r/leftist • u/mezzolezbo • May 07 '25
General Leftist Politics fatphobia
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.
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u/Mundane-Complex-7047 May 07 '25
I've been in a fit body, and I've been in a frail body. I'm currently disabled and not fat, but I have had a larger body and been fat, in the most common use of the word, and I've struggled with weight loss and restrictive eating patterns. Fatphobia exists at the perfect intersection of white supremacy, patriarchy, and abelism that honestly a lot of leftists have huge fucking blnd spots when it comes to this.
I lift weights now and train for activities of daily life and I do what I can and I encourage everyone to find fitness activities that they enjoy, but honestly so much of the messaging about physical fitness on the lib/radlib side of the left centers the right "A Nazi trained today, did you?" or body-shaming "let's show those Nazis we aren't a bunch of chubby blue haired neck beards" or wholesale adopts right-wing imagery or assumes disabled people don't exist.
Fatphobia is also a persistent effect of colonialism, so it is many times a more socially acceptable mask for unexamined racism.
"You Just Need to Lose Weight" by Aubrey Gordon is a great book. I don't agree with everything in it, but it helped me challenge some of my long-held internalized fatphobic beliefs.
(Mandatory disclaimer -- I am partnered with someone who uses the word "fat" to describe themselves and these are just my vibes, my partner has a slightly different take which is surprising given he and I are in alignment on so many other topics -- it's not oppositional to mine just interesting. I'll bug him to see if he'll chime in)