I went to read this article, I got it from the Big Liberty blog...and it's from another blog...called Dead of Winter...
But here is:
"The Truth Is Radical"
I will share two of the posts, but there are more in the comments:
Blogger to me:
This was aimed at the general population, not at every single possible instance there is. I beg to differ that some people are too fat for fat acceptance or that you cannot be healthy at every size (depending on your definition of health.) Indeed, that was my point-I used to think this way until I was radicalized.
Even if fat did cause or exacerbated health problems, we still cannot be made permanently thin in a safe way and doctors should stop prescribing weight loss as the cure.
It may not be radical to you to be told to accept what is before you, and it really isn’t, another point I made in my post.It’s radical to ask to be treated with basic respect. However, it’s radical in our culture of fat hate to say, “I’m fat, get used to it” and stop making concessions that grant fat phobics their arguments. We’re under pressure to make the larger fat phobic culture feel good instead of challenging them with the best we have and our message gets watered down in the process.
Society has a toxic potion to sell at both ends of the spectrum? Sorry, but I find the idea of society promoting fat to any degree laughable.
Oh, and have Americans really gotten fatter? Or is that just the BMI talking? Most people that get labeled “fat” are either only slightly fat or not visibly fat at all. We wouldn’t have as many fat people as we do if the BMI charts did not change to include more people in the fat category.
No, we don’t support a cure for obesity because…we’re fat acceptance. Pretty straightforward really.
My post still stands. You are certainly welcome to comment on whatever you like here, but this is not the place to win converts away from fat acceptance and to hash out your issues with it.
What I Wrote in Response: [well unless it gets taken down]
Again I get the brush off, as if there is only one of me in this country. I know in the size acceptance world that super-fat people are the lowest of the totem pole especially if they are of lower financial means which most are being disabled, and because they do not protray the image that size acceptance wants. I know from friends and even my own doctors there are people who are bedbound, wheelchair bound and even in nursing homes. I can still walk, my life is limited more by the breathing problems-COPD, but I can walk far further then I could acouple years ago. I can still get out and live a bit when the weather is good. I know even on the spectrum, there are people suffering far worse then me.
A person my size yes can stand against fat discrimination and more, and have dignity, but this idea that fat should stand alone and untouched, what if they found a cure? You know that one worked? I am not saying everyone has to be a skinny minny, I am talking about those with severe obesity…it’s like telling a kidney patient, “oh, you do not accept the fact your kidney’s have failed no more research and help for you, go be proud of needing dialysis everyday. Give me a break!
So what has your “radicalization” done but give out the usual status quo? If you read my blog, you will see I am anything BUT an apologist for the rotten diet industry, but no instead of listening you tell me, “Oh this doesn’t apply to you”. Well why wouldn’t it, I’m fat too. Hey call it “the midsized and still healthy fat acceptance movement”, then we can call it a day.
Ok the dieting and WLS is failing most, we cannot be made thin “pernamently” in a thin way, but does this mean saying Ok, now we embrace the health problems for those on the higher end of the spectrum? Why not demand some more answers and better ones that work?
Hey I know in this life, there is a 99.95 chance that I will die fat. So don’t try and claim I expect to wake up lithe tommorow. Maybe I’ll be thinner, or maybe I’ll be bigger from the heart failure, putting on even more fluid, whatever but don’t tell me that I am supposed to “accept” what is a serious health problem and tell the world, Ok now because you have abused us, we will turn the other way and say, “We love our fat!” no matter WHAT it does to us. It is operating only in response to them!. Forget them. I want help, and by the way I used to weight near 700lbs and probably would have been dead 15 years ago, it wasn’t like the size acceptance world was any help then too. Your brush off of me and my issues is nothing new.
I have the self respect to say, “Look you are wrong”. An overabundance of adipose tissue can destroy lives, taking the moral imperatives out of it all. Basically you want me to ignore my own reality, and here you basically are telling me to go away. If anything I worry about midsized women because I was smaller one until my late 20s. So think that one out. .
I don’t care what the fat phobic culture thinks or doesn’t think, I want to stay alive, and if I die young from being fat, maybe my nephews do not have to. Maybe they will be able to get help without all the baggage and social engineering garbage. It’s like the two political parties, two wings of the same predatory bird, well size acceptance has become a dance partner with the diet-fat industry, no one wants a real cure or answers. I know people have gotten fatter, no doubt of it, have lived long enough to see the difference, back in the 90s people my size I never saw them, now I see them all over–the ones who can still get out.
