Becoming disabled by choice, not chance: ‘Transabled’ people feel like impostors in their fully working bodies
** One time use National Post for June 2, 2015 Edition online and print ñ National Post only - No Postmedia use ** Local Input~ Image #: 23289637 ***EXCLUSIVE*** SALT LAKE CITY, UT - MAY 16: Chloe Jennings-White adjusting her leg braces at her home on May 16, 2013 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Chloe-Jennings White wears leg braces and uses a wheelchair, even though her legs work fine, and she does not need them. The 58-year-old has chosen to live her life as a disabled person, due to rare condition called Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID. BIID is thought to be caused by a neurological failing, which causes the brain not to recognise a limb or limbs. Chloe, a research scientist, bandaged herself secretly for years, but now she lives openly with her condition, using a wheelchair most of time, apart from when she wants to enjoy her hobbies such as hill-walking and skiing. Chloe admits she skis because she hopes to have an accident to damage both her legs. She sometimes even dreams about having a car crash. Now Chloe, who lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, but is originally from London, is also trying to find a surgeon willing to sever her spine in order to make her paralysed for real. Laurentiu Garofeanu/Barcroft Media /Landov ORG XMIT: 01461656 0602 na trans-able ** One time use National Post for June 2, 2015 Edition online and print ñ National Post only - No Postmedia use **
OTTAWA — When he cut off his right arm with a “very sharp power tool,” a man who now calls himself One Hand Jason let everyone believe it was an accident.
But he had for months tried different means of cutting and crushing the limb that never quite felt like his own, training himself on first aid so he wouldn’t bleed to death, even practicing on animal parts sourced from a butcher.
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