We don’t talk enough about the systemic health effects of casual fatphobia and how much they fucking skew the data to the point where we literally cannot know how much outcomes are actually related to fatness and how much they are related to society not being designed for fat people, like literal design.
My best friend cannot find a bra.
She’s fat. We won’t get into the ~why~ here because it honestly wouldn’t matter whether it was “all her fault” or whether it was a result of outside forces like genes and such, she still deserves a goddamn fucking bra that fits.
And she