Bringing bisexual voices together
Fat people with visible scars of disfigurements
Fat people who survived abuse/violence & have mental/internal scars
Fat women/femmes who don’t wear, or can’t access make up
Fat women/femmes who are bald or balding
Fat women/femmes who aren’t hourglass or pear shaped
Fat people who are older
Fat people who can’t afford or can’t access the latest fashions
Fat people who are super-fat/super-sized
Fat people who are genderqueer or nonbinary
Fat people of colour who live outside of North America
Fat people who are disabled
Fat people with multiple oppressions
Fat liberation is for you too. You will probably never see yourself reflected in anything, mainstream or alternative. You will probably feel let down by body positivity and fat positivity. But you count. You matter.
Fatness, Race, Class and Gender.
Content note: Swearing. And when I start swearing, you know shit’s bad.
So which one comes first? Are you black or fat first? Are you LGBT+ or fat first? These are questions that need to piss off and die immediately. I cannot seperate myself into palatable components for your digestion. I could draw a Venn diagram of how they all overlap, but sadly the people who ask these sort of things don’t want to learn - they want you prove yourself. Spoiler alert: you will never be worthy to them.
If you discuss fatphobia, but never mention how race affects how you are treated, then what the everlasting fuck are you doing? Fat liberation is blindingly white, cisgender and heterosexual. These are the voices who get heard, whose articles appear in popular media. These are the people who can afford to attend Fat/Body positivity conferences and know they will receive a warm welcome. They will never be the only one of their ethnicity in a group of fat folks.
If you discuss fatphobia, but never mention how fat LGBT+ people (with a few Bear-shaped exceptions) are subject to punishing drives of fat hate; how poverty affects fat LGBT+ people of colour differently than their white counterparts, then take the first exit out of here, you useless cumstain.
I am thoroughly sick of the white, able-bodied cisfemale gaze being the only thing I see in fat liberation. I am tired of their voices as the only ones amplified. And I could happily live the rest of my life without reading another piece on fatphobia that only concentrates of American white women who are at the smaller end of the fatness scale.
I want to read about experiences of disabled fats, LGBT+ fats who are black or brown, fat folks who are elderly and/or poor. Because we are the ones who face multiple oppressions, who can’t afford to shop the latest fat celebrity lines (I’m looking at you, Beth Ditto) to look incredible. We are the ones who get written out of conversations time and again, even though we have been speaking out for decades.
So all you gusset-tickling, wankers can just shut your mouths for one shit-stained minute. The rest of us would like a chance to be heard.
The myth that black men love fat women needs to get in a volcano
Is it easy
Being black and fat?
Do you enjoy random men telling you
“I’d hit that!”
Are you attracted to those who insult you on the street?
Or at family gatherings
When relatives you meet
Tell you nobody wants you when you’re fat.
But oh, black guys are supposed to love that!
Is it easy when you’re not thin
And black, like how do you even fit in?
Folks look away when I catch their eye
And don’t get me started when they find out
I’m bi.
I’m not butch, and I hate the styles of the 1950’s
So I have to learn to dress a little differently.
But it’s not easy, not easy at all.
You should hear the names I get called!
I’m not hourglass shaped or light-skinned at that.
My belly has rolls and I am fat!
So no, your racist ideas don’t help me one bit.
When you think I have it easier, you perpetuate a myth.
Fat liberation is blindingly pale;
Your racial oppression keeps me down on the scale.
The lines on my skin aren’t just stretch marks,
But self inflicted pain I cannot get past.
So sure, say it’s easy being black and fat.
Look the other other way as I deal with this crap.
And if liberation for fat folks
Don’t include queers of colour at the heart of it,
Then we’ll done, sister:
Your movement’s full of shit!