Disabled Philosophers is one of those off-the-beaten-path blogs that consistently yields thoughtful and original ideas.
We add the item below to accompany today’s story about the Brown health care policy shift, but also to highlight the often under-discussed topic of coexisting conditions that define and challenge so many of us.
In one way or another, nearly everyone has at some point struggled with some experience of difference – ranging from trivial to huge. In many cases society labels what is simply a difference as a pathology, or illness, or worse. So, as magicalersatz reflects:
“My disability is, for many, also a marker of identity. In the parlance of pop culture, I was “born in the wrong body.” In the words of the DSM, I have “evidence of a strong and persistent cross-gender identification.” While I am agnostic about the etiology of my disability, I began treatment before graduate school, which involved therapy, hormones, surgery, and navigating a lot of legal forms and paperwork.
“My colleagues don’t know about my gender history (in other words, I “pass” as the gender that’s finally on my identification), but I still view my physiological situation as a disability. I realize that there are others in my situation who would shirk this description, and I am do not mean to imply that any transsexual or transgender individual is thereby disabled. Continue reading “Disabled philosophers”