There is power in making our choices and standing by them. Where Reece chooses to shame all bodies over a certain unnamed size, we must pair our personal convictions with a willingness to respect the bodily autonomy of people with different identities, perspectives, and circumstances if we are to have any hope of building a culture that truly reflects the breadth of human body diversity. In one of the quotes above, Reece counsels us to “be brave” and face the universal truth she proposes, as though losing weight were a radical departure from norms and expectations. The deeper implication being that body acceptance is a form of cowardice.
This, ultimately, was the point that offended me most. Whatever ill may be spoken of all of you, those who believe and doubt, those who ask questions and debate facts, those who strive to understand the feelings and positions of people who differ from you, those who still fight with disordered eating and eating disorders, those who struggle with accepting the person you are and with discovering the person you want to be, those who battle with daily visibility and grotesque harassment and well-meaning concern and the wish, understandable, forgivable, to just be “normal” — none of you want for bravery. Indeed, you are the bravest people I know.
”-
Maud fucking bless Lesley Kinzel. I really needed to hear this, because I was fat-shamed at the gyno today. It wasn’t super-bad except for how my brain shorted out and I couldn’t speak up for myself. And I felt badly afterward, because doctors need to hear this shit. I did an okay job being pretty forgiving of myself, because it’s hard to be assertive and articulate when you’re naked and trying not to have a panic attack.
But this was still pretty timely for me on a personal level. It’s helping me to appreciate that I was brave in other ways today. I, after the many months of practice that I had, was able to consciously dismiss his comments. I carried on my day Fatting in Public in a variety of venues, including two thrift shops, and in all of the shopping I did today, I did not experience any negative thoughts about my body.
That’s pretty fucking important. And it would never have happened without this community. Without Lesley Kinzel, Marianne Kirby, Kate Harding, Natalie Perkins, Gabi Gregg—never, never, never. I am continually grateful to the fatosphere as a whole for leading by example in the art of bravery and for teaching me to recognize bravery when I see it in myself.
(Source: I only knew Lesley posted because the wonderful magical talented & amazing definatalie reblogged someone else’s link to it, so props to those people! I just wanted to share the excerpt, because it’s great.)