it’s not.

So, where does that leave me? I’ve done a real life test, and then some. But there’s no real point to it, since there are no programs to help those of us who are transabled, like there are programs to help those who are transgendered.

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