Transabled women lost in translation?
Defined as a nondisabled person's need to transform his/her body to acquire a physical impairment/disability (blindness, amputation, etc. transabled practices remain controversial and little known forms of body modification. This article examines the practices of transabled women and the negative ableist, sexist, heteronormative, and classist reactions they elicit. Adopting an intersectional approach, we argue that sex/gender, sexuality, and class categories are grounded in ableism because their construction is linked to codes (ways of moving, speaking, etc. that assume a nondisabled body. From this perspective, it is possible that transabled realities meet resistance not only because they challenge ableist norms, but because these transformations transgress sex/gender, sexuality, and dominant class norms as well. Through the 'extreme' transformation of becoming disabled, transabled women are at greater risk of being degendered, desexualized, and economically and socially marginalized. Analysing these oppressive systems represents an opportunity to (re)think solidarities among feminist, queer, anti ableist, and anti classist studies and movements while also formulating a respectful response to transabled claims. The limits of the 'extreme' Tattoos, piercings, bioelectronic implants, bodybuilding, plastic surgery, gender reassignment surgery, voluntary amputation. the list of body modification is nearly endless. Although some of these practices have existed for centuries within a variety of geographic, economic, political, social, and religious groups, others are more recent and practised only in specific regions. Certain modifications are covered by state medical systems, others are socially normalized and do not require state intervention, some exist in subcultures, and still others are sometimes criminalized. Motivations behind the need to transform one's body are just as diverse: the desire to stand out, follow certain norms, create art, express a deeper identity, pursue pleasure, or become empowered (Pitts Taylor 2003; Heyes and Jones 2009) Those who undertake such transformations sometimes claim membership in different social movements according to their motivation: body modifiers, queer people, BDSM practitioners,8 transsexual and transgender people, cyberpunks, and more. Although these body modifications may at first seem too widely divergent to allow analysis from a single perspective, one element nonetheless connects them: they were seen as 7 We would like to thank Trina LeBlanc, Stephanie Vaudry, and Claire Grino, as well as the two evaluators of this article, for their invaluable suggestions. 8 BDSM means: bondage, discipline, domination, submission, sadism, masochism. Transabled women lost in translation? 146 'extreme' in certain contexts before becoming normalized, as with tattoos and piercings, or are still seen as 'extreme' today, as in the case of 'sex reassignment surgery' or amputation. We argue that the variation in what constitutes 'extreme' body modifications reveals less about these practices themselves than it does about the norms and the social, cultural, political, legal, and other contexts in which the 'extreme' label is applied. What does it mean to be 'extreme' According to which criteria is this concept defined and who establishes these criteria? What kinds of power relations inform the categorization of behaviours or practices as 'extreme' In what ways do women who undergo supposedly 'extreme' body modifications represent a threat to dominant understandings of femininity in which women are associated with passivity and docility, among other things, but also with productivity in terms of work related to care, and specifically to caring for others? This article suggests answers to these questions based on a case study of women9 who seek body modifications considered 'extreme' a practice called 'transability' in order to reveal the ableist (oppression based on ability) sexist, heteronormative, and classist/neoliberal structures that inform negative judgments of their claims. Transability: Pushing the limits of the 'extreme' Transability is defined as the need of a non disabled person to transform his/her abilities or senses with the goal of acquiring a physical disability (amputation, paralysis, blindness, deafness, etc. and therefore becoming disabled. Researchers and transabled people use a variety of terms to refer to transability. Some use the term 'apotemnophilia' (Money, Jobaris, and Furth 1977; Elliott 2003; Braam et al. 2006; Lawrence 2006) and focus on the paraphilic character of this 'disorder' others prefer 'xenomelia' (McGeoch et al. 2011) and adopt a neurobiological perspective, while still others opt for the expression 'body integrity identity disorder (BIID) (First 2005; Stirn, Thiel, and Oddo 2009; Blom, Hennekam, and Denys 2012) which reflects a psychological perspective. This last is also used by many members of the transabled