Opinion
Transgender ideology has enabled people to ‘identify’ as amputees
Jørund ‘Viktoria’ Alme, a Norwegian man who believes he is a paralyzed woman
From LifeSiteNews
Those who challenge the view that a person can identify as an amputee despite being healthy must also challenge the assertion that one can simply identify as the opposite sex.
Almost ten years ago, I wrote a column in this space on the phenomenon of the so-called “transabled” – people who identify as amputees or suffer from a mental illness that causes them to loathe one of their healthy limbs. In 2022, a high-profile (alleged) example of this emerged when a 53-year-old healthy, non-disabled Norwegian man began identifying as a woman paralyzed from the waist down and took to a wheelchair to give media interviews.
Those who found his claims to be somewhat suspect were in a bit of a bind – which of his assertions, after all, is more ridiculous – that he is a woman, or that he is paralyzed? Our culture has accepted that he can claim to be a woman, and that we must all nod solemnly in response. “How brave of her,” we must all say in unison as his loyal wife pushes him away from the cameras in his wheelchair. “No, not the wife. The other one.”
A grimmer but no less disturbing profile was published recently by the National Post titled “Quebec man has two healthy fingers amputated to relieve ‘body integrity dysphoria.’” It’s a sad story; the young man said he had “intrusive thoughts about his left hand’s fourth and fifth fingers, the sensation they weren’t his, that they didn’t belong to his body” since he was a child and would even have nightmares about them. He fantasized about cutting them off himself. From the Post:
Instead, a surgeon at his local hospital agreed to an elective amputation in what is being called the first described case of ‘digits amputation’ for body integrity dysphoria, or BID, a rare and complex condition characterized by an intense desire to amputate a perfectly healthy body part, such as an arm or a leg. The Quebec case involved an ambidextrous 20-year-old whose attempts at ‘non-invasive’ relief, including cognitive behavioural therapy, Prozac-like antidepressants and exposure therapy, only increased his distress.
What is significant about this case is the way it was described by Dr. Nadia Nadeau of the department of psychiatry at Université Laval in a case study published in the journal Clinical Case Reports. Nadeau describes the young man’s mental and emotional distress, and notes that this distress apparently ceased after the “elective amputation” and that “he was able to pursue the life he envisioned as a complete human being without those two fingers bothering him.” One month post surgery, he had no regrets.
The particularly significant conclusion came towards the end of the report. According to Nadeau: “He is now living a life free from distressing preoccupations about his fingers, with all his symptoms related to BID resolved. The amputation enabled him to live in alignment with his perceived identity.” This, of course, is precisely the argument used by transgender activists making the case for sex change surgeries, cross-sex hormones, and puberty blockers – that these “treatments” will help the recipient “live in alignment with his perceived identity.” Although they wouldn’t call it a “perceived” identity – they’d call it his real identity. This perceived identity, however, was considered real enough that a surgeon removed two of his fingers.
The justifications for these “treatments” that include bodily mutilation are similar, as well. The Post noted that “Nadeau’s patient, after doing some research, ‘related his condition to gender dysphoria’… People with BID often feel their physical body doesn’t align with the image of the body they have in their minds.”
Furthermore, although “cutting off healthy, functioning body parts for psychological distress raises ethical concerns, BID sufferers sometimes resort to self-mutilation or ‘black-market’ amputations, risking their lives.”
A similar argument is made for “transgender care”: if extreme medical intervention does make the mentally ill person’s body resemble the image of reality in their minds, they might harm themselves. That’s the catch-22, of course. Isn’t surgical mutilation also harm, by definition? Not if you redefine it – that’s why trans activists no longer refer to sex change surgeries, but “gender-affirming care.” According to Nadeau: “Recognizing and addressing the unique needs of (BID) patients can lead to a future where they can live with more dignity, respect and optimal well-being.”
Who can disagree with a campaign to increase understanding and dignity for the mentally ill? I wonder, however, what the limiting principle is here. If a young man who believes himself to be a woman can get himself legally castrated by a surgeon, why can’t a man who believes he is an amputee have a leg removed? Or an arm? If we have accepted that people’s self-perceptions are more important than actual reality, where does it stop?
MxM News
Quick Hit:
The U.S. Department of Labor has scrapped nearly $600 million in foreign aid grants, including $10 million aimed at promoting “gender equity in the Mexican workplace.”
Key Details:
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Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling were credited with delivering $237 million in savings through the latest round of canceled programs.
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Among the defunded initiatives: $12.2 million for “worker empowerment” efforts in South America, $6.25 million to improve labor rights in Central American agriculture, and $5 million to promote women’s workplace participation in West Africa.
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The Department of Government Efficiency described the cuts as necessary to realign U.S. labor policy with national interests and applauded the elimination of all 69 international grants managed by the Bureau of International Labor Affairs.