The main post was typical boiler-plate size acceptance stuff, we are radical and standing against the fat-phobes, OK I get it, I just wanted to put my viewpoint out there.
But has anyone wondered if gearing all your positions in response to the fat haters, is the most healthy position? If anything it becomes a dance of two parties, where one makes all decisions in RESPONSE to the decisions the other makes. Sorry to say this, and some may find me unusual to state it, it is a position of WEAKNESS. It merely makes you a puppet to their strings. They scream, "We hate you fat people!", the size acceptance idealogues scream back "Forget you, We Love our Fat!"
Again I am brushed off. Supersized and fat people like me don't matter in the size acceptance world, I learned that long ago. Fat hating Sociopaths will post pictures of us to make fun of us as our bodies go crazy, and then we will have the size acceptance crew say "you do not matter". They hate us too because we represent the "hole" in their arguments and their absolute concessions.
The blogger removed my response.
ReplyDeleteThey sure love full blown censorship in the size acceptance world.
"“We love our fat!” no matter WHAT it does to us."
ReplyDeleteI think this sums up my issues with some people in the fat acceptance movement in a nutshell. I think that the issue gets oversimplified (as do so many other things) in order to cater to the emotions of people. Fat acceptance should be about rejecting prejudice and censure of people based on body size, not about talking about health effects or proclaiming anything about health.
My feeling is that not acknowledging the reality of health issues and obesity and super obesity (which are at times exaggerated, no doubt), FA undermines the credibility of the movement. My stand continues to be "my body, my business". The issue should be about personal autonomy and privacy in regards to lifestyle choices and how we all have the right to live as we want without being punished by society for those choices. Ultimately, we bear the burdens of those choices (and sometimes we have no choice), and the focus should be upon ending discrimination, not denying reality.
If nothing else, I found your blog via your comment, and have subscribed via RSS to a voice I'm very interested to hear. I hope that makes your engaging the writer worthwhile, even if your comment was deleted.
So many astute things in this post, I can't quote them all.
ReplyDeleteIf anything it becomes a dance of two parties, where one makes all decisions in RESPONSE to the decisions the other makes. Sorry to say this, and some may find me unusual to state it, it is a position of WEAKNESS. It merely makes you a puppet to their strings.
I've no idea why this isn't super obvious. This is why I find the back patting about how out there we are so irksome, it confuses us into thinking we've travelled to where we are no where near, why?
As you say, we take the measure from hysteria and ignorance of others, rather than having the self respect to start from our own understanding then compare.
Either way, we need some kind of central forum where we can all discuss disagreements and ideas in depth.
That way we can get beyond the contempt we have for ourselves as fat people, that's right fatphobia we haz it.
And no, not "internalized" that old cop out, just plain old irrational fear of fat people-therefore each other-same as any one else. We are everyone else of course.
I suspect the blog format is too limited to get past all these mental blocks.
screamingfatgirl, thanks for your words, yep it sums up my issues. Remember I was at the peak of my weight gain when I was around these nuts and almost dead, and told "embrace the fat!" Please, even now I still want real help and they tell me nope, go home, and by the way we are going to erase everything you post. She didn't even leave my post up for even a minute because I was online a bit after and checked.
ReplyDeleteTo be frank, I find size acceptance dumbed down to the max. Even if it has a few academics on the HAES level for the people it's nothing but bread and circuses and nonsense. Yes it is all about catering to the emotions of a certain segment of the populace, women in the midsized range, while marginalizing everyone else including the men [especially fat men themselves] I really cannot stand people who tell me to deny my reality or are so quick to erase that reality. I am one of those people who almost died 15 years ago, of cellulitis alone and they want me to jump on the happy fat parade? I have no problem in standing up for respect for fat people, that part of the size acceptance equation, I LIKE, but this other garbage is for the birds. They DISRESPECT me when they do allow someone like me to have a voice.
