Beyond Insanity: Treating the "Transabled"

Remember when a primary rule of medicine was "first do no harm?" Today, the mantra of medicine is coddle the maniacs. If you're a man who feels like a woman trapped in a male body, cut off the male organs, insert breast implants, etc. to make the body reflect the mental illness. And, of course, vice versa with women who feel like males trapped in women's bodies. (Does this sound like a B movie to you? It does to me. The Stepford Trannies or maybe The Creatures from the Psych Lab.) 

Well, it's about to get worse. Professionals are now justifying medical intervention for those who are, get this, transabled. You never heard of that? Let me clue you in from an article interviewing Canadian professor Clive Baldwin:

Baldwin described “transabalism” as “the desire or the need to move from being able-bodied to disabled. Because, the general consensus at the moment is one’s body map in one’s brain does not align with one’s physical body.”

He said being “transabled” is not a lifestyle choice but is “very much a deep felt need to become this way because their bodies are wrong.”

“So people for example want amputations, or they want to be paralyzed or they want to be blind or deaf. And that misalignment can be very distressing for people.”

Klein asked Baldwin whether he thinks “in Western civilization, therefore, doctors should indeed amputate an arm, or a leg or make somebody paralyzed or make somebody blind” to treat “transable” feelings. “Do you think that we should go there?”

Baldwin replied: “After long, hard consideration, yes, that is a medical option to deal with this condition. It’s not a decision that is or should be taken lightly but it’s one medical option to deal with it.”

Baldwin explained that currently “transabalism” is thought to be a condition referred to as body integrity identity disorder for which, he said, there is no known cure. 

“So people need to manage those feelings,” he continued. “So consequently, an amputation may be, in some circumstances, the best way to manage those feelings.” (More here....)

I think what this illustrates is the absolute narcissism of our culture. Transgenderism and transabalism are just the extremes. Think of the money spent on plastic surgery to get a smaller nose, or high cheekbones, or enhanced breasts, or a firmer behind, etc. Certainly there are disfigurements, like cleft palate or hip dysplasia that are aberrations in need of repair. I'm certainly not against all plastic surgery or medical intervention. But the obsession with the perfect body or the body that matches the inner psyche has gone to the outer reaches of the Twilight Zone. That any ethical doctor would enable the insanity of cutting off the limbs of healthy people or blinding them is beyond insanity, but it is very likely on the horizon. In fact, I remember reading a number of years ago about a woman who had a healthy breast cut off because it interfered with her golf swing. And is any of it beyond imagining? After all, if you can cut off a man's genitals to make him feel like a woman, why not cut off an arm or a leg to make a person feel like (and actually be) disabled.

Obviously, none of these folks is thinking about how he can serve others. They all stare at themselves in the mirror obsessing over their "wrong" body. And then they call the doc to enable their mental illness. But not to worry. The American Psychiatric Association will no doubt tell us in a few years how normal this all is and those of us who insist it isn't are just transphobic hate mongers. Ah well, I'm used to the name calling by now. I welcome it as an opportunity to offer up a thumbtack's worth of suffering for the salvation of these poor souls. They desperately need to hear the truth, but sure aren't getting much of it from the so-called professionals these days.