Queering the somatechnics of BIID

Much of the current academic interest in what some now refer to as Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID) IS concerned with aetiology, diagnostic classifications, and treatment protocols. Moreover, there is an almost universal assumption in the existing literature that "BIID" is a disorder of the individual, with the attendant conclusion that it is (potentially) possible to "order" the individual thus afflicted, by changing either his or her body or his or her mind. Whilst debates over which should be changed and how such changes might be best achieved are ongoing, there is little work that critically interrogates the ways in which existing research individualizes the "problem" of "non-normative" desires and/or corporealities, and in doing so gives serious consideration to the necessarily cultural aspects of such. Drawing on the critical notion of "somatechnics", this paper attempts to begin to think through the varied and complex ways in which bodily-being, identity and difference, is shaped not only by the surgeon's knife, but also by the technes that justify and contest the use of such instruments. Further, it aims to open up the debates surrounding and (in)forming what is often referred to as BIID to insights and challenges that have been engendered by other "abjected materialities", in particular those that have been shaped, at least in part, by their inclusion in the DSM and/or the ICD.12 page(s