By: Kathleen McCann, BA’13

Published: Friday, Jan 17, 2014

St. Thomas University Canada Research Chair and School of Social Work professor Dr. Clive Baldwin has received an Insight Development Grant valued just under $50,000 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council to study transableism.

Transableism refers to the desire to shift from being able-bodied to dis-abled through choice rather than happenstance. This could manifest itself through self-amputation, seeking elective amputation, or elective spinal cord injury to paralyze the lower body.

Dr. Baldwin was drawn to this topic as there is little research about transableism and those who suffer from it are often misunderstood.

“Few, if any, transabled people ‘want’ to be disabled,” he said, “Rather, whatever the cause, they are extremely burdened by being able-bodied, so their physical bodies do not correspond to their internal map of how their body should be.”

“Currently there is no ‘cure’ for such feelings and so transabled people seek to become disabled so as to lessen the feelings of burden and to allow themselves to be who they see themselves as,” he added.

His research will examine transableism medical, social, and cultural perspectives, so providing a multi-perspectival analysis. Dr. Baldwin hopes his studies will further the understanding of transableism as a phenomenon as well as raise awareness.

“The goal of the research is to raise awareness of transableism and the difficulties transabled people face, as they are often vilified for ‘wanting’ to become disabled, which is really misunderstanding what it is all about,” he said.

“If we as a society knew more about what it is like, perhaps then we might not be so quick to judge or vilify transabled people.”

Baldwin came to St. Thomas in 2011 from the University of Bradford, UK, where he was a Senior Lecturer in Social Work to act as the Canada Research Chair in Narrative Studies.

He earned degrees in education from the University of Cambridge and social work from the University of Leicester. His doctoral research was undertaken at the University of Sheffield and his post-doctoral research at the University of Oxford.

Baldwin is currently a professor in the School of Social Work where he teaches Narrative for Social Work(ers) and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Narrative.