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Monday, November 17, 2014

One of These Things is Just Like the Other

Seriously, have you heard of this one? It's called "BIID"--Body Integrity Identity Disorder. It's real. What is it? In rare cases people believe that they are missing a limb that they are not and feel the need to remove the existing limb. It's not that there's anything wrong with the limb. They just have ... get this ... an "identity disorder". That's right. When someone has a faulty psychological belief that their body is wrong and their mind tells them they need to change their body to agree with their psychological belief, it's called a "disorder" ... unless, of course, it's a gender identity disorder. In that case we'll ignore the healthy body and go with the brain and not call it a "disorder" because ... well, I don't know.

In this study, "Fifty-four BIID subjects completed the survey and indicated that they main rationale for their desire for body modification is to feel complete or feel satisfied inside." Half the subjects experienced sexual arousal on the subject. Oh, and this little bit: "Next to surgery there is no effective management strategy at present." So, tell me, how is this different than gender identity issues? Why is it that the psychological and medical communities talk these poor people with their identity crisis out of altering their bodies to match their perceptions, but in the case of gender identity crisis they're certainly right and the body is wrong? Why is it that no one there sees this correlation?

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