Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: Transabled people
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jakonovski
Member
i saw a mentally ill dude once and i called him dipshit lol
Do you really think people that have this mental health condition do it on purpose just to insult physically disabled people?
Did... Did you even read my post?
The whole point of my post was that I give an alternative.
I don't even think the alternative I gave is that appropriate. Not a fan of the word 'mental' in general. 'Psychological' or 'cognitive' is better. 'Mental's got negative connotations following the widespread use of "s/he's mental," "that's mental," "they were a mental patient".
Or as Beefy just said above me, 'mental health' is far better than 'mental' alone.
Or as Beefy just said above me, 'mental health' is far better than 'mental' alone.
Well, physically this isn't even accurate. Sex exists as a continuum rather than a binary, and biologists acknowledge this.
Gender identity refers to someone's sexual identity in their own mind - for instance, a female-bodied person who identifies as male has a female sex but a male gender. Gender identity is something that does not always match the sex of the body (although it usually does). There is evidence suggesting that gender identity also has its own biological/neurological basis (ie. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18980961).
CrimzonSamurai said:
You're thinking of gender roles, rather than gender identity. The way gender identity manifests is sometimes called "gender expression" (which can depend a lot on culture - like wearing skirts, suits, makeup, particular hairstyles, etc). As for transgender vs transsexual, transgender is more of an umbrella term, while transsexual (an older term) refers to people who identify as the opposite sex to what they were assigned at birth and wish to live/be identified as such.
Agent Gibbs
Member
Okay now we are going too far as a society if we are going to label this as transabled and not a mental illness
I understand being born into the wrong body, i can understand confusion with sexuality, things that were previously incorrectly labelled as mental illnesses which needed stamping out - that is a development of the brain where the person in there that has developed identifies with an alternate sex to the born one
but this?
Choosing to mutilate your own body because something in your head tells you that you shouldn't have X Y and Z body parts, that doesn't work the same at all, you aren't born thinking this limb is alien, that is either an issue in the brain or with the nerve connections to it - it is not a demographic that needs to be accepted
no this is jumping the shark for me
that is 100% a mental illness that needs addressing - if self harming is wrong, so is this, sometimes people can be too liberal for our own good
I understand being born into the wrong body, i can understand confusion with sexuality, things that were previously incorrectly labelled as mental illnesses which needed stamping out - that is a development of the brain where the person in there that has developed identifies with an alternate sex to the born one
but this?
Choosing to mutilate your own body because something in your head tells you that you shouldn't have X Y and Z body parts, that doesn't work the same at all, you aren't born thinking this limb is alien, that is either an issue in the brain or with the nerve connections to it - it is not a demographic that needs to be accepted
no this is jumping the shark for me
that is 100% a mental illness that needs addressing - if self harming is wrong, so is this, sometimes people can be too liberal for our own good
defending her as in "she needs help" is totally fine by me, cause good lord she does
Yup, that sure sounds like Munchhausen's.
A Fish Aficionado
I am going to make it through this year if it kills me
That article is trash.
Assisted suicide should definitely be allowed albeit with some procedural checks in place.
jakonovski
Member
You have a really funny way of expressing that. But I guess I'm tilting at windmills, internet will be internet.
Ridiculously long and complicated story short :
Sex => Body
Brain => Gender
Gender exists, but it is more of a spectrum instead of a binary thing, so where do you draw the line on what is female and what is male (or simply the fact that you draw just ONE line) is socialy constructed. Which is why diferent societies have diferent ideas of what is "a man's job" and what is a "woman's job". Even some societies have more than 2 genders.
Theoricaly even sex is a social construct since people generaly only consider "genitals = sex" but sex is a mix of hormone influence (secondary sexual characteristics), genitals, chromosomes and things like that and they not always align
There already was discussion about how much of an advantage Oscar Pistorious might have with his artificial legs. Though I agree that when it's about actually replacing a limb, meaning that you actually having feeling in it etc., that's very far off, if ever.
Obviously depends on the reasons for doing so. If it stems from "those legs are not my own" likely yes. If it comes from "those legs are better than organic ones" maybe not.
no but I'd be pretty pissed if my legs were legitimately disabled and I saw those people with perfectly fine legs wasting theirs.
edit: obviously they need help for their mental health condition. i'm not denying that. but like i said, i would imagine disabled people would find it insulting.
why? im intepreting the thing in a way in which she is either mentally disabled or a dipshit. if she's a dipshit, she's a dipshit, if she is mentally disabled then by all means help her asap
jakonovski
Member
How about be glad that you at least have an intact mind?
Schweinehund
Member
Exactly. There's a real stigma behind mental illness.
If you get pissed over a person who has a mental illness you don't understand then that is down to you, it's not the fault of the person with the mental illness.
CrimzonSamurai
Member
Ah ok, I gotcha. One of my friends who's slightly more socially in-tune than I told me nobody used "transsexual" anymore and that it was offensive, but maybe she was wrong lol. Anyway, thanks for the clarification. The nuances get tangled up in my brain.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
What if it's "I like the aesthetics." I have a buddy who has an amputee fetish and sees it as no different from any other body modification such as piercings and tattoos. I'm inclined to agree that it can serve as a mode of self-expression.
backflip10019
Member
Does someone have to do something intentionally for you to be offended by it?
jakonovski
Member
She wants to sever her spine, so take a wild guess which one it is. But I admit finding that out would require putting in some effort, much like punctuation and capitalization.