I agree with you that some affects of weight are exaggerated, but they want all reality ignored. My request for Marilyn Wann to visit a bariactric nursing home still stands. They will do harm to the young midsized person whose weight may not be stable, which may go up and up and up as much as any diet and weight loss surgery mongers might.
http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2011/07/out-of-touch-marilyn-wann-lets-have.html
The credibility of the movement has fallen on this issue. People see their relatives and friends suffer from obesity, whether it is a cause or a sympton. The denial of reality, who is going to sign up for that? Even today, I tried to go outside for a walk and had to stick to the hall because my lungs can't do outdoors today. I agree with your "my body, my business" element. Their denial of reality to me is a form of discrimination. LOok how they immediately block and take down everything I write, its happened before to me...
http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/search?q=locked+down+size+acceptance
I am glad you found my blog so definitely that was something positive.
Thanks Wriggles...
ReplyDeleteHey to me they work in tandem, fat promotion and fat hatred. No one ever asks for sanity in between. I'll be honest since my name alone points to my huge weight, that is enough alone for them to shrink back, so all their claims of hyper-tolerance, pass like a fart in the wind.
They tell fat women to operate as enablers to their abusers just about, moving in response to what those people say and do instead of standing on their own two feet.
Perhaps I will conside a forum later, when my time is more free, but feel free to continue conversations here, I do come on every few days at least to check or respond to comments.
I don't want to walk around hating my self, or as these people desire, having me deny reality so the world loves me. In other words no more groveling and over compensation.
You are right they have a mental block, definitely.
People see their relatives and friends suffer from obesity, whether it is a cause or a sympton.
ReplyDeleteWhere are they? Why are they not making any real noise? That is how governments act when they realise those who are in suffering matter to those who vote them in.
As unenamoured as I am of the I'm alright so FU school of ableist FA, those who care about fat people have hardly come through either. They have not had to bear the internal burden of fat hating, so why haven't they troubled themselves to use that advantage?
And that probably would have had more effect on research, than a lot of fat people protesting however righteously.
The professionals the way they've shaped reserach into weight, ignoring weight outliers focusing more on the less fat, a reversal of the norm.
As we said, FA takes its cue from them.
I know I ask where are they too? I guess they are busy being brainwashed that fat people are to blame, but surely there are those out there who know the real deal living with the fat person. I certainly have my defenders who KNOW me, and the real deal. I guess here we see how overbearing the diet industrial complex really is. So yeah you are right, where are these people or even professionals who work with the fat and see things first hand for themselves? I took on the researchers here basically saying You guys have failed on this blog already when I found out 95% of everything was geared to weight loss surgery..
ReplyDeletehttp://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2011/02/letter-to-obesity-researchers.html
I guess fat people are so low status in this culture that even those who may otherwise speak out for us, and personally know the truth simply do not. You are right, FA does take their cue for them. Everything is a defense even for our very existence.
I guess fat people are so low status in this culture that even those who may otherwise speak out for us, and personally know the truth simply do not.
ReplyDeleteThat's a telling point. It seems people can love you, care for you, even put themselves on the line for you, but somehow not quite respect or value you to the same extent, if you're not able to yourself.
I'm sure we know this the surprise is how important it is and who it applies to.
More than being vulnerable or down is whether you believe yourself others will tend to take their cue from that, even those close to you.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteoops "self esteem movement"
ReplyDeleteI was speaking more in generalities there, you think some of the loved ones and friends would be storming the fat culture barricades in defense of their loved ones. Oh I have some people who do defend me, personally probably more so then a lot of people my size. I do not have to worry about my best friends or husband hounding me about my weight, or betraying me in that fashion and so far I have realized I am a rarity out there. I also have a family where there are so many fat people that if they hate on fat people they would have to hate on themselves. I think fat people like thin ones should be allowed to be vulnerable at times. Even the whole "prove to us how confident you are" stuff grinds my gears. Can a thin woman have a bad day, and maybe feel more quiet and not ready to take on the world and be left in peace? Well so should the fat woman. The fat person's best happiness will lie in not playing the "prove yourself" game in a society that is shallow and narcissistic.
ReplyDeleteAlso the whole "you don't love yourself" gambit can be used as a slap against fat women in general..we have to be careful of that one wriggles.
you don't love yourself enough to be thin...
you don't love yourself enough to exercise.
you don't have high enough self esteem to be so fat.
After some fat haters abuse you, fatty, etc, and they see the vulnerable fat women in tears, they often will then state, you shouldn't be affected, you just do not luuuvvv yourself enough. I've been down that highway in my youth.
