LGBTQ Issues Are Racial Justice Issues Are Fat Acceptance Issues, or Everything Is Intersectional

Find Getting Curious wherever you get your podcasts.

I have a long commute to work, and I like to listen to a bunch of different podcasts on my drive. One of the ones I listen to regularly is Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness (Queer Eye). During the most recent episode, Jonathan talks with gender non-conforming writer and artist, Alok. This episode was so fantastic and shook me on many levels. I have at least 3 or 4 blog posts that I want to write based on this episode alone.

So, with this post I mostly want to just amplify the episode and Alok’s voice as a gender non-conforming person of color and all the things they have to say. They are so articulate and passionate about the kind of world they want to build, and I am on board with them for it.

One thing in particular that made me want to jump up and down in my car was Alok’s point about how intersectional the fight for rights is because none of us are free until all of us are free. The fight for racial justice is the fight for LGBTQ+ rights. And I want to take that one step further where the fight for racial and LGBTQ+ rights is the fight for fat acceptance. None of us is free until fat queer people of color are free, too.

Stonewall: 50th Anniversary

Source: https://www.facebook.com/amBiSocial

It’s Stonewall Day! Fifty years ago today, the police raided a bar in the Village of New York City, and two transgender women of color decided they’d had enough. They, along with other patrons, kicked off a riot that would bring the gay rights movement out of the shadows and into the light.

The fight is real and it is every day. We remember today because the fight isn’t over and because Martha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera are heroes. They helped trans and gay youth living on the streets, and they showed everyone that every single person has value. I couldn’t be more proud to be queer, I couldn’t be more out than I am, because they and so many others came before me.

We March Because We Still Have To

For the last 2 years during Pride month, I have festooned my office with rainbows. I don’t just put up a little rainbow flag. No, no. I put rainbows EVERYWHERE. Seriously, it looks like a unicorn took a dump in my office. All month when I’m out in public, I make sure to be wearing a rainbow of some kind. I have a rainbow pin that is perpetually on my purse, and this year I added a trans flag pin next to it. Why? Why do I do this? Aren’t queer people equal now that they can get married? Aren’t most Pride parades celebrations now with little to no danger or harassment?

No. No, they are not. They are still radical acts of visibility and defiance. We still march because we. STILL. HAVE. TO.

Take a look at this map, for instance:

This map is based on data from the Human Rights Campaign in 2018. Source: https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/03/world/same-sex-laws-map-intl/index.html

There are big swaths of places all over the world where homosexuality is illegal. In some places, the government will put you to death for being gay. And don’t get it twisted, the places where there’s “no penalizing law,” such as India and China, doesn’t mean you can be openly queer. It may not be illegal, but there are no protections in place, either. You can lose your job, lose your housing, lose your benefits, be beaten, be attacked, be killed and have absolutely no recourse.

Are things changing? Sure. Some. It’s 2019 and Botswana just decriminalized homosexuality. This year Taiwan recognized same-sex marriages. But just because you can’t be arrested for being queer or because you can marry the person you choose doesn’t mean you’re safe.

We march and we fight because last week my non-binary friend bought mace because three of their trans friends were verbally and/or physically assaulted. In Philadelphia. Which has it’s own version of a Pride flag and whose city government is progressive on issues of gay and trans rights. Shit, our hockey mascot marched in our Pride parade!

Source: https://twitter.com/GrittyNHL/status/1137772810707898369

However, it’s been less than a year since Pennsylvania passed anti-discrimination laws for housing, employment, public accommodations, and education. Less than a year. And this is in a state where it is relatively safe to be out and proud, at least in the cities. Imagine what it is like in significantly less welcoming areas of the country.

We march and we shout and we wear rainbows and we support each other and we wave our flags because WE STILL HAVE TO. Because trans people still have to worry about which bathroom they use. Because some people can’t walk down the street wearing makeup and a dress. Because some people can’t hold their partner’s hand openly. Because some people can’t tell their parents about who they are or who they love without fear of being kicked out onto the streets. Because there are places that will still send children for conversion therapy because they are queer. Because of at least 26 transgender people murdered in the United States in 2018 (though the number is probably higher), most of them were trans women of color. Because the American Medical Association has declared violence against the transgender community an “epidemic.” Because people invalidate my identity as a bisexual because I married a woman. Because people invalidate my friends’ identities as bisexuals because they married a man. Because the tangerine in chief decided that trans people aren’t fit to serve in the military.

Because so, so many reasons. Because we still have to.

We Have Always Been Here

If you haven’t yet seen HBO’s series Gentleman Jack, then you have been missing out on one of the best based on a true story narratives that I have seen in a long time. The series dramatizes the true story of Anne Lister, a woman who lived in West Yorkshire, England, in the early 19th century. She was remarkable in so many ways: educated, erudite, a landowner and business woman, a frequent traveler, and a lover of women.

