Quote of the Day

[Content Note: Fat hatred; hostility to consent.]

Yesterday someone stole pictures of my friends and me from FAT: the Play and uploaded them to a subreddit dedicated to hating fat people. This has created a space for people to openly talk about how disgusting we are, how we are a problem, how we are specifically not-sexy, how we are motivations and warnings for them to be Not Fat, and for them to threaten us with violence. Today I'm thinking about the Myspace days of the Secret Internet Fatty and how that made me feel like if people knew how fat I was (or that I was fat at all), they wouldn't like me, and how that is because I grew up with not many friends. I'm thinking about how that was because I was targeted a lot for bullying because of my size and because of the queerness I was never able to hide, as much as I wanted to. I'm thinking about how I've grown into a beautiful, confident and lovable adult who still has trouble receiving that love because the experiences of my childhood still trick me into believing that any love I might receive is fake, is a joke, is a misunderstanding.

...I'm thinking about the radical potential of public vulnerability and the self-disciplining mechanisms that prevent us from being close to one another and to our selves. I'm thinking about the fat people who were able to show love to themselves and in turn, show me how to love myself, and how grateful I feel that so many of those people are in my life today. I'm thinking about how every day for me is full of pain and sorrow and anger and fire and laughter and joy and resistance. I'm thinking about how fat hatred is insidious, and how it is a Hydra. I'm thinking about this is merely the latest incarnation of centuries of people attempting to discipline fat people for daring to live unapologetically. I'm thinking about how the ways in which we think about bodies are defined by legacies of colonialism and white supremacy. I'm thinking about how this isn't the first and it won't be the last and it was here before me and it will be here after me. I'm thinking about how this is why we do what we do. I'm thinking about how we are a threat, about how powerful that is. I'm thinking about how we're not stopping.

—Queer and Present Danger, who has also posted beautiful photos of his fat self at the link. Photos which should not be radical, but are. Photos which put air in my lungs.

This has happened to me. More than once. My pictures stolen and posted in a fat-hating forum, for mockery and contempt. I get emails about them, alerting me they have been posted in a hostile space, and the emails are from people I don't know who feign concern for me—but I am not a fool. They are usually from the very people who posted them, who get off on knowing that I've seen what they've done to me.

My picture has been stolen for use in a racist meme. My picture has been stolen by people who Google "fat feminist" because they're seeking an example to show that all feminists are fat and ugly. My picture has been stolen by all sorts of people, who know who I am or don't know who I am, for a variety of nefarious uses.

If I complain about that, I am told, "That's what you get for posting your picture."

But I won't stop posting my picture. Because my picture has also been used by other fat people to help them look at themselves a new way. To take to a hairdresser to get a short haircut for the first time. To take to a tattoo artist as inspiration. By thin people to help them work through their thin privilege and center the humanity of people with fat bodies.

Visibility is vulnerability, and it is power. I'm thinking about that, and I'm thinking about Queer and Present Danger, and I'm thankful for him and his beautiful words.


Cheers.