Most trans and disabled people who fit the type of crusty queer or tender queer are not actually disabled and ARE in fact mentally ill.
I saw a video of someone, donât know their gender, who with screen text was saying that they were disabled (autistic Iâm assuming) and had been nonverbal for 4 weeks, use one of those electronic talking devices to communicate, had made a sensory bag filled with childrenâs toys, and included a video of them in a public area wearing a dog mask and a dog tale while having text that said their therapist thought they were in such a state of constant fight of flight that it had caused them not to be able to speak. And of course, cue a comment section of thousands of people tripping over themselves to have the best take on this situation and the âthese are the gay and trans people with their stupid gender crapâ mentality. And while some people had some really good points in other observations about this personâs behaviour, no one got it exactly right I felt, or at least no one could resist ending with some kind of self centred addition or showing they are genuinely transphobic or homophobic and just looking for an excuse to hate on trans people.
I think, the the truth is, as much as I can say without bias, that the person in the video IS trans, but these kinds of trans people ARE mentally ill, not that being mentally ill means theyâre not trans, but that mental illness leads to this sort of age regressive slant to their (genuine) identity as a coping mechanism leading to make-believe fantasies like being a dog or living in a perpetual state of childhood that requires toddler toys and gummy worms to get through life as shown in the video. I appreciate trans people donât grow up with trans adult role models, trans people arenât taken seriously, being trans is dismissed as a mental illness or confusion, so these young people donât have access to avenues and outlets that allow them to grow up. Meaning, they feel like if you canât go forward to the Scary World Of Adulthood, they have to go back to the Comforting World Of Childhood where you can be anything you want. You can be crazy, expressive, colourful as a trans person, you can be binary, average, and cis looking af as a trans person, and there are mature ways a person can do either of these things, and you can do these things in a confident, self-explored way while having a mental illness, same way you can still hold down a job with depression or start a family with OCD, yes itâs harder, but these people exist all around us and still lead normal happy lives. All these things are not in direct conflict with one another.
But the problem with the trans people in the video is that they conflate aspects of their mental illness with gender expression or need for disability devices they donât actually require: they are introgressive only in imagination, like constantly relating themselves to characters and having difficulty exactly placing their sense of self even well into adulthood, and due to trauma or mental illness, find self reflection or self-advancement that works through these things too challenging and would rather cope by using age regression to avoid confrontation. This makes their mental illness even more difficult to combat because children donât have to deal with the stressors of life, they can play and be comfortable and never move beyond the stage of adult-childhood and attribute this to being a part of their gender or their disability, when in fact itâs mostly a symptom of their mental illness. Itâs the reason why so many trans people who are disabled do it in a way people find childish and immature. Itâs not that they arenât trans or arenât disabled, itâs that theyâve not done the proper self-exploration (yet or at all) to differentiate between their identity and mental illness, where one stops and the other begins. Obviously average cis people donât know all this nuance and continue to spit rampant transphobia against trans people, harshly question the validity of all disability, and think all trans people are mentally ill or faking their disability, and youâve got trans people who are also ignorant and say these kind of âfake peopleâ are taking up space and not leaving room for Actual trans or disabled people. When in reality, people on both sides of the argument are just getting mixed up in things they donât have the awareness levels to understand.
I think the person in the video IS disabled in the sense that they are autistic (which is classified as a mental disability) but they are not as disabled as they think or in the ways that they think. I would argue most of what they think is a disability is actually part of their mental illness, and I say this having viewed several hundred videos of people exactly like this over the years and clicking through their content to see what the hell is going on, and 100% of the time, they all follow the same patterns as each other. Whether or not a mental illness that is so acute counts as a disability is another argument entirely, but letâs say for the purpose of this that it does not as a mental illness can mostly be treated and cured and lifelong disabilities cannot be and only managed. In the video, this person used the talking device to help with their disability induced non-verbal state. No matter what is actually triggering it, they appear to be helped by it. However, I donât think itâs helping the disability, at least not primarily. The way in which they are using their disabled devices (the talker thing) attests more to the age regression âbaby no talk right now :(â due to the mental illness than it is to some formal way to communicate in the event speech is far more difficult due to the disability, not that this person isnât at all influenced by any effects of their disability, but that the mental illness is the prime motivator for seeking this assistance. Itâs not that I think this person isnât disabled in some way, I think they are, but they are mistaking a lot of mental illness symptoms for a disability. I think accessibility devices by these kinds of people are not always used to alleviate what they have difficultly doing but rather they are used to explore the parameters of what they have the option NOT to do, what is EASIER to do for easierâs sake, not because itâs genuinely assisting something they actually canât do, but placating something that is difficult to do only because of the mental illnesses that they continually ignore fixing, asserting them as core pieces of their identity, treating the mental conditions as things they will have forever. I think thatâs why youâll often get people who say their disabled status AND list some of their mental illnesses or âtrauma survivorâ in their online bios. Itâs important to distinguish that mental illnesses are not identities, and that identifying with them will often prevent people from healing beyond them. Unlike a mental illness, for many people, being disabled is a part of their identity, itâs life long, and they may regularly interact with it Forever. And Disability devices are used to make something you canât do easier or possible during that lifetime. A cane to walk, a wheelchair to move, a hearing aid to hear, talking devices to speak, noise cancelling headphones to avoid meltdowns, subtitles to understand, prosthetics to walk or interact with the world, sensory objects to mitigate sensory overload. These things are not aimed at trying to make you a more productive member of society, (or at least they shouldnât be) they should be used in such a way that allows you to do whatever you personally want to do, what you want to be capable of, whether that achieves something or not, whether itâs for your job, community, or just for you. And yes, there is overlap in who these devices benefit. Theoretically, anyone benefits from things disabled people benefit from because the intentions of these devices is to make life easier.