Diving Deeper:
The U.S. Department of Labor on Wednesday canceled $577 million in foreign aid grants, including a controversial $10 million program aimed at promoting “gender equity in the Mexican workplace,” according to documents obtained by The Washington Post. The sweeping decision to terminate all 69 active international labor grants comes as part of a larger restructuring effort led by John Clark, a senior DOL official appointed during the Trump administration.
Clark directed the department’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs (ILAB) to shut down its entire grant portfolio, citing a “lack of alignment with agency priorities and national interest.” The memo explaining the cancellations was first reported by The Washington Post and highlights a broader shift in federal labor policy toward domestic-focused initiatives.
Among the eliminated grants were high-dollar projects that had drawn criticism from watchdog groups for years. These included $12.2 million designated for “worker empowerment in South America,” $6.25 million targeting labor conditions in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, and $5 million to elevate women’s workplace participation in West Africa. Other defunded programs involved $4.3 million to support foreign migrant workers in Malaysia, $3 million to improve social protections for internal migrants in Bangladesh, and $3 million to promote “safe and inclusive work environments” in Lesotho.
The Department of Government Efficiency, also involved in the review, labeled the grants as “America Last” initiatives, and pointed to the lack of measurable outcomes and limited benefits to American workers. The agency commended the leadership of Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer and Deputy Secretary Keith Sonderling for securing $237 million in savings during this round alone.
The cuts mark the second major cost-saving move under Chavez-DeRemer’s leadership in as many weeks. Just days earlier, she canceled an additional $33 million in funding, including a $1.5 million grant focused on increasing transparency in Uzbekistan’s cotton sector. Chavez-DeRemer, a former Republican congresswoman from Oregon, was confirmed as Labor Secretary on March 11th by a bipartisan Senate vote of 67-32.
Health
RFK Jr. says ‘everything is going to change’ with CDC vaccine policy in Michael Knowles interview
From LifeSiteNews
New Health and Human Services Director Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said the CDC’s own reporting system ‘captures fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries. It’s worthless, and everybody agrees it’s worthless.’
When Michael Knowles asked new Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. if anything will change regarding the public’s justifiable concern with the growth of vaccines, Kennedy quickly shot back, “Everything is going to change.”
Kennedy pointed to the Centers for Disease Control’s current flawed VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) online mechanism.
By way of example, he said, “None of the vaccines that are given during the first six months of life have ever been tested for autism. The only one was the DTP vaccine. And that one study that was done, according to the Institute of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, found that there was a link.”
But “They threw out that study because it was based upon CDC’s surveillance system, VAERS, and they said that system is no good.”
“That begs the question, why doesn’t CDC have a functional surveillance system?” he asked. “We’re gonna make sure they do.”
“They don’t do pre-licensing safety testing for vaccines” he continued. “They’re the only product that’s exempt. So what they say is, if there are injuries, we’ll capture them afterward.”
However, “they have a system that doesn’t capture them. In fact, CDC’s own study of its own system said it captures fewer than 1% of vaccine injuries,” Kennedy said. “It’s worthless, and everybody agrees it’s worthless.”
“Why have we gone for 39 years and nobody’s fixed it?” he wondered, promising, “We’re gonna fix it.”
“We have DOGE (which) knows how to manage data. We’re going to be able to get into these databases and give answers to the American public,” Kennedy predicted.
“We’re going to have gold standard science, we’re going to follow the science, we’re going to publish all of our datasets, which CDC has never done,” he said.
“We’re going to do replication of all of our studies, which CDC has never done. We’re going to publish our peer review, which CDC has never done,” Kennedy vowed. “So people are going to have real answers for the first time.”
The new HHS head also discussed more broadly his mission after taking over the department’s helm, the mess created by the Biden administration, his job’s challenges, and recent developments thanks to DOGE.
“HHS is a $1.9 trillion agency. It’s the biggest agency in the government. And during the Biden administration, President Biden increased its budget by 38% and increased the workforce by 17%.”
“And by every metric by which we measure public health, health accelerated its decline.”
“When I came to HHS, what I found was a sprawling bureaucracy,” with functional duplication of departments, rampant redundancy and overstaffing, with various sub-agencies often acting in a territorial, self-protecting manner rather than a synergistic one.
“Perverse incentives” sometimes drive employee’s work,” he noted.
Despite his short tenure at HHS, with the help of DOGE, Kennedy has already released 20,000 “bureaucrats” from the department’s ranks.
“We’re going from 82,000 personnel to 62,000,” said Kennedy, carefully pointing out, “We’re keeping the scientists and frontline providers.”
Kennedy said that it has been really hard to fight against the problems at HHS and NIH over the last 40 years from “the outside.”
But “now I’m on the inside,” he declared. “This is the purpose of my life. It’s what I’m going to do over the next four years.”
He concluded:
President Trump promised to return the American dream to Americans.
A healthy person has a thousand dreams. A sick person only has one.
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