My Godfather had polio when he was a toddler. He was on crutches with leg braces when my brother and I were kids and he was going to college.  He is a retired special ed teacher and administrator. He pushed past the physical impairments and worked hard all his life and stayed out of a wheelchair as long as he could. Accessibility into buildings is the norm thanks to men and women like him who worked hard to gain rights for the people coming behind them. And then there are these special snowflakes calling themselves transabled.  From the Daily Mail, Chloe Jennings is an otherwise able bodied woman who is dismayed it cost too much to have her spine snipped.  yes she wants to be paraplegic.  Not quadraplegic because that is too hard but paraplegic because you get cool leg braces and a wheelchair.  And nevermind that the folks who have to wear leg braces and are confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives would love to have her ability to walk.  For a minute, an hour, a day.

NY Mag also has a Science of Us story about Body Integrity Identity Disorder.

Rather than a coherent psychological disorder, BIID is better thought of as a cluster of conditions, united by the strong sense in a sufferer that a limb, usually a leg, shouldn’t be attached to their body — a sensation of not “fitting” one’s body akin to gender dysphoria. For some, it takes on a sexual cast: They become intensely aroused when they imagine themselves as an amputee (this is known as apotemnophilia, a condition named by Dr. John Money in the ’70s). For others, it’s all about identity: They want to be an amputee because they want to be part of that community. And then there are those for whom their limb doesn’t feel like a part of their body (practitioners who regard it as a neurological disorder call this strand xenomelia).

I know a few amputees and believe me they would love nothing more than having a working non prosthetic limb.  They did not lose the leg at a whim but in battle, from disease (sidenote this is one of my nightmares) and in accidents.  To seek out a life of phantom pain, disability, physical limitations on everything you do, where you live, worship, work and visit?  And snipping your spine or amputating a limb is not something you can turn around and reverse.  Ever.   There is a reason self mutiliation at this level is not done by a reputable doctor or hospital.

This was NOT what disabled advocates fought for. They fought long and hard for respect, equity in the workplace, for decent living and working conditions and simply be treated as a valuable human being. Not for attention seekers who self mutilate to get a disabled merit badge.