community (Davis 2012) who, inspired by terms used by transgender and transsexual communities, also use the word 'transable' For most people, the needs of transabled individuals appear 'extreme' because they involve transforming a 'valid' body into an 'invalid' one.10 However, from a transabled person's 9 The use of the term 'women' is not limited to people assigned female at birth; it includes any individual who self identifies as such. 10 The terms 'valid''invalid' 'valide[e]s''invalide[e]s' are used by Baril (2013) Inspired by a French translation of 'cripple' and its derivatives 'crip' 'crippled' etc. used by McRuer (2006) in disabled studies, these terms represent an attempt at resignification (similar to the use of 'queer' to denounce ableist systems. To talk of individuals or their abilities as 'valid''invalid' demonstrates their recognition 'valid' or lack thereof 'invalid' by others and institutions within the ableist system. Medicine Anthropology Theory 147 point of view, undertaking a voluntary transition11 to become disabled is less extreme than continuing to live in a body as alienating and uncomfortable as it was before their transition. Transability is also considered abnormal by many who wonder about what motivates these transitions the 'why' of this process. However, as medical researcher and transabled activist Michael Gheen (2009) reminds us, although transability is statistically abnormal because it affects only a very small fraction of the population,12 its perceived 'abnormality' most explicitly refers to an 'oddness' incomprehensible to common sense and more strongly anchored in value judgments that reflect current norms. Indeed, most popular and scientific discourses are opposed to potential transabled surgeries, which are judged abnormal, dangerous, and extreme. As for the question of 'why' while relevant, it will not be addressed here. Our objective is therefore not to examine what motivates transabled people's needs, (the 'why' but to analyse the negative reactions they elicit and learn what these reactions reveal about dominant norms and systems of oppression. 'Extreme' women: A(n) (im)possible (re)quest? Although transability is observed in many national contexts and in people of different socioeconomic classes, sexual orientations, and ages, it appears to affect men much more often than women. In most studies, transabled men are overrepresented: 80 percent (N 54) in Blom, Hennekam, and Denys 2012, 90 percent (N 52) in First 2005, and 93 percent (N 30) in Thiels et al. 2009. The underrepresentation of women may be explained by androcentric biases in academic research that, too often, continue to exclude or render women invisible. It might also be explained by sexist responses to transabled women's (re)quests for care from health professionals, requests that seem likely to be perceived as irrational instead of received as serious claims to identity and political rights. Not only do androcentric biases render women invisible in transability research, but they also make different assessments based on sex more likely, which must be denounced. In light 11 The distinction between 'voluntary' and 'involuntary' disabilities is problematic for many reasons that will not be addressed here. For more details, see Baril 2015. 12 The issue of the prevalence of transability is complicated by the existence of competing definitions: some authors follow a limited definition based on the motivation for transition, be it identity (Furth and Smith 2002; Smith 2004) or sexual (Lawrence 2006) while others limit the definition of transability to certain types of physical impairment, like amputation, without consideration for other needs, such as the desire to be paraplegic. In other words, a broader definition of transability increases its prevalence. For a discussion of the prevalence of transability and the possible inclusion of other types of disability or viral acquisition, such as voluntary HIV acquisition, see Baril 2013, 2015. Transabled women lost in translation? 148 of this, we argue that studying the phenomenon of transability among women carries heuristic value for feminist intersectional analysis and connects this disciplinary field with other anti oppressive fields of study, including disability and queer studies and analyses of classism and neoliberalism. Based on the case study of transabled women, we argue that 'visceral' reactions of disgust, anger, or fear13 to transability and negative discourses of incomprehensibility and disapproval that conceptualize transability as extreme, abnormal, or strange result from the fact that transabled claims simultaneously transgress ableist, sexist, heteronormative, and classist/neoliberal systems. To examine transabled claims, the following article is divided into four sections, each of which addresses one of the four structures of oppression mentioned above, before concluding with a discussion of the potential for solidarities between diverse