Why is fat acceptance important?

People who don't believe in fat acceptance tend to believe certain untrue things, such as that all fat people overeat or are too lazy to get enough exercise, and could just choose not to be fat if they really cared enough to have some self respect, or that all fat people just happen to be stupid and make bad dietary choices because surely they have the resources (time, money, availability, and education) to make better choices, or that shame and discrimination are effective ways to motivate fat people to become thin people, or that all people have a responsibility to have thin bodies in order to be socially pleasant, or that body size is a good indicator of health, or that health should determine our value. If those things were true, I could see why a person might not believe in fat acceptance, but they are not. Many fat people have medical conditions that cause weight gain, or are on life-saving medications where weight gain is a side-effect, or have genetic issues or hormone imbalances. Some have mental health issues or eating disorders. Since a person cannot know just by looking why any specific person is fat without knowing them personally, it is wrong to automatically assume that a random stranger must be fat because they lack willpower or are spiritually flawed in some manner. That is a prejudiced approach and mostly hurts the people who do not fit into that generalization. It is also ableist. Some fat people are poor, overworked, or do not have sufficient options to make better choices, so even if a fat person really is eating from the McDonald's dollar menu every day, it could be because that person does not live near a grocery store, lacks transportation, works long hours that do not allow time for shopping or meal preparation, or can't afford enough produce to stay healthy when ramen and pop tarts are considerably cheaper. Because one cannot know what any individual's situation is like, assuming that a random stranger is to blame for being fat is, once again, a prejudiced position and would be potentially classist. Now, let's assume that a fat person doesn't fit into either category, and really is just a lazy glutton who chooses to overindulge. So what? There are thin people who undereat, and thin people who overeat, but nobody ever goes off on how unfair it is to have to pay for their health care. There are all sizes of people who have dangerous hobbies, but for some reason, everyone wants to pick on fat people. What is the real reason? I think it is largely social and aesthetic, or perhaps a form of unfounded disgust. Maybe fatphobia is homophobia's close cousin for all of the same reasons: because being fat is mistakenly believed to be an unethical personal choice even when there is plenty of scientific evidence to show that this is false, because we are thought to represent specific sins (sloth and gluttony if a person is fat, lust and pride if a person is gay,) but more realistically, it is probably because the thought of sex with us creeps you out so much that it makes you violently afraid of being near us, and every other justification is how you pretend you didn't have the thoughts that made you feel so violated and contaminated. People act like we have so much power to corrupt everything we touch that just existing publicly is seen as glorifying all of the negative stereotypes they attach to us. If we are confident and happy, we are seen as walking advertisements for disease and addiction, even while minding our own business, the same way gay men who dare to hold hands in the park are seen as "corrupting the children" by being a living beacon of sin that sets a bad example. Maybe you just don't like having to look at fat people, and think being fat is socially unacceptable, like having bad hygiene or bad manners. You get a visceral reaction of revulsion, but can a person's body really be a social offense. A person's body does not belong to society, and it isn't inherently wrong to exist in any type of body. By applying a subjective personal feeling about how others look in such a way that it impacts those people's ability to exist comfortably with respect, equality and dignity, the hatred of fat is the real social problem. Some people believe that shaming fat people will motivate us to become thin, but motivation is not the issue. Society already offers enough incentives to prefer thin bodies, and if it were so simple, few of us would willingly choose to remain fat in a social environment that is so hostile toward us. Science shows that shaming fat people tends to exacerbate the "problem," and also that being part of a group that faces discrimination tends to cause a lot of the same health problems that being fat supposedly does, regardless of weight. Stress also causes weight retention. The stigma associated with being fat makes some fat people afraid to exercise in public. When you shame fat people, you are making it harder for them to become what you demand, even if they happen to want to be thin people. (And although most would change if they could, not all of us want to be thin for you, no matter how much you hurt us.) Another thing to note is that most fat people are afraid to visit doctors for minor problems that thin people wouldn't hesitate to seek help for, because they fear that they will just be discriminated against again. Often, they are treated dismissively and told to lose weight instead of being given meaningful medical advice about the issue they sought treatment for. There are cases where fat people have died because doctors were so fixated on weight that they missed the actual problems, and other cases where fat people have been hesitant to get medical issues checked out until the problems were so bad that the treatment options were more drastic and expensive, because of a history of being treated poorly by healthcare professionals. Fat is not an indicator of health, and there are enough scientific studies to thoroughly disprove the idea that all fat people are unhealthy, or that all thin people are not. If it is true that some thin people have unhealthy lifestyles, and if it is true that some fat people do not, it is wrong to make judgments about individuals based on size alone. If it is true that some thin people have health problems related to their unhealthy lifestyles, and if it is true that there are some fat people who do not suffer from any more medical problems than average, then even if it weren't disgustingly ableist to think that only healthy people deserve respect and dignity, it would still be wrong to blame "fat people" as a group for something that does not apply universally to all fat people, just as it is wrong to blame the entirety of any other group for actions or qualities that are not universally shared. Stereotyping mostly hurts those who do not fit such expectations, and why would anyone want to make life harder for people who aren't doing anything wrong?

