'Transablism' is now a thing?!

[mackerella]

Is this the logical conclusion of self-ID? Able-bodied people who identify as disabled are complaining that they are excluded from disabled communities and disability studies

mobile.twitter.com/PankhurstEM/status/1155275175161675776

As a parent of a disabled child (and the daughter of a disabled parent!) I can't even express how angry this is making me feel. But it may peak trans another few people?

Incidentally, I have lurked on this board for a few years but hardly ever posted. This is the thing that has finally pushed me to start a thread!

J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith, don't quite remember if it was the second or the third in the Strike series had a "transabled" character in it - using a wheelchair and creating a stink when she wasn't enabled in that why while admitting herself she was perfectly able to walk (it wasn't a temporary or even intermittent disability). The book's several years old already.

Insane right?!?

To you and yours.

Thank you for posting (Dr Em is so awesome!).

Really interesting twitter thread which touches on this.

twitter.com/twisterfilm/status/1155458088964636675?s=21

Transabilism is not a new phenomenon, I've seen articles and videos about it for years. I don't think society will ever accept it as they won't accept transage or transracial.

It may be growing due to the internet, people who say they are transabled are able to connect with others who feel the same way and normalise the behaviours and rally against the unfairness of a society who does not accept their mental disorder.

Where else have we seen that happen?

To be honest it seems the inevitable consequence of magling language.

So many forms now ask not 'are you male/female' but 'do you identify as male/female' and similarly not 'do you have a disability' but 'do you identify as having a disability'.

It is a shift away from material reality to feelings that leaves those who 'actually are' as opposed to 'identify as' vulnerable to having their already limited support directed away from them. I really, really dislike the phrase 'identify as'.

I think I remember that documentary (I remember watching something about people having limbs removed back in the 90s).

Do we now have people who identify as disabled but don’t feel the urge to amputate? I’d say there’s a huge difference between someone who has a limb removed and someone who uses a wheelchair needlessly. I mean, I don’t understand what drives someone to remove healthy body parts but to claim a disability based on “I feel...” is surely a totally different thing?

I’m not expressing myself well so hopefully someone else will make a better comment and help me work this out.

Transrace is a thing
Transage (identifying as a child or baby) is a thing.
Women in the work place have actually had issues with males with fetishes demanding to have their nappies changed on the grounds of transabled/transage, and threatening discrimination proceedings if refused.

I put this question to my MP years ago in the early stages of this farce: once you've legalised someone's feelings and personal choice of identity over actual, provable reality, how are you going to draw the line between the man who is in a woman's prison in a twinset, and the fifty year old man attending the local preschool in nappies?

What are you going to do when someone who is transabled fights legally for their right to benefits, carers for full personal care, a wheelchair adapted car and a home installed wet room?

Does reality have a function in the fair division and allocation of resources in society or do we all just follow men's dicks around and call that 'inclusion'?

No, it's not a new thing.
I remember a few years back a woman in a wheelchair who asked the doctors for leg braces, got them, despite the fact "she" didn't need either a wheelchair or leg braces. And, you've guessed it she was born male too.

Doctors really need to stop indulging people's delusions.

Delirium I wonder if body dysmorphia is what you're thinking about? The difference between someone with a significant psychological distorted perception of their body - be it feeling that a limb doesn't belong to them, that they're fat when actually they're dangerously thin, or that their body is the wrong sex - and someone who has selected an identity they are attracted to and choose to perform?

Does reality have a function in the fair division and allocation of resources in society or do we all just follow men's dicks around and call that 'inclusion'?

Beautifully put!

Why are they "transabled" if they want to be/identify as, disabled? That doesn't make sense. Because-
Trans + abled, reads as, wanting to be/'identifying as' + abled, implying that they're not already abled. I mean, it looks like someone who says they're "transabled" would be a disabled person who's in a state of denial, not accepting of their condition, or like someone with disabilities, making a pointed comment on identitifarianism and associated (mis)appropriation.

[I'm fact, I'm almost certain I've made snarky remarks before now about being 'Trans-agile' or 'trans-non-arthritic']

'do you identify as having a disability'.

