“Trans-ability” is a term used to describe a condition in which a person feels a strong need to identify as disabled — even though they are physically able-bodied. In many of these cases, individuals report feeling that their bodies don’t match who they truly are. Some people with this experience go as far as seeking irreversible procedures, including surgeries or intentional injuries, in order to live as someone with a disability.
In recent years, instances of trans-ability have gained visibility. As conversations around identity — including gender identity and neurodiversity — have become more mainstream, those who identify as trans-abled have become more open about their experiences. While once hidden from public discourse, this deeply personal and controversial phenomenon is now part of wider discussions about the complexity of identity and bodily autonomy.
Trans-ability is most often associated with a psychological condition in which a person does not identify with their able-bodied status. In some cases, they feel a specific limb or function doesn’t belong to them, or that they would feel more at peace with themselves if they lived with a disability. While some express this feeling without taking physical action, others pursue drastic measures — from illegal surgeries to self-inflicted injury — to make their body match their internal identity.
This concept has drawn comparisons to transgender identity, in the sense that both involve a disconnect between one’s physical body and internal sense of self. But instead of feeling discomfort with gender assignment at birth, those who are trans-abled experience discomfort with their physical abilities. For some, this disconnect is so intense that they feel they can only live authentically if their body reflects the disability they believe they should have.
Professor Alexandre Baril, a scholar in feminism, gender, and sexuality studies, has studied this phenomenon closely. He defines trans-ability as “the desire or the need for a person identified as able-bodied by other people to transform his or her body to obtain a physical impairment.”
One of the most widely known cases is that of Jewel Shuping, a woman from North Carolina who identifies as trans-abled. Since childhood, she says, she felt a deep fascination with blindness. “My mother would find me walking in the halls at night, when I was three or four years old,” she told the Daily Mail. “By the time I was six, I remember that thinking about being blind made me feel comfortable.”
Though she was born with healthy eyes, Jewel began wearing dark sunglasses as a teenager and later learned to use a cane and read Braille. By the age of 20, she had become fluent in Braille and was living in many ways as a blind person, despite still having her sight.
In 2006, at the age of 21, she made a life-altering decision. Working with a psychologist, she arranged to have drain cleaner poured into her eyes — a painful act that permanently blinded her. While the decision sparked widespread public shock and concern, Jewel described it as a liberating step toward living as her true self. “I really feel this is the way I was supposed to be born,” she explained. “When there’s nobody around you who feels the same way, you start to think that you’re crazy. But I don’t think I’m crazy, I just have a disorder.”
That disorder is known as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), a rare condition in which a person does not feel aligned with their body as it is. People with BIID may fixate on a specific impairment — such as the loss of a limb or paralysis — and believe they cannot be whole or fulfilled unless they attain that condition.
While BIID and trans-ability remain controversial and not widely understood, they raise profound questions about autonomy, identity, and mental health. What should be the role of medical professionals in such cases? Should bodily autonomy extend to voluntary disability? And how should society approach the emotional and psychological needs of people who feel this kind of deep bodily disconnect?
As understanding of identity continues to evolve, so too will the difficult conversations around conditions like trans-ability — and the people who live with them.