My gender

I was assigned female, so I just go along with that because it seems to matter to people. Really, though, I don't even know what gender feels like, other than as something artificial to perform for others. I know it can exist authentically, and that it is a meaningful part of most people's identities, but I don't think I ever got any of it. I'm just me, and I feel like I would be the exact same person even if I had been assigned male. The difference is that I wouldn't have adjusted very well to the types of expectations men place on each other, because I am unapologetically emotionally sensitive, I think dominance through aggression is immature, and I don't like wearing boring colors. There are plenty of men with personalities like mine, and they tend to struggle a lot in a society that devalues them. I probably would have become a hippie in order to make sense of it. If I had been born into a different body, I don't think having that body would bother me or that it would feel incompatible with my sense of identity any more than this one does. I would likely feel neutral about it. I would still be who I am, but I might be hurt more for it by others who have very specific ideas of there being acceptable masculine and feminine personalities that people should have if they are considered a certain gender. My personality doesn't fit either set of expectations. However, since femininity isn't defined by maintaining dominance, I think women are given a bit more expressive freedom. It's like, sure, we can be creative and emotional if we want because nobody is going to listen to us anyhow. We're not trapped into denying ourselves joy in order to prove how tough we are. Meanwhile, men get teased if they drink anything sweet or wear anything pretty or soft, because how dare they seek out anything comfortable or pleasant! How dare they refuse to prove that they can endure a thousand everyday forms of suffering and self denial! They constantly have to show that they are strong enough to avoid comfort on purpose by depriving themselves of anything nice, unless they can use that nice thing in a competitive way. I would hate that! I think a lot of men with personalities similar to mine also hate it but don't have the power to change it, so all they can do is either choose to openly defy it while being treated like they are of low status, or conform and die inside in order to avoid mistreatment from their peers. That's really the only reason I identify more with femininity.

Why I unapologetically use the word "rape" to describe the forced impregnation of farmed animals.

As a survivor of sexual violence, I feel that redefining the same physical act based on who the victim is, or on how aware they were, causes more harm than good, as this same tactic has been used historically to deny that rape was real when it happened to non-virgins, married women, sex workers, drunk women, men and boys, etc, and could just as easily be used to excuse the rape of humans with cognitive/developmental disabilities who don't understand the social implications, so I feel like denying that it is rape when an animal is penetrated without consent, even if the animal shows no signs of trauma, reinforces this problematic idea that there remain entire classes of victims who don't count, by nature of who they are rather than because the act of forced penetration didn't happen to them. It is upsetting when we get treated as though there is only one right way to honor the validity of our feelings about our own experiences, and as though we all felt exactly the same about this topic. Just as there are Jews who openly compare animal abuse with the Holocaust and others who find it offensive to do so, some rape survivors consider the comparison with our lived experiences accurate and important, while some feel like it trivializes their pain and ignores the social context in which they were harmed. It is tricky to know how to talk about this topic when some of us feel like our experiences are invalidated if you don't call it what it is to us, and others feel invalidated if you do, because they don't consider it comparable with what they went through. I think it is important for people to remember that we are all individuals with our own ways of understanding the issue. I used to feel pure rage when people denied that it was rape, because that meant that in order to be consistent without being speciesist, some human rapes also didn't count, for the same reasons that were being used as excuses to deny that the forced penetration of the non-consenting animals was real rape. The implications were infuriating. "Animals don't place the same social meaning on it, and lack the self-awareness to be traumatized by it." Children don't always understand the social meaning. People with cognitive disabilities don't always have the awareness to know they were violated. People who were unconscious when it happened might not even remember it. It is still rape. "The farmer doesn't get a sexual thrill from it. He is doing it for purely practical reasons." Not all sexual abuse happens for the excitement of the perpetrator. Genital mutilation performed for religious reasons or because of misguided ideas about disease prevention is still a violation of consent and bodily autonomy. Also, farmers who treat animals' bodies as objects to use for their own gain are not so different from those who rape humans because they see another person's body as a thing to use. I understand that this opinion is very unpopular, but I will continue to define it in the way that feels most empowering and healing to me. If other survivors don't agree with my perspective, they are just as free to define it in the way that feels most empowering and healing to them, because ultimately that is what matters.