I mean really how can a fat woman win?
To me when I used to hear that "you don't love yourself" stuff, it often a way for fat haters to place blame and deflect their own dirty deeds.
I of course do not subscribe to the self esteem movement, but that would take a post of it's own, and probably would be too much for a blog dealing with weight issues and would encroach into personal religious viewpoints.
One final point too, the super fat person can win even defenders who love them, but we cannot control what other people do. This culture does a number even on the thin people and the average ones when it comes to weight, brainwashing them into an ideal that condemns them but even to a lesser extent. Guess that is kind of the point of this whole blog article. Fat acceptance seems to desire to appease these messages rather then kick off into something different or even dare to speak the truth about weight. If you just dance the dance you are told to dance to impress and appease others...what kind of life does that bring?
ReplyDeleteLOL I know I am talking about deep issues here, hope I am communicating them well enough.
I think I lost the comment I wrote so I'll sum it up.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't referring to self love, I meant keeping the faith with yourself and your capacity for subjective understanding and perception of what you are/ aren't doing.
It's not even about hostility directed at (fat people) it's if you accept that you are in the wrong, where you draw the line on what you accept along with that.
The same error is being made by others who are of a similar constituency to fat people and they too are reaping the same process of demoralizing stigma.
That failure to draw boundaries is the thing that is biting all fat people in the arse.
That precedent is followed by everyone else, including those close to us.
I'm not asking anyone to put themselves on the line, we aren't talking dictatorships here, we live in democracies.
If you think you're relatives are even in the remotest danger of dying can't that move you to fire off a few e-mails to your representatives telling them you know the score and what are those who are paid to do something about that going to do about it?
People write about additives in food, threat to their local ammenities, how can they be silent about what is supposed to be killing people amongst x group?
How can mutilation or places to go and die be acceptable when there is supposed to be a crusade going on in the name of solving it?
There have been other cases where there has been greater stigma than fatness, people of all kinds spoke out when the price was too high and got the stigma reversed and assisted getting better research to meet needs.
Either that isn't the case here or they just don't care, the point is, if it was the former then that is a comment on the "epidemic" prognosis. Its unlikely that you'll have an epidemic of death, with no protest.
Also, no one has to go along with the pretence that slimness is in opposition to fatness as an extension of inner virtue. That costs nothing.
Telling the truth about weight means that, for everyone, many rarely do. Fat people have told harsh lies as the 'truth' for donkey's years, our capacity for integrity on that score is not in question, certainly not by those acting as if its a humongous effort of virtue and will for them to 'decide' to remain slim.
To an extent their passivity is ours too and that of fat acceptance, therefore this should be a wake up call for everyone including our critics who like us, think if they do as they're told, they'll be okay.
That's what we thought.
When the same game is being played on the well behaved as is more normally played on the more vulnerable and marginal, its time to realise, the rules have changed.
Thanks for your thoughts. Yeah I agree with the boundaries. I think if people could throw off more of the brainwashing and just get to the truth it would make things far different that is for sure. I do wish too more would speak up for fat people, that is for sure. We can all only do what we can and live life the best we can.
ReplyDeleteYou are absolutely right. I have realized that the situation re: FA vs fat haters with both of them screwing people like you over is somewhat similar to my situation with regard to ridiculous trans activists vs trans haters. I hate being trans and wish I was born with a normal male body. That's what being trans IS, not a fun fashion statement/youth trend, "redefining gender", changing the English language or whatever other bullshit that trans activists have put their money and publicity into instead of helping legitimate trans people by advocating for more medical research for better surgeries and treatments for us to get as close as we can to the body we would have had if we were born the opposite sex.
ReplyDeleteThis is not analogous to the fat situation, where some fat people are fine with it. But the NAAFA situation is with pre-TA goals of trans acceptance, which was to have the average person not hate someone who told them they were medically transitioning, and not freak out if, say, a guy found out from his sister's college roommate 's bridesmaid that his best buddy and doubles tennis partner was "originally born a girl." In essence, to treat trans people like everyone else, and not the subject of a National Enquirer story.
