Hi friend,
I hope you had a restful holiday season. I was able to have a nice little reset that's informing my plans for 2025 and making me determined to bring more of that spaciousness into my everyday life.
As I've planned for this year, so often what's come up for me is, how do I do this work in a way that's doable for me and as equitable as possible for everyone else? Where is my pendulum on the spectrum between selfishness and unsustainability?
As often happens, I've found that my pendulum had swung way over toward the unsustainable side, so I've instituted the
updated photo session pricing that I mentioned in a December letter.
I'll also be emailing you later this week about updated Patreon tiers and pricing.
For now, here's a little letter to go along with today's jumbo crop of post-hiatus Conversation items:
Thin privilege is the ability to forget that fat people exist.
Despite there being more fat people in the United States than thin people, thin folks like to act like — and occasionally seem to believe that — we simply don’t exist. Living in a thin body is to exist in a bubble where everyone with a body unlike yours is invisible.
Thin people won’t produce clothing we can wear. They don’t allow us to hold positions of power. They won’t accept our dead bodies for scientific study, and won’t include our living bodies in studies either. We’re excluded from universities, airplanes, dining rooms and waiting rooms. Birth control dosages and vehicle seat belt lengths don’t take us into account.
When we remind thin people we exist, we’re called pushy attention-seekers. When we get impatient at being erased yet again, we’re called bullies.
Every time, thin people seem startled (and, some of the time, furious) to recall our existence. And because fat people have very little social, cultural or political power, we’re at thin people’s mercy.