Suranne jones as Anne Lister

Lister kept a coded diary of her love affairs with other women, and the HBO series is based on her decoded first-person accounts. What was also remarkable about her was that she was determined not to allow her love of women to keep her from experiencing a life filled with love and marriage and a happiness all her own. In the series, we see Anne get her heart broken again and again when the women she loves decide to marry men for their own safety and protection.

Knowing how few individual rights a woman had in the 19th century, it’s hard to blame these women for choosing certainty and safety by marrying a man rather than uncertainty, scorn, and potential ruin by staying with Anne. It isn’t until Anne Lister meets heiress Ann Walker that she finds what she is looking for. The two eventually moved into Lister’s ancestral home, Shibden Hall, together. They later took communion together at Holy Trinity Church and afterwards considered themselves married. Walker’s own financial security possibly allowed her to take more risks and live with Lister as her “friend and companion.” Lister’s family apparently knew of and accepted her preferences.

I don’t know if Lister ever referred to herself as a lesbian in her own diaries, but using the language of today, that’s what we’d call her. She exclusively had relationships with women, and explicitly detailed them in her diaries, which were first uncovered by her descendant (a closeted gay man who immediately hid them again) and then not rediscovered until the 20th century. They weren’t decoded until the 1980s. They have been recognized as important historical documents, and I want to read them!

These diaries, and this show, are more proof that queer people have always been here. We’ve been hidden away, buried, even by our accepting relatives and descendants, so that it feels like queer people exploded on the scene all at once during the Stonewall Uprising. But queer people have always been here. All throughout history. And Anne Lister’s story is just one compelling part.

Fat Pride: Follow-Up

Courtesy of AmBi Social

I saw this image in a bi Facebook community, and I just had to share it. This is what I’m talking about when I say I want to see fat pride and fat acceptance in queer spaces. Short fats, tall fats, black fats, white fats, fats of all kinds! I dream of being in a space where this is not only accepted but is the norm. I love the body and ethnic diversity I see here. I would love to see a disabled fat queer as well. And I need the female bodied version of this.

My wife and I are both suckers for stories of radical self acceptance, whether that’s acceptance of yourself as a fat person, a queer person, a trans person, or whatever kind of person you are. At times it feels like the whole world is trying to make us hate ourselves in one way or another. And practicing radical self acceptance is hard. No one feels 100% awesome every day.

But if you’re reading this now, please know, you ARE awesome. Every little thing about you just enhances your awesomeness. You stunner. There’s no one else out there like you. Go show yourself off with pride!

Fat Hatred and Racism: Part of the Eric Garner Story

CW for discussions of obesity, racism, and death.

I’m just starting to hear about this, and it makes me so enraged that I felt compelled to post right away.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/06/eric-garner-death-inevitable-says-lawyer.html

Five years ago Eric Garner was placed in a chokehold by an NYPD officer during an arrest. The crime Garner was accused of was selling loose cigarettes. When the NYPD officer attempted to take Garner down, he cut off his air supply. Even though Garner repeatedly told the officer that he couldn’t breathe, he was choked until he passed out and died. The NYPD is finally hearing testimony on this crime and trying to determine if the officer involved, who has been on desk duty for the last five years, will be fired.

And THIS BULLSHIT is what the officer’s lawyer is using as his defense. He would have died anyway. He was so fat that any moment could have been his last. Just hugging him could have led to his death! Who knows!

The sheer audacity of this lawyer to assume he knows a damn thing about the health and well-being of Eric Garner before he was subjected to routine, racist police brutality. It’s fine that he was brutalized and attacked. “He was just a fat black man. His life span was limited anyway.”

The fact is we will never know how much longer Eric Garner might have lived with his asthma and high blood pressure and obesity because he was killed by a police officer. Even the medical examiner who autopsied Garner concluded that the officer’s actions directly led to Garner’s death. That it was the reaction to the loss of oxygen that triggered a cascading failure.

Eric Garner was just 3 years older than I am today and we have the same issues: asthma, high blood pressure, obesity. I guess it’d be okay if I was killed, too, because hey, I was going to die anyway.

Fat Acceptance in Queer Spaces

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about being fat and queer and the kind of reaction I get as a fat person in queer spaces. I’ve never felt totally comfortable in queer spaces because I don’t see a lot of people who look like me. Fat queer people, and fat queer people of color, have been here all along, but we’re not represented by the few and scattered images of queer people we see portrayed in the media. In fact, most of the images I see of queer people are limited to gay men who look like Matt Bomer in Magic Mike.

Matt Bomer in White Collar.

I think we need more people to challenge the conventional wisdom of the breadth of queerness. I didn’t know who Divine was, so I was in my late 30s before I realized there was such a thing as fat drag queens. It’s one of the reasons I’m so glad that a show like Pose is around, to educate viewers about some queer history but also to focus on spaces that were actively for queer people of color. (Side note: The documentary Paris is Burning is on Netflix right now. I highly recommend it for some queer history from the mouths of the people who lived it.)

What’s interesting to me is when I contrast queer spaces with fandom spaces. I have always felt accepted by fans. Part of that is because I look like a stereotypical geek. I’m white and fat with glasses. And I see other people who look like me in those spaces. As fandom becomes more accessible, even more people are coming in. Almost everyone can now easily see someone who looks like them in fan spaces.