Itâs not saying only disabled people are allowed to use these devices, anyone can use them. The only problem with some mentally ill people using these disabled devices arises when a person uses them in a maladaptive way, relying on them as a crutch to prohibit moving beyond their mental illness or using it to assert aspects of their core identity and in this case, sustains age regression and creates further tensions maintaining intrapersonal relationships, holding down a job, developing social skills, or treating others respectfully and equally. From a person at a public protest I heard asking the perplexed organiser to be their carer for the event because they didnât want to be anxious to the young queer person who was holding a cane that wasnât even touching the ground I watched rolling their eyes head held high rudely shoving past people out of an elevator who were just trying to let other people exit the elevator first, a blurred line between disability and mental illness/personality disorders causes people like the one in the video to have a skewed sense of their own capabilities and self, relying on things that, while assisting their disability, assist sustaining a mental illness. Itâs not known in someone like the original video whether or not the speech device was helping autism or mental illness because they think any difficulty they face removing the device makes the disability harder, when in reality it may just be the discomfort from having something taken away that aided their comfort in the age regressive habit of not having to speak. Arguments claiming disability if youâre not actually disabled and taking away resources and services from âactualâ disabled people is just some kind of red herring. The real consequence of this behaviour is that with no distinction between a disability and a mental illness, you are using a disabled identity (whether you are or not) to placate a mental illness and refusing responsibly for your actions and behaviours, attributing them to being trans or disabled, calling people transphobic or ableist when you get called out for something shitty you did or when someone suggests to you you might have a mental illness in addition to being trans or disabled. And this stubborn refusal to self reflect or let go of trauma to instead assert why you identify as an its/it xe/xir circulargender pansexual lesbian âlittle creatureâ is what pisses people off. Like yes there is nuance, yes not every instance of a person identifying this way means this, itâs just that Iâm noticing it 100% of the time in people that present themselves this way. The difference is that I donât leap to the conclusion theyâre faking trans or disabled. I think you can be those and mentally ill at the same time, itâs just that mental illness needs addressing. Itâs also unsurprising so many of these types are almost always white from English speaking counties but thatâs another post entirely.
And you get the people who are like âI shouldnât have to appease other people! I should be allowed to be myself! No one knows me better than me!â right sure, but constantly acting like a toddler well into adulthood is mentally abnormal, constant maladaptive daydreaming as a creature is mentally abnormal, these are signs something in your brain isnât working correctly and thereâs no way to argue around that. Whether itâs a positive or negative or harmless effect on your current situation differs from person to person, but broadly, they tend to be things people seek help for as they often put strain on their life and relationships. But when youâve removed yourself from taking responsibility for your mental health, you incidentally bestow that responsibility on other people and make life difficult for people who ARE trying to interact with you, youâre difficult to manage because youâve absolved yourself of managing yourself, youâve become a child or thing for other people to take care of lest they be called ableist or transphobic for refusing to work with you or assist you, donât want to be friends with you, or canât help you. People like this also are at a disadvantage to themselves because youâve not actually fully assessed your limitations and feelings, youâve jumped one hurdle which was just a little bit uncomfortable and gave up on the race, because if you reached the end of the track, you mightâve learned the burning exhaustive sensation after jumping hurdle 18 out of 25 made that slight discomfort at hurdle 1 look like a walk in the park. Youâve been perfectly capable of hurdle 1 this entire time, but without the perspective of hurdle 18, you think you need to commit yourself to a wheelchair or ditch PE for life. Itâs not âpush yourself until you collapseâ as these people always think youâre advocating for to which you get called ableist and a nazi, itâs simply saying âdevelop a frame of reference for your limitations and feelings, donât assume the first sign of resistance or discomfort is the ceiling, because that isnât helpful to understand yourself.â
There is also the comment that people like this do this for attention. And Iâm ngl, I think it is in the social media sense, otherwise why post it? Seeking attention is a normal human behaviour, we repeat ourselves if we donât think someone heard us, we flag down waiters and taxis, we guide conversations to talk about subjects where we can share stories and achievements, we act a certain way if weâre feeling sad so someone might ask whatâs wrong, EVERYONE does it, wanting someone to pay attention to us or respond to us is normal shit. However, I donât think that people are being trans or disabled for attention all the time, even if theyâre being flashy about it. Itâs the presence of a mental illness or personality disorder on top of genuinely being trans or disabled that causes a person to use these things for attention. They just hit the social jackpot: they are genuinely trans but also constantly talking about it for attention. You can be trans AND an attention whore, you can be cis and an attention whore, they donât negate one another. You have subjectively incredibly talented musicians who are also self centred piece of shit narcissists. Doesât mean theyâre a fake musician or being a musician just for attention, but it does mean theyâre an asshole and also use their music for attention. Because the people in these kinds of people in the afore mentioned video are so insulated within themselves, dwelling in online worlds