Some people who actually do have some form of impairment (eg deafness) don't want to identify as having a disability - so in some contexts that could be a valid question. But obviously no one who does not have a disability should be allowed to 'identify' as having one.

That's a good point Errol. The EA2010, which hoovered up the original Disability Discrimination Act, has clear criteria for what disability is for purposes of legal protection or for service providers to judge whether or not someone may come under that protection. 'Identify' has become a tactful way to say would you like to disclose that you are disabled, but like much of the bastardisation of language in the SJ agenda the meaning gets adapted and repurposed.

The EA also requires reasonable adjustments to be made for disabled people, with the meaningful word being 'reasonable', the necessity to balance all needs within the context of size of organisation and resources, and where possible to find adaptations and third ways that work for everybody, or to be able to demonstrate that this particular place/organisation is not able to meet the person's needs and something else should be provided. It would be very useful if the GRA worked in the same way.

There’ve been quite a few documentaries about this - there was a Morgan Spurlock series a few years ago with an episode about it, and another one I saw about a doctor who went around down backstreet amputations in hotel rooms. It’s another fetish for the most part, and then you get the people who deliberately blind themselves etc. It’s a mental illness clearly, but apparently blinding yourself isn’t okay but cutting off your genitals is? 🤷‍♀️

Afterthought: the sole purpose of providers asking 'do you have a disability' is either to check if they need to be aware in order to check they are meeting your needs according to their legal responsibilities for which they are accountable, or to measure how their service is accessible to and successful in being used by the disabled population.

Once we get into 'identify as' meaning just a personal choice of identity enactment as opposed to provable reality, those statistics become meaningless and pointless as they're fictional, and it's no longer worth collecting them. Might as well record who likes Downton Abbey or identifies as an elf.

I have MS. If you want to take it off me, here you go.....no , wait.

Michelle yes, maybe. I’m trying to avoid using the term mental health issue as we have seen it to be branded bigotry to suggest such a thing (which I have my own issues with as it keeps MH probs stigmatised) but I would guess actually removing a leg at least suggests MH issues, whereas identifying as disabled whilst remaining able bodied is something else. At present I feel we could use terms like fraudulent or fetish but is this something that may change?

(Rambly as my daughter is identifying as a bloody chicken at the moment and being INCREDIBLY loud)

I've seen "Do you consider yourself disabled?" on job application forms for many years. Certainly before I had dc, so some 20y or more ago. It always struck me as odd. A person could have a disability which required a reasonable adjustment to be made, eg a hearing-impaired person who would be unable to hear a fire alarm, but not consider themselves as disabled. How does that form of words help the very people at which it is aimed?

As it happens, I identify as autistic. But that is about me and how I cope with the world. It is mostly private and inside my own head. It is nothing to do with how I expect the world to relate to me.

The Scottish Women’s Autism Network accepts people who are neither women or autistic - so long as they identify as both (or ‘non-binary’)

It's just people wanting their fetishes publicly validating. I can't fathom what will be next.

I always assumed tbe "do you consider yourself disabled " was for people like me who don't qualify for a blue badge but who have a chronic condition.

I saw this earlier on twitter and was saddened that I wasn't shocked.
In a fucked up way it's helpful really. If this doesn't get people to question the ever extending bending and twisting of language to include those who feel like they want to be in categories of something they're not then I don't know what will.

Can you link to the actual paper instead of a screenshot of the title?

Wow, I feel sick. I kind of can't believe this but after all of the other awful stuff I've read about this movement, I can believe this. It all reeks of extreme, pathological narcissism, selfishness, low to no empathy, complete disregard to the feelings and lives of others, delusional thinking and fetishes.

If they let these people get away with this, imagine all of the funding they will remove from actual disabled people to access society. All of these bizarre ideas should have stayed in some dark corner of the internet, it's unbelievable they have managed to get MPs and organisations to change policies to suit them. Imagine if they got disabled toilets banned, because it made them feel bad seeing them or something ridiculous like that. It's exactly the kind of thing they would do, given that they are currently working hard to destroy women only spaces. I can't think about it too much because it will make me feel ill.

Society and the people in power must stop pandering to these people so that common sense, truth and fairness can be restored.