Image description: Yellow-green tropical ferns are shown in this close-up, with volcanic gases rising between them like fog on a dark brown background.

Hi friend, 

Today we're going to explore the concept of what activist Nic McDermid calls "trauma dumping." It's one of the most common reactions to the discomfort of learning about thin privilege, and it actively reinforces weight stigma and oppression.

Here's how it generally goes:

1. A person whose body brings with it significant amounts of privilege by virtue of meeting cultural standards of beauty, specifically thinness, runs across a blog post or a social media post or a discussion about thin privilege and fat oppression.

2. Learning that you have unearned privilege due to a body characteristic is really uncomfortable, but due to your privilege, you're not used to being uncomfortable. It sucks. After all, your life has been hard, too! You've been through a lot! You live in a world where people of all sizes struggle with body image!

3. You don't know what to do with that energy, so you dump it out on the marginalized person who's making you uncomfortable. You lash out. And deep down you know it's not right, so you add a long story about events in your own life.

4. Now the narrative is about you, and when the person you've just dumped your trauma on doesn't react sympathetically enough or refuses to let you drag the narrative to yourself, well, they're just a wrong meanyface fatty who's wrong and can be safely dismissed.

5. Repeat until the fat person shuts up or leaves exhausted.

6. For bonus points, you flee to a friendly, thin group of friends and gripe about how mean a fat person was to you today.

Can you see how this activates and reinforces both individual and systemic oppression? You've just silenced a marginalized voice to keep from feeling icky yourself. You've further abused and hurt a fat person who now has to bear the weight of the trauma stories you dumped on them. And you've publicly reinforced to other thin folks that fat people are there to be the dumping grounds for thin discomfort.

(If you're feeling particularly confronted by this post, I'd ask you not to comment, but just to try sitting with that discomfort to keep from replicating the exact dynamics I'm describing here.)

Warmly,
Lindley

P.S. If you'd like to share this week's thought, it exists in blog form here.

My favorite photo this week:

Image description: Four fat women sit on a low wall in front of trees. Each one is holding a scale and flipping the bird with a “screw you” expression.

Recent from me:

• Rainy PNW Portrait Session with Ms. M
• Erica’s Story: “I am allowed to feel like I have value.”
• My body image advice for younger people
• WATCH: Lindley on Fat Product Reviews with Chrystal Bougon (with Transcript)

The Conversation

Here's what's being discussed this week in the world of body acceptance, HAES, body positivity and fat liberation:

• 5 Ways Weight Stigma Harms Fat People's Health
• “The unborn are a convenient group of people to advocate for. They never make demands of you. They are morally uncomplicated, unlike the incarcerated, addicted, or the chronically poor."
• Body Positivity Is a Scam
• Fear of the Fixed Pie: Grounding Our Shared Liberation in Abundance
• Allyship tip: If you see a post and you're like "Hm, I have an opinion on this" first, ask yourself…

Need a good 101 or refresher on bodies, fatness and science? I always recommend Body Respect by Linda Bacon and Lucy Aphramor.

The new Body Liberation Stock is live for Patreon supporters!

Patreon supporters now have access to the new Body Liberation stock! 
The early access applies to all my Patreon patrons, from $1/month on up. To get in on this action, subscribe now at for at least $1/month and I'll send you the secret access handshake.)

Quick Resources: On the BMI

"Whenever you hear someone arguing that "obesity contributes significantly to those costs, it's because they're calculating the "cost of obesity” in an unjust and stigmatizing way: money that people in larger bodies spend on medical care ia attributed to their size - even if they're going to the doctor for a condition that thin people also get, like, say, the flu.

The condition might have no connection to body size, yet still it gets blamed on "obesity.”

What's more, estimates of the "cost of obesity” omit a wide array of confounding variables that could explain the association between body size and health outcomes, including a history of yo-yo dieting, the toll of weight stigma, and access to high-quality and nondiscriminatory medical care. All of these factors are independently associated with adverse health outcomes...and could go a long way toward explaining any excess health-care costs in larger-bodied people.

Moreover, people in higher BMI categories are often subjected to greater testing and treatment simply because their size is considered a risk factor, whether they need those interventions or not." » Christy Harrison, Anti-Diet

• The Minnesota Starvation Experiment, Ancel Keys & Why Science Won’t Save Us
• High BMI is NOT a risk factor for hospitalization, mechanical ventilation, or mortality in COVID-19, according to this large new study of 10,000+ people with the virus
• “Fat people are not balls of fat rolling around. We are human beings with fat and muscle and sinew and bone. You cannot understand our health if you ignore our basic humanity.”
• “The use of the BMI as a measure of “health” is awful in about every way possible.”
• BMI & COVID-19, and Why You Can't Fight Weight Stigma While Promoting Weight Management with Abigail Saguy, Sociologist and Author

Image description: A red button with white edges and text that says “Thick Thigh Squad" is pinned to a brown, red and white plaid blanket.

5 Buttons For That Jacket You Collect Buttons On

• Button: Thunder Thighs
• Button: Thick Thigh Squad
• Button: Chub Rub Club
• Body Image Button Trio: Worthy, Abundant, Taking Up Space
• Button: Self Care is Not Selfish

Image description: A fat white woman's face is shown above text that says, Erica's Story: “I am allowed to feel like I have value.” She has bright purple hair, is smiling, and is wearing glasses, a nose ring and vivid purple lipstick.

Erica's Story: “I am allowed to feel like I have value.”

For people in very large bodies, who are most affected by the physical and infrastructural inequalities built into a world that is designed to exclude fat people, moving through the world looks very different. In this guest post, Erica talks about the considerations that make up her everyday life, and how speaking out is gradually making a difference in her self-confidence.

Image description: Lindley, a fat white woman, is shown sitting in a cafe with salmon-pink walls. She has shoulder-length blonde hair and glasses, and is wearing a black top with a translucent blue-and-white patterned jacket. Her hands are on the tabletop in front of her.

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