Mid Semester Project: Transableism

I was very excited to read your piece on transablism! You raise a lot of good points and the progression through your piece was really smooth, thoughtful, and organized. Your topic has so many parallels with transgenderism, which is always something I am willing to learn more about. What I respected the most about your piece was how you put yourself out there by saying that, at first, you didnt understand the viewpoint of the transable community. However, you patiently worked through this idea and very thoughtly gave voice to these poeple. I really agree with your points that with proper access to these surgeries there can be less harm done to those that will go to extreme lengths to transition. If people are risking their life for these types of modifications, then I think there should be more of an open dialogue about this in the medical community. Additionally, it is interesting that this could possibly form a mini-fraction within the disabled community based on medicatization. For the reasons that you pointed out in your essay, I could see how there would be a clash over how the community as a whole views the medical model of disability. Im further intrested in how other, other than physical modifications, one might ofter help to this community. Specifically, what types of psychiatric care do they need - pre or post surgery? Should people be cogniscent of the fact that some people may want to be labeled as disability in order to evade work realated duties and recieve certain benefits? How could you screen for that situation and decide when someone genuinely wants to transition in this way? 

One last minor thing, I think you meant to write the hippocratic oath as "do no harm" instead of "do harm" on the 4th page.  

Overall, great piece! Really interesting

-Katie Rose Sullivan