The fallacious reasons why white people tend to believe in "reverse racism"

It may seem too obvious, but the way some white people, including many of my relatives, think about fairness doesn't take into account systematic oppression and hierarchies of privilege. We have a way of evaluating what is fair that solely considers the limited actions of individuals rather than the cultural and political context in which the acts take place. It feels consistent to think that "cracker" is as bad as the n word when the underlying idea is "If I can't insult you, you can't insult me, and our insults have equal power because we have equal value." But the words don't have equal power when one is wielded by someone society automatically empowers against someone society disadvantages. If one group needs special acknowledgment or help, regardless of who put them in the position to need it, there will usually be privileged individuals who think those who don't need help or acknowledgment should get it, too, in equal measure. They think the same standards should apply regardless of the starting situation. If one group gets to complain about a problem, so should the other get to complain about how unfair the solution that attempts to rebalance the power dynamic is, they reason. It bothers them because they want to think of themselves as good, and they want to think of goodness as something they personally, individually choose and do. It's so engrained in us that I'm doing it right now by saying "they" to distance myself. If a criticism of a privileged individual is based on something that person can't control, well that's the essence of what makes racism bad, how racism is about being targeted for something you can't control. So they draw that parallel and it feels real to them, and it must be reverse racism when someone who suffers from systematic disempowerment gets frustrated with them for the imbalance they (we) collectively maintain. They want a white history month because you get a black history month, even though most of the history we are taught in school centers white men while very little acknowledges black contributions. The context is lost. They want a straight pride parade because there is a gay pride parade, even though they will never be persecuted, threatened, or oppressed for being straight. If poor kids get free food, they want rich kids to be given the same. They think fair means that they personally give everyone the same things and hold everyone to the same standards. But society doesn't, and that's what gets confusing for a lot of people. It usually comes from a logically fallacious appeal to equality, and it usually happens within a culture that values individuality without acknowledging the broader social context, where the active personal choices we make as individuals are acknowledged as having ethical significance, but where the passive collective choices we make as a society are not considered relevant at all.

The effects of the punitive paradigm

I have a friend who keeps having bad luck with men. It seems all of her past partners believed in a punitive approach to conflict. They grew up in a culture where most of us learn it from our parents when we are very young, and because of the deeply ingrained idea that hurting people teaches them to act better, it is nearly impossible to find someone who has the skill to patiently resolve conflicts in a connected way rather than trying to control the other person by inflicting emotional pain in hopes that the other person will hurt enough to change. Even I am sometimes guilty of forgetting this. We see it everywhere in society.  It is why there are wars, and why some people engage in fat shaming.  It is one of the reasons bullying happens.  It creates a tendency to respond to situations in ways that are devoid of empathy or understanding.   We may believe that we don't want our children to learn destructive and ineffective problem solving skills, but it is still legal and common to hit them, shame them, remove privileges, isolate them, or cause other intentional physical or emotional pain as part of the process of teaching them ethics and safety.  Some even argue that taking a more respectful and connected approach does them a disservice, but those people are often reacting to their own imperfect childhoods.   It's hard to reconcile the idea "My parents are good people who love me," with "My parents intentionally hurt me."    Some of us manage the contradiction by thinking "My parents are good people who make mistakes sometimes."  Others deal with it by thinking, "If my parents are good, respectable, responsible people, and they hurt me, then clearly hurting children must be something good that truly responsible parents do."   But I think most of us understand that children don't need to be hurt to learn other things.  They learn to speak, crawl, walk, read, write, draw, and do all sorts of tasks without being hurt for making mistakes, and there is scientific evidence to support the idea that punishment and reward both have a negative effect on creativity and learning.  So, why not teach ethics and safety without resorting to vengeful or punitive tactics that will eventually undermine their adult relationships?   Do we really want their first reaction to an argument with a spouse to be "How can I break his/her will and 'teach him/her a lesson?'"  Do we really want to teach them that the best way to gain compliance is to make the other person afraid of being hurt for disobedience?    Is unquestioning obedience even a good lesson to be teaching?  I think it tends to lead people onto a very destructive path.  It makes them less likely to challenge toxic authority.  It makes them less likely to be merciful to people who have less status or power.  It makes them more likely to go along with unethical things that should spark the conscience.   I think it is time for a widespread shift in our parenting paradigm, especially if we want to raise children who will be able to maintain healthy marriages someday, who will have the strength of will to stand up against injustices in the world, and who are able to live a fully connected life with compassion for others.   