of fiction, posting imaginative content where people like them often are, it becomes easier to get attention for things they were normally bullied in school for. They can strut about with a flashy cane or pretend they donât know what theyâre doing is attracting attention and also have their identity be genuine. They basically can have their cake and eat it too. Itâs not being trans or being disabled that causes this, itâs the personality or mental illness of a person that does. Someone made the comment as well that these kinds of people ironically canât order pizza over the phone to save their life despite wanting attention and thatâs because it breaks the suspension of disbelief in their own imaginative state. Reality exists as the Big Scary World they avoid interacting with. They can go to the park in the dog costume because itâs in their own little world. Any negative attention they get for it can further be used to assert why they shouldnât interact with the Big Scary World and people online will tell them being a dog in public is actually brave and expressive and You Be You, and it can keep the cycle going for this kind of behaviour which keeps them separated from reality, locked in an age regressive state. And people who take any little step out of this zone or face resistance within it or essentially meeting hurdle 1 and retreating back to the safe zone, meaning they donât have thick skins, are easily hurt, and need safe spaces and coddling from others to feel safe, to allow the mental illness to keep going because dealing with because admitting to yourself you arenât actually that disabled or acknowledging effort is normally required to do things and being completely devoid of discomfort is not possible is so much harder than acceptance of these things. Itâs not that mental illness undermines or serves as a sign someone isnât gay or trans or bi or disabled or non binary, but it DOES affect the way in which a person explores and displays these things and again, could serve as a crutch that prevents someone exploring themselves and their feelings and expressions on these things further. When I see someone like in the video, I can see a trans person and autistic person who might otherwise be different if they werenât so affected by using their mental illness as a comfort tool. The problem is, they donât know who they are without the mental illness, they donât know what being trans or disabled looks like outside of age regression. And fearful, they continue acting this way.
And thatâs why it angers people who are trans, disabled, or otherwise, because this person is unbeknownst to themselves asserting gender or disability (core aspects of a personal identity) through the lens of mental illness. Itâs mistaking mental illness as part of their trans identity or part of their disabled identity. Unchecked age regression or unchecked personality disorders caused by trauma like narcissistic personality disorder or DID leads to their gender expression involving dressing like an overgrown toddler or identifying as an object or their disabled status involving using walking canes covered in stickers or using baby toys as stim toys. They donât do these things because they are trans and disabled alone as if those things intrinsically cause these behaviours, they do these things because theyâre age regressing in a maladaptive way, theyâre mentally ill, and people who donât understand this think being trans and disabled involves age regression and eating baby food or hopping around in a public park dressed like a dog. Mental illness involves these things, not being trans or disabled or gay.
Additionally, I wouldnât be surprised if these kinds of people were, unbeknownst to themselves, use being transgender like becoming a fictional character or roleplay a child identity due to trauma or just general unhappiness with themselves, and that may be why so many chronically online trans people age regress and irl trans people donât, why you have trans people for instance that know from a very young age which gender they do or donât identify with (even nb people) and then you get people that float on girl lite and boy lite for decades accompanied by an obsession with fictional media and characters and cartoons, to them being trans is less about being yourself, and more about being A Fictional Character while you donât actually know who you are at your core. Itâs not that these people arenât trans, but theyâre not trans in the way the term was originally referring too. Like who cares why a person changes their gender, I think it can be a decision if you want, but like I do think there are different kinds of trans people, some of them genuinely informed by mental illness, but we all have to live under the same roof. And therapists donât pick up on this because the said mentally ill person clearly doesnât identify with their birth gender and suffers gender dysphoria which meets criteria for transitioning. I donât think any one trans person is more valid over another, like you do you, it ainât none of my business and Iâll still advocate for everyone, but I do think there are trans people for which it is a part of a personality disorder, mental illness, being autistic, or literally just wanting to play pretend but Forever. The problem is there is no system and probably never will be that differentiates those with those motives from other motives because trying to do that would just make us lose our rights entirely so we HAVE to advocate for these people too. Everyone should have a right to live their life whether I agree with it or not, whether I understand it or not. But I do see now, the older I get, why you get so many conservatives saying trans disabled people are just confused and mentally ill, therefore not trans. I still think these people are trans, even though they donât fit why Iâm trans. I do just wish these kinds of people paid more attention to their mental health because it IS getting to a stage of irresponsibleness, and trans people like me are struggling to figure out how to stick up for these people when some people are so damn hard to defend. Itâs getting more and more complex to explain to people online or in person or to politicians taking away our rights because it requires an extensive conversation with tomes of backstory to explain why this kind of person exists and why you shouldnât take away their (our) rights or call them mentally ill (even though we know they are).
