The History of BIID Communities

For people living with Body Integrity Dysphoria (BID / BIID), online community has never been a luxury - it has been a lifeline. In a world where the condition is rarely understood by clinicians and almost never discussed openly, private forums have provided the one thing no therapy session could fully replicate: the experience of being completely understood by someone else who lives it.

The history of those spaces is worth preserving. It is, in many ways, the history of a community learning to name itself, support itself, and survive.

Usenet, Yahoo Groups, and the early mailing lists (late 1990s – mid 2000s)

Discussion of what we now call BID appeared on Usenet groups and early web forums in the late 1990s. The terminology was contested and often clinical - BIID, amputee identity disorder, apotemnophilia (a term now widely considered inaccurate and stigmatizing), xenomelia, foreign limb syndrome. Despite the imperfect language, people found each other. For many, it was the first time they had encountered another person who shared their experience.

Yahoo Groups hosted some of the earliest dedicated discussion spaces, including the biid and biid-info groups, and the fighting-it mailing list, which became one of the more durable gathering points of that era. Around them, smaller personal blogs and resource sites - most notably transabled.org - filled in the cultural and political vocabulary the medical literature lacked.

These spaces were fragile. Most disappeared without warning when Yahoo wound down Groups, when their owners moved on, or when a single hosting bill went unpaid. But they established something foundational: community was possible, and it mattered.

BIIDForFreedom (BFF) — closed 2024

BIIDForFreedom - known universally in the community as BFF - became the dominant gathering place for people with BID during its years of operation. It cultivated a culture of safety, non-judgment, and genuine peer support at a time when those qualities were rare online. Members discussed coping strategies, shared lived experiences, supported each other through the hardest moments of The Wave, and built lasting connections.

BFF closed in 2024. The loss was felt acutely by everyone who had relied on it. People searching today for BIIDForFreedom, BFF biid forum, or BFF replacement are almost always looking for what came next.

BIDRemedy (BIDR) — offline since May 2026

BIDRemedy (commonly abbreviated BIDR) carried the community forward after BFF's closure. It served as the primary peer-support space for people with BID across all expressions - amputation identity, paralysis identity, sensory identity, and more. For members who had lost BFF, BIDRemedy was both continuation and renewal.

In May 2026, BIDRemedy went offline without warning. No announcement. No archive. No transition plan. Within hours, hundreds of community members found themselves cut off from their primary support network. For people managing a condition that thrives in isolation, an abrupt loss of community is not a minor inconvenience - it is a genuine crisis.

If you arrived here searching where is BIDRemedy, BIDR down, BIDRemedy not loading, or what happened to BIDR - the short answer is that it has been offline since May 2026, and whether it returns is up to its owners. Former members have dispersed across different spaces, and some have joined talking.bid. See the page for people arriving from BIDRemedy for what your options are.

Adjacent communities (still around)

A handful of smaller spaces still exist alongside talking.bid:

• r/biid on Reddit - public, small, intermittent moderation. Useful for first contact; limited depth.
• Private Discord servers - several survived the BIDR shutdown, mostly invite-only. Ask in the forum if you are looking.
• bodyintegritydysphoria.com - the other legitimate BID resource site, more clinical/informational in tone.

talking.bid

talking.bid belongs to the broader history of online BID peer-support communities, but it is a new and independent project rather than an official continuation of BFF or BIDRemedy. It is not operated by BIDR, does not represent its former owners or moderators, and makes no claim on the membership of any earlier forum. It is a dedicated, purpose-built space for peer support, built so that a single billing failure or owner departure cannot take it offline.

The forum covers all expressions of BID: amputation identity, wheelchair and paralysis identity, sensory identity, and more. The forum itself is private - not indexed, not publicly readable - because the people who need it most deserve to speak freely. The public surface you are reading is intentionally there only to help newcomers find their way in.

talking.bid welcomes people from every part of the BID community: former members of BIDR, BFF, mailing lists, Discord servers, and other forums, as well as people who have never previously spoken to anyone about BID. No prior community membership is expected or required. You may encounter familiar people here, while also meeting members from other communities and people participating for the first time.

Whether you are returning to the wider BID community or joining one for the first time, you are welcome. Register here, or read the page for people arriving from BIDRemedy.