Hi friend,
Thereâs a pattern Iâve seen displayed dozens of times by people and organizations who are asked to walk their talk about size inclusivity, and it goes something like this:
- Invalidation or gaslighting of the fat person asking them to do better
- Lashing out due to hurt feelings
- Claims about trying really hard
- Protests that marginalized people canât be compensated because thereâs no budget
- Requests for marginalized people to come in and make the organization/company more inclusive themselves
- Abandonment of the discussion
The comments on this post from Nic McDermid are an excellent example.
Note the lack of fat folks on this organizationâs website, the constant requests in the post comments for basic education and the lack of fat people on their website and social media.
(To talk about eating disorders specifically for a moment: There are many more fat people, statistically, with eating disorders than thin people. Including fat people isnât some kind of bone youâre throwing to the fatties, itâs reflecting reality.)
Why arenât fat folks willing to come in and help organizations like this be inclusive, for free? Well, for one, because theyâve already shown that theyâre willing to condescend to, patronize and invalidate the lived experiences of fat people already.
Just as importantly, we just canât. If fat activists got involved, for free, with every organization that wanted us to come in and clean up its weight stigma and anti-fatness, weâd all work 100 hours per week giving our valuable time and wisdom to people who couldnât even follow a few hashtags to learn a bit about not oppressing us.
For free.
Weâre good without that, thanks.
And the thing is that there is a tremendous amount of information on fat oppression and weight stigma already out there for free. Marginalized people have given thousands of hours of labor in speaking and writing and illustrating and drawing and speaking some more.
If youâre not including fat people from the ground up in building your organization or club or cause or professional society or event, you can and will further fat folksâ oppression. It is not possible to represent us, to fight for us without us. And our knowledge and time are valuable.
And yes, that means Iâve just told you to spend money. I know thereâs going to be resistance there. But if youâre going to build an event and/or an organization, ESPECIALLY one that claims to have anything to do with equity or inclusion, you have to build it in a way that actually does that. And that means figuring out funding as needed.
If you can pay for web hosting, you can pay for consulting. If you can pay for lunches with potential donors, you can pay for a fat personâs time. If you can pay for sponsored posts, you can pay for an hour of wisdom from a marginalized person.
And if you can come up with the time and energy and support to create a cause thatâs even marginally related to equity or inclusion, you can come up with a way to include marginalized people on your leadership team thatâs fair and equitable.