Short answer – yes, of course I’m an amputee, I had the middle of my hand removed due to traumatic injury! But is that reflected in our culture?

When you see or hear the word “amputee,” do you think of someone who has lost part of their hand? Action movies often depict the macho hero losing a finger to the evil villain, who then proceeds to defeat the villain as if nothing happened. When superhero movies have amputees, it’s nearly always the bad guy who has lost an arm and now has some futuristic robotic replacement with a built-in laser cannon (read more about the evil cripple trope here – https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilCripple). Feel-good news stories like to feature a kid with limb loss or limb difference getting a prosthetic thanks to the generosity of someone in their community. And images of amputee athletes meant to inspire the able-bodied (sometimes referred to as “inspiration porn”) typically depict a lower limb amputee in an athletic event like running. Even Star Trek, the show that pushed the the boundaries for inclusivity, hid actor James Doohan’s (Scotty Montgomery) right hand because, like me, he was missing his middle finger. So when I read about a person who lost a finger as a child and didn’t realize they were an amputee until they were an adult, it’s not that surprising. Finger and partial hand amputees comprise 92% of the upper limb amputee population*, but we are largely invisible.

The hand is such a universal symbol that we have used it since time immemorial to represent humans. From prehistoric cave paintings to corporate logos, we are surrounded by images of perfect five-fingered human hands. We never see hands that differ from this universal symbol, despite the reality that there are so many of us whose hands do not look like those stylized logos.

And yet, when I have discussed the process of going through amputation with friends who are lower limb amputees – the loss of the physical self, the shock to your core identity, the depression, the need to grieve the loss of part of your body – we have all had very similar journeys. April is Limb Loss and Limb Difference Awareness month, and I think that the finger and partial hand amputee population in particular needs this increased visibility so that none of us will ever again need to hear that “it’s just a finger.” Because it’s not “just a finger,” it’s a part of my body that has been amputated and it has just as large an impact as the loss of any other part of the body.

* https://opedge.com/Articles/ViewArticle/2018-09-01/updates-on-prosthetic-rehabilitation-following-partial-hand-amputation