So, why do queer spaces still feel so narrow? It shouldn’t be a radical act for fat queer people to exist in queer spaces. We’ve been here all along.

Fat Pride

First, if you haven’t watched the Netflix series Sense8, I cannot recommend it more highly. The quote above comes from Nomi Marks, a transgender woman living with her girlfriend in San Francisco. She is doing a video blog about that year’s Pride march and about her place in it as a trans woman. I love this moment because it is all about giving voice and representation to people who don’t (or can’t yet) speak for themselves.

One of my current favorite podcasts is The Allusionist, which explores language in all its various forms. This week’s episode was a mashup rerun of two previous episodes, one of which is Episode 12: Pride. In it, Helen Zaltzman, the podcast’s host, talks with Craig Schoonmaker who coined the word “pride” as part of the gay civil rights movement in 1970. Schoonmaker was on the committee formed to commemorate the 1969 Stonewall riots and proposed the term to unite the march and the events surrounding it under one label. During his interview with Zaltzman, he said two things that struck me:

“We were going to create a number of events the same weekend as the march to bring in people out of town, and wanted to unite the events under a label. First thought was ‘Gay Power’. I didn’t like that, so proposed gay pride. There’s very little chance for people in the world to have power. People did not have power then; even now, we only have some. But anyone can have pride in themselves, and that would make them happier as people, and produce the movement likely to produce change.”

— Craig Schoonmaker (https://www.theallusionist.org/transcripts/joins-pride-rerun)

“The poison was shame, and the antidote is pride. ”

— Craig Schoonmaker (https://www.theallusionist.org/transcripts/joins-pride-rerun)

As a fat person, so much of my life has been about shame and fear. Every day I deal with the reality that my body is a source of revulsion and disgust for some people. I have been fat shamed by strangers on the street calling me names. I have had people request to be moved on an airplane so as not to sit next to my fat body. I have seen the looks of fear on people’s faces when I board a train or subway as they pray I won’t choose to sit next to them. I have squashed myself into too small spaces, holding every part of my body close and tight so as not to infringe on the personal space of the thin person with the misfortune to sit next to me in a public space. I have envied the thin people who manage to navigate the world without ever having to worry if they will fit into a booth or a chair or between tables at a restaurant.

I am not alone in this shame. I am also a we. And the community of body positivity and fat acceptance advocates has given me the tools to love my body. However, I can love my body all day long and it won’t change the systemic fatphobia that denies us access to quality healthcare and services, makes us less likely to earn as much as our thin colleagues and more likely to be fired; and increases our risk of physical, sexual, and emotional violence, among other things.

Acceptance isn’t the antidote to poisonous shame. The antidote is pride.

So, as I join my LGBTQ+ compatriots this month in celebrating our pride and remembering the brave transgender women of color who were at the forefront of the Stonewall uprising, I’m going to work on my fat pride. Not just acceptance. It’s a hard road and difficult work, but if my fellow fats can join me and we can build our pride together, just maybe we can also change the world.

Accessible Pride

Yesterday was the Pride festival in Philadelphia, where I live. I went once and participated in the parade, but I couldn’t stay for the festival because by the time I walked all the way to Penn’s landing I was exhausted and in more pain than I thought possible.

At the time I wasn’t using an assistive device. I do now, but I still haven’t been back. My fear of not being able to access Pride and the parties and activities has kept me away. My mobility allows me to stand and walk for short periods of time, but not knowing if or when I’d be able to sit is a barrier

I miss having the opportunity to celebrate with my community and make the kinds of connections that Pride allows.

Annie Segarra, an artist and advocate, posted on her Facebook page a reminder that Pride is often not accessible. She lists just a few of the types of abelism that are unacceptable. “Pride is for all of us, not some of us.”

Diversity, at the core, is about who we include and who we welcome. Fat and disabled people have been excluded from Pride in big and small ways. That has to end.

Photo owned by Annie Segarra.

Rainbows Everywhere... but Not for Fat Queers

It’s June, which means it is Pride month. This year is particularly important as the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Inn riots that kicked off the fight for equal rights. Which means that this year more than others, there are rainbows EVERYWHERE. Companies come out of the woodwork to cater to the LGBTQ+ community this month. And sure, that’s nice. I always want to deck myself out in rainbows this time of year. Except that the majority of the apparel being offered (surprise, surprise) aren’t offered in my size.

Witness these awesome t-shirts from CBS:

As I’ve said, I’ve been a Star Trek fan since I was a young kid. I knew I was queer by the time I was 18. I would gladly spend the money for any one of these, if not all of them. And the largest size is a 2XL. *sad trombone*

Seriously, do these people not like money? We have money. Some of us do, anyway. And we like to spend it on things like t-shirts that represent us and our fandoms. What do we have to do to get them to consider us as actual customers? I’m fat and queer and a Star Trek fan. I want these shirts SO BADLY, and it is angering that I can’t have ones that will fit me.