Cutting Desire

Before reading the article “Cutting Desire” by Jesse Ellison, I had no idea about what BIID meant and that people with such disorder existed. It is almost unbelievable that people want to make themselves weaker and less productive by disabling themselves. However, neurologists at the University of California recently discovered that this case is very similar to the cases of people wanting to change their gender. People with BIID are born with the feeling that they do not fit completely in their own body and it has to be modified. However, Dr. Michael First, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, by conducting a study of 52 people with BIID disorder has determined that these people do not have mental problems. They are mentally stable people with an issue of having a surplus(es) in their body that has to be removed.

Even though many people, maybe majority of the people might oppose legitimization of surgeries for people with BIID, I believe it is their own free right as an individual to make decisions and be responsible for themselves. Even though the article says that the majority of the people with BIID seem to be middle-class white men there is a reason why it might be a false assertion. I believe that males are more willing to fully accept the fact that they have BIID than females or older people, who have to deal with more severe judgment from the public. In addition, there might be some cultural or regional factors why most of the patients are white males, but just this information is not enough to make further claims. For us, traditionally accepted “normal” people, choosing to be disabled is the way we understand the actions of people with BIID.

On the other point of view, an anonymous user called “TS” on translabled.org, says that being him/herself labeled as mentally ill is not a bad thing, but it rather is a least to start with to recognize people with BIID. For him, it is important that people start considering this disorder as an issue and conduct more researches to resolve the issue. Alex, Josh and TS all have this disorder and all of them agree that living in a lie, meaning that forcing oneself to believe that they are fine with their body conditions, is the worst human punishment.

There are many people in medical institutions who do not share the same ideas as Dr. Michael First. As Dr. Mark Schiller says, “Essentially from just claiming that something’s the case, people just accept somebody’s distorted version of reality and then we get surgeons and others responding to the point of mangling normal bodies.”; he believes that the more people are willing to accept a disorder as a normal case the more diverse and advanced it gets. He thinks that the recognition of "abnormalities" such as changing genders are the reason why there are people evolving to develop BIID. However, I disagree with his assertion as it clearly points out that such people are mentally ill, which is unfortunately a very accepted claim in public. Advancements for the issues regarding BIID will only be made once people will overcome their traditional views about them being “crazy” and recognize them as equal members of the society.