a large, fruit-eating bat.

On the “transabled” phenomenon

polerin:

stfuconfederates:

murphysbride:

sanityscraps:

deaf-aspie:

Anonymously Submitted:

As a disabled (Autistic) trans* person who has talked with other trans* people about it and read “transabled” theories and narratives, I’ve got a bunch of opinions. They aren’t particularly nice. The fact that there’s an underlying phenomenon that causes distress doesn’t forgive any of the following:

• The term “transabled” was invented not as an innocent mistake but as a deliberate attempt to deceive people (themselves and others) into thinking they belonged in the trans* community. This is fucked beyond belief.
• Using the “trans” prefix/adjective to mean “wish-I-was” is damaging and cissexist. Since they appropriated it deliberately, I’m not going to sugarcoat this in the slightest. This has got to stop yesterday if not sooner.
• The entire body of “transabled” theory is appropriated. I’ve read articles on it where I am convinced I understand the theories better than the person who wrote the article did, because they copied down trans* theory and scribbled out “gender” and wrote “disability” with complete disregard for how disability is unlike gender.
• The group consists of a combination of appropriative fucks who believe that identifying as disabled when you aren’t is ok and people with actual mental health conditions who subscribe to theories where they believe they are moral equivalents to the appropriative fucks. If they’re unwilling to separate the appropriative fucks out, I won’t do it for them and I will quite happily call them all appropriative fucks.
• I’m going to be charitable here and assume that some parts of some “transabled” people’s experience are in-line with parts of trans* experiences (body dissonance, not identity) and don’t just sound that way because they’ve been force-fit to an appropriated theory. Even these parts are 1) misinterpreted in the context of the rest of the theory, and 2) are only applicable to certain disabilities.

I’m highly suspicious of someone who “wants to be autistic” (for good reason), and wanting to be autistic certainly has nothing in common with any trans* experience. I’m willing to grant that it is possible that someone may want to be cured of their allism, though. Just, they really need another word for it (reverse curebieism?) and I’m going to be suspicious of them until they prove that they aren’t basing this on bullshit ideas of what we are.

Also, curebies don’t appropriate trans* language for their curebieism. There are way better ways to express that you wish you were something without appropriating language someone else invented to describe their struggle to do it, especially since trans* people recognize and build our theory around the idea that we don’t want to be something we’re not; we are instead something other people have consistently tried (and in many cases still try) to force us not to be.

While there are analogous situations in disability, the way the concept is used by “transabled” people is not one of them. People who actually experience these situations and recognize them for what they are don’t feel the need to appropriate other people’s language for it because inventing language to describe it flows naturally out of recognizing it.

(gif of “THIS” removed for accessibility)

This is very well-written, and I’m also interested in seeing a better examination of BIID in relation to transablism. If BIID is a legitimate thing (which in that case would be a disability) then the term ‘transabled’ wouldn’t apply to something that has BIID because they would be legitimately disabled anyway. All the term ‘transabled’ means to me is that you don’t have a disorder but feel that you should have one, which is entirely different than having BIID (if it can actually be diagnosed) in which case your mind has incorrectly mapped your body.

If it’s an actual disorder and you have it, why the fuck do you need the trans* prefix if you’re actually disabled? Isn’t putting the trans* in there kind of sort of admitting that it’s something you have no legitimate claim to?

Also, yes. Comparing transability to transgender is one of the things that’ll get you on my shit list real fast. It’s just more co-opting and appropriation by people who are finally seeing transgender people get some recognition and want the same recognition for themselves. Eww.

Ok, this.  I’ve been trying to figure out a way to deal with some shit around transablism (and yeah fuck that name)…  and this expresses it pretty much dead on.

I agree with a lot of this, EXCEPT this:

If it’s an actual disorder and you have it, why the fuck do you need the trans* prefix if you’re actually disabled? Isn’t putting the trans* in there kind of sort of admitting that it’s something you have no legitimate claim to?

Not because I don’t think the trans prefix is unnecessary (I’m sure it’s not), but this sentence makes it seem like trans* people have no legitimate claim to the gender they assert they are? Which, I am sure was not the poster’s intent/thoughts, but the way I read it came off that way and it kind of bothered me.

(Source: )