When ninjas turn lawlyer

ok shut the fuck up about making fun of transabled people

sidneyia:

zooms-on-booms:

eyesclosedmindsopen:

swanblood:

mosshotel:

http://scienceblogs.com/neurophilosophy/2009/03/voluntary_amputation_extra_phantom_limbs.php

Just fucking read that. It’s SCIENTIFIC.

Also, not JUST otherkin have extra limbs.

(I am not transabled but if you are transabled and you read this I just want to hug you very much. )

This.

BIID is a real, ~scientifically studied~ condition, for the people who won’t care about that until it’s got a study.

Supernumerary phantom limbs are real too.

Please, stop assuming you know everything about the world and how it works and what is “possible” for people to experience, particularly when many, many people are telling you from their personal experience that it is possible.

So, I obviously know what BIID is, but what’s with using the term “trans,” can I ask?

Sorry, it just seems like this is going to end up leading to more confusion than ever with people thinking it has something to do with gender identity.  Is “transabled” an actual medical term?  I’ve never heard it in any of the Psych classes I’ve taken, which is why I’m asking.

Plus, nobody is using it in a “disabled feeling abled.” The people on Tumblr using this term are not amputees, which by the way makes sense because amputees used to have those fucking limbs. 

The Tumblrites using this are able bodied people trying to identify as disabled.

That is what is happening.

That is the bullshit.

Nobody is criticising actual disabled people.

How can you be so incredibly stupid to not understand that and still work your way around the internet?

>Plus, nobody is using it in a “disabled feeling abled.”

The thing about that, though? If you’re disabled and “feel” (which is, as I understand it, kind of an oversimplification of transablism, but I’ll roll with it) abled, or “wish you were” abled, in our society - especially if you are someone who was socialized as abled and became disabled later in life - you aren’t perceived as doing anything out of the ordinary. It’s considered perfectly normal for someone with a disability - again, especially an acquired one - to want to be, need to be, or feel like they should be abled. This is because we live in an ableist society where having a disability is considered the worst thing there is, so anyone who wants/needs to be disabled is singled out as crazy, while someone who is disabled but wants to be/needs to be/ID’s as abled is affirmed in their feelings and therefore is less likely to desire a label for their “condition”. 

And most of the posts I see criticizing transablism do have this disturbing undercurrent of “Ugh, who would want to be disabled? It’s so shitty!” If you read some of the comments on transabled.org, every other post (from a non-TA person) is like “Why would you want to be helpless and a burden on society? Think of the real poor cripples who have to live that horrible life!” One could make a bingo card out of the comments on that site alone.

And I admit I’ve had those thoughts myself as someone with autism (“Who would want this? It fucking sucks!”), so learning about transablism has actually forced me to question some of my internalized ableism towards my autism. 

Back to my personal blog.  It’s like musical chairs with me.  Sorry.

But I wanted to add my own comments to the first paragraph you wrote (poster immediately above me).

That’s really accurate, actually.  There was a time when I just didn’t feel like going to physical therapy.  I can’t feel my legs most of the time, so PT a lot of time is, to me, an exercise in futility since I’m not gaining any muscle memory during any of the exercises.  Or maybe I am, but it just doesn’t feel like it.

And there was a time when I stopped going because, fuck this noise, I get around fine in my chair.  Pretty much everyone but my husband went into lecture mode on me though about how I’ll never get “better” if I don’t stick it out when it starts getting tough.  Okay, so I’ll give them that, if they’re making the argument from an emotional standpoint.  I was being a bit of a whiny loser at the time so maybe I needed a kick in the ass.

But really, I don’t have anything against being chair-bound.  It’s not the coolest thing on earth when I have to take a route that takes me twice as long to get out of the office every day because wheelchair access blows in my building.  But I don’t think there’s anything inherently inferior about it, apart from the obvious physical mobility issue.  

I’m one of those people who wasn’t born with physical limitations so maybe I should mentally want to strive to get back on my feet, quite literally.  I guess it doesn’t matter to me so much though.

What was getting me about transableism was simply the image of someone skipping up to me (in my chair) and being like “I totes know how you feel.  I can’t use my legs either, as part of my identity.”

Maybe it’s valid.  Maybe I’m just being an ignorant SOB.  But when I run that scenario through my mind, I come back with just straight up feeling offended 99% of the time and wanting to shoot a “cool story, bro” at them before popping a wheelie on out of there.

Personal feels though.  I know.  They’re very rarely the answer during debates.