Like?
blame space
Banned
Can they do head transplants yet
ReturnOfTheRAT
Member
Seek help.
fucking lmao, nice way to argue. english is not my first language and im on a phone, sorry if my lack of punctuation offended you, truly essential to our conversation and really helpful to your argument
ill just chop my hands off
Why get offended over something that is being carried out by a person with a mental health issue? It quite clearly not their fault they feel this way and they need help.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Obviously there degree of harm is very different, but essentially every single possible conceivable action harms others *in some way*. Staunchly religious people are deeply upset by gay marriage; the existence of gay marriage means society rejecting the way of life and the societal expectations of staunchly religious people. At best, we can say that certain harms are tolerable, or that harms accrued by one side (denying gay people the ability to engage in societal norms) are very much greater than those accrued by the other side (denying religious people the societal institutions that are in accordance with their beliefs). I'm not convinced that, assuming this is not something that is a manifest symptom of an underlying mental disorder, this is something where the benefit of harms lies in preventing them from doing it.
I'm not quite sure what you're trying to argue here. Do you mind rephrasing it?
I mean, from some perspectives gender reassignment surgery is considered mutilation. Our conception of what mutilation is, is very much determined by the societal context we find ourselves in. If our initial thought is "this is unethical because it is disgusting/unnerving", then we probably have a strong reason to stop and reconsider our position on things.
As for the latter part, I think that's a more reasonable response; but I also think it is one that essentially *nobody* in this thread is qualified enough to decide. In another era (or even in this era in less progressive circles), people could have argued that we should focus on "curing" homosexual people or transgender people. We now recognise neither of these are the product of underlying mental disorders. I would wait for the opinion of medical and psychological professionals before deciding whether this is or isn't something which has a "cure".
jakonovski
Member
I'm offended by the ebola virus. What a dipshit.
ebola is a name. E*
CrimzonSamurai
Member
Eh, I don't think carte blanche works here. Maybe it depends on the severity of the mental illness. My depression had me acting like a real asshole to a lot of people, I don't expect them to forgive me for it just because it was symptomatic of my illness. I also wouldn't think they were worse people for being offended by my behavior.
But I mean what role that third gender plays in a society. Some of the examples given there are just ridiculous (sterile woman, demons...), just because someone said that was a third gender it doesn't mean it's true. In fact, it seems offensive to me in some cases as in "you are not a real woman because you can't have children, you're worthless".
I'm amazed at how some people refuse to just say they are mentally disabled in some way and instead say it's just how they are, end of story, good for them. That's a dangerous road to go down. Will it ultimatly be offensive to calm anything a mental condition? Will the mental health industry one day be viewed at as wrong and offensive? Other than thoughts about hurting other people I mean.
I never know who to take seriously here or not, haha.
I never know who to take seriously here or not, haha.
I suppose eventually folks like this will be able to get a perfect bionic arm or whatever (or get their brain pathways fixed) and it could be something that's accepted at that point.
Society probably ought to treat it as a mental illness right now, since if you don't have a limb it's going to impair your ability to work.
Society probably ought to treat it as a mental illness right now, since if you don't have a limb it's going to impair your ability to work.
CornBurrito
Member
In the race to be as progressive as possible we are somehow giving legitimacy to "transabled" people. I see no evidence that this is remotely comparable to transgenderism. Fuck it, I refuse to accept this. It's insulting to actual disabled people.
No worries.
It's also a person-by-person thing too - though the way I described the use of the term "transsexual" is accurate, there are a few people who don't like it (because it's an older word and has its roots in medical usage).TBH when talking about transgender issues I pretty much just tend to say "trans" by default, and if someone tells me they want to be identified as something in particular then I comply with their wishes.
I didn't say anything about just accepting it (or in your case forgiving you). But I would hope people would think that person clearly has a mental health issue and needs help. Instead of fuck that person making themself disabled.
ElectricBlanketFire
Member
I truly don't know how to feel about this.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
I changed the link. I meant to point to modern society, not history. In any case gender is culture driven. This is blatantly obvious even between cultures of two genders. What is seen as 'male' in one can be seen as 'female' by the other. So obviously there is no inherent 'truthfulness' in gender, so there's no reason it must be limited to two.
John Kowalski
Banned
What the hell is insulting about this?
How is this even a constructive argument. Come on.
I know you edited this post, but it's an absolutely fair question to ask.
We should be teaching kids in school about the dichotomy between gender and sex – and how there is no "dichotomy". But as things stand, there's no baseline standard of education on this. Your question was totally fair enough.
A layman's explanation:
- gender is your mind. How you feel about your identity. It's a social construct - a pattern of behaviour which has followed on from genetic and biological imperatives. As a cultural pattern, it is by definition flexible and not black or white.
- biological sex is, well, biological. Broadly it's one or the other and naturally has a huge influence on a person's psychology, physiology and appearance. But biological sex is in no way certain to line up with a person's gender.
- biological sex and gender are not 1:1 linked
Again, this is an oversimplification, but this is the gist.
Now, on topic! As others have said, we need actual psychological research into this to examine and codify the condition. Others have mentioned that research has been done into it, and it's a real thing. The next stage I guess would be for health care providers to begin putting systems in place to identify it and diagnose it (but it'll be a bloody long time before that happens, I bet).
So true
CrimzonSamurai
Member
No worries.
TBH when talking about transgender issues I pretty much just tend to say "trans" by default, and if someone tells me they want to be identified as something in particular then I comply with their wishes.
Yeah, that's always my strategy, too.
Yeah, sure, I mean that would be an ideal response. I think it's perfectly understandable why people would be offended, too.
entremet
Member
Is self mutilation something we want to endorse as a society?
Remembers, doctors aren't doing this. They can't due to the Hippocratic Oath.
What if someone tries to sell maim, hits a big artery and bleeds to death?
jakonovski
Member
Well if you want to spend your life getting angry at the mentally ill being ill, be my guest.
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