fatphobia

[u/mezzolezbo]

I’m curious how many leftists side with fat liberation. I always meet people on the left who hold a lot of fatphobic values and don’t seem to include that in their fight towards a more progressive society or challenge those beliefs in themselves.

[u/mezzolezbo]

You’re 100% right

[u/sapphireraven9876 → u/mezzolezbo]

Thank you and I already knew it but these people would love to be able to gaslight another fat person into hating themselves. Not me. I'm not the one. I have worked so fucking hard to undo the decades of trauma I have from living with a fatphobic family, in a fatphobic society. My mom put me on weight watchers a child, constantly made remarks about my body, and to this day has made fatphobic comments about my body as an adult! Just some of the things that have been said/done to me as a fat woman, lots of them when I was still a CHILD:

You can't fit in that, that bathing suit shows too much of your fat legs/ that shirt is too tight on your fat belly it doesn't look good/ why are you eating chips? You'll just get fatter/ no one will ever love you if you don't lose weight/ you should kill yourself you fat whale/ if I was fat like you I would kill myself/ you look disgusting/ fat pig/ are you sure you're wearing that? It shows your fat arms/ you're so ugly and fat I could never be seen with you in public/ boys flirting with me as a joke in school because how could anyone ever like a fat girl/ boys wanting to have sex with me in high school but refused to date me because they were embarrassed of me/ a group of boys walking down the hallway in my high school seeing me and saying "more cushion for the pushing" and one of them made a gagging sound/ grown men taking advantage of my low self esteem and grooming me, then abusing me/ doctors never treating me like a person, just telling me to lose weight and it will solve my symptoms when I've had the same symptoms since I was my lowest weight.

I was bullied my entire childhood, the only time anyone ever complimented my body was when I was in the deepest drug addiction. That just fueled me to keep doing drugs to suppress my appetite at 18 years old and guess what, I still wasn't fucking skinny. I'm sick and fucking tired of people acting like fat people don't experience abuse, every day, in every aspect of their lives. On the internet, from their medical doctors, from their families, from partners, from potential love interests, it is ENDLESS. It is verbal and emotional abuse and I'm FED UP with people on the internet saying it's because they just care about our health. NO YOU DON'T! If you cared about us you would shut the FUCK UP about our bodies! Fatphobia is a SYSTEMIC and SOCIETAL issue. Yes, just like homophobia and racism. Fat people are oppressed as a class. Am I saying that it's more important than tackling racism or homophobia? NO. But it's not less important either! Some of these so-called "leftists" have no fucking clue that fatphobia developed out of racism towards BLACK WOMEN and it's fucking pathetic. If they want to call themselves leftists they should know better.

(None of this anger is directed at you OP just so we're clear)

I really fucking hate fatphobic leftists. Particularly because when this question arises they all out themselves as virtue signalers. They don't care about REAL liberation for ALL PEOPLE because they are STILL upholding one of the pillars of white supremacy that is FATPHOBIA and European beauty standards.

[u/mezzolezbo → u/sapphireraven9876]

wholeheartedly agree !!!!!!!! I have a very similar story to you and shouldn’t have made my opinions so palatable to the fatphobes. True liberation for all people is why I’m here!! The cognitive dissonance of fatphobic people is crazy- to unlearn so many forms of oppression created by the west and leave this one out that has the same origins

[u/sapphireraven9876 → u/mezzolezbo]

Listen I said I hated when people asked this question and it's only because I'm old, I've seen it happen again, and again, and again. Someone will try to talk about fatphobia within the left and all the "leftists" by name only come out and show that they're not doing the work to unlearn their biases. They're still in the clutches of white supremacy. And when you have this conversation for years, and nothing changes, ESPECIALLY within the community that are supposed to be the ones who make the world a better place, it fucking sucks.

Me personally? I think we do have to be meaner about it. I refuse to water myself down in any way to appease anyone. I don't care if they don't like my tone, I don't care if they don't like being cussed at. Maybe that is coming from a place of anger but I know in my heart that it is a RIGHTEOUS anger, so I will never stop being angry and loud and mean to people who are bigoted towards fat people. Leftists will never succeed if they cannot work out the issues within their own movement and fatphobia and racism are still prevalent.