What it means to be pro-life while being anti-criminalization

Being pro-life but anti-criminalization is believing that everyone has a right to be free from violence and neglect, especially while still physically dependent for survival, regardless of age, location, or how one came to exist, but also that the people whose bodies are capable of giving birth are currently disadvantaged in ways that create no-win situations. We are forced to decide between careers/educations and parenthood, financially coerced by neglectful partners or families, threatened by abusers, or expected to manage without proper resources. Making abortion illegal without eliminating the underlying reasons it happens will likely only drive desperate pregnant individuals to seek illegal options, so it is important to tackle the problem at its root rather than punishing the symptoms. Until society changes, treating people like criminals for having abortions will only lead to the re-victimization of those who are already being let down by the current system, many of whom are already traumatized from their experiences.

I can't call myself pro-choice, because I want abortion to end except in cases where the alternative would be even worse, and to be recognized as ethically wrong unless it is fully necessary, but the way things are right now, I don't think making it illegal will cause it to end. It is a much more complicated issue than that, and making it illegal would only punish people suffering from the symptoms of larger problems that already negatively impact marginalized people in our society. I am against people being trapped into having abortions in the same way that I am against poverty, and I'm sure we have all seen how well criminalizing poverty by punishing the poor has been working.

Some people say that people who are against abortion should just not get pregnant, or not have abortions, but It isn't always that simple. A person who is against abortion can be raped, abused, threatened, manipulated or coerced. As much as abortion is advertised as an empowering choice that we get to make about our own bodies, when it becomes necessary for someone who doesn't want to do it, who acknowledges the validity of the other person's body destroyed in the process, it doesn't feel like freedom. It is a desperate, terrible thing that happens because we are put in bad situations where we feel that all better options have been removed, and it can be extremely traumatic.  Saying "If you're against abortion, just don't have one," is naive, because plenty of people get trapped into it regardless of our own personal values. I often feel like those on both sides of the debate are wrong, because they oversimplify it. The pro-abortion side treats it too casually, and the anti-choice side punishes us for the ways we are already victimized. If we really care, we have to work on making the world a safer and more supportive place for people with uteruses without invalidating the experiences of those who have already been hurt by abortion, who still grieve, and who do not benefit from the ubiquitous arguments about their beloved lost babies being mere tissue that doesn't matter.

My first post.

I decided to start this blog as a place to express various ideas that are on my mind, but that I don't feel comfortable sharing openly in places where they are likely to invite conflicts that would strain my existing social connections.  I am calling the blog "Drowning the Unicorns" as a reference to part of an animated movie I liked as a child in which it is revealed that an apathetic king collected unicorns and made them live in the ocean, because keeping them in captivity was the only thing in the world that made him happy. I sometimes feel like there are people out there who get a sense of fulfillment when they can effectively crush an idealist's hope, not necessarily because they are sadistic, but because they feel that it makes us better able to fulfill the roles they wish we would perform.  In this blog, I hope to discuss a lot of my unusual values, and also some of the cynicism that occurs naturally as a byproduct of seeing how far things are from my ideals.