TAs turned this into a sex-obsessed, busybody, privacy-violating, nitpicking landmine shitshow that would involve changing reality around to suit their needs. TA results in the opposite of what original trans acceptance wanted, distorts the notion of what trans is (fundamentally, a medical issue that should be handled with discretion and respect, not a monolithic hypersexualized identity politicking 'woke' circus), presents the public with an incorrect view of what an actual trans person is about and what an actual trans person wants, and ultimately makes even initially open-minded people come to the conclusion that all trans people are batshit, perverted, pronoun-obsessed, biology-denying megalomaniacs who are very much NOT like that nice same-sex couple down the street who just want to quietly live their lives without hate crimes or dehumanization.
This makes me miserable. I was less afraid of being 'outed' somehow, say by a long lost elementary school classmate, before Big TA opened its screechy delusional mouth.
And like FA does to you, actual trans people like me are censored by TA, or should I say "T"A. They say "you think trans people should be cured!!! You're no different than proponents of conversion therapy!" NOPE, conversion " therapy" aims to delude me in an effort to try to turn me into the opposite of who I am and how I feel, to make me not me. Medical treatments that would bring my body in line with my brain to resolve that horrible life-long dissidence, the nonstop dysphoria it brings, and the fear and impairment it has wrought on my quality of life would be making me "more me" and less of a prisoner. Any "trans" person who would not want this cure is not trans, and whether they are an attention seeker, a fetishist, a "gender radical", a trend jumper, a drag lifestylist, or just an agent provocateur out to discredit the idea of trans as just a rare, shitty genetic accident (due to prenatal hormones and the divergent development of genitals and sexed structures in the brain similar to intersex conditions) depends on the individual.
So not analogous to being fat, but the result is the same; more attention being placed on our outlying bodies instead of less, more alienation from "normal people" who now think we're even less like them than they initially thought. Thanks to the "activists", people like us who actually deal with the reality of a trans/500 lb body (respectively) are further marginalized and isolated by being gaslit by the people who are supposedly "like us" (the "I love my fat/trans body" brigade) and probably even more at risk of being bullied (or worse) by the fat/trans haters than before.
Yeah FA was a disappointment, where the middle/upper middle class and above boomers kind of ruined things. I am reading a book now called "Hood Feminism" where the people writing it talk about feminism betraying POC and poorer people. LOL I got banned off MS. Message boards in the early 2000s for bringing up class issues. Well class or poor people were treated like crap too in NAAFA. Since I wrote this article I have become fsar more educated on disability rights, their ableism alone was horrific, I hope things have changed since them. I do feel I have more tools to put up with less garbage. I think NAAFA has basically died out, the city clubs seemed to have vanished, and don't even know if they have a convention anymore. They let the fat admirer males co-opt the whole mess. I have been around any real life NAAFA events since the late 90s but I do not remember a LBTGQ positive format. It was very cis hetero. Hell being an engaged woman when I went, the fact I didn't want to join the hetero sexcapades left me out.
DeleteI can't imagine it being easy to be trans. Not at all. I do wonder about the messages we are given in society about trans people. You are right why isn't there more research on the medical side of it all, or better surgeries, etc. Even there they've chosen the superficial to concentrate on. I find what you have to say about trans being made into a "circus" interesting. Everyone imagine drag queens and hypersexualized stuff, gender isn't just someone's clothing. Yeah we definitely are getting a certain picture of trans people in the media. I figure most trans people just want to live normal lives and are not there to impress anyone else or make a statement to the world. I can see the attention like the fat people rests on the body the looks, etc, made into a permanent object of curiosity. [just like super fat people]
I am not trans like you but you may find this article interesting....
http://fivehundredpoundpeeps.blogspot.com/2015/03/not-allowed-to-be-girl.html
I wrote this when I was still stuck in fundiesm, so didn't go into some things, I am not like other women in some ways. I am hetero and married, but never fit in with other females, Aspie brain. The PCOS and high testosterone did have an effect on me. I know I struggled with some gender dysmorphia. Of course the family ran with this, and used my masculinzed condition or traits to abuse the hell out of me.
Maybe some activists mean well, but I think some do get misguided or they are being led into that world thinking that is what "trans" is. I always felt in the fat acceptance world that I was supposed to be someone else, the loud, arrogant, extroverted "goddess" not too fat, of course because unhealthy nearly immobile people anathema in that world, and attractive to men, bubble headed, don't be too intellectual when fat either, we are supposed to be jolly, bubble headed, and friendly and that was pushed in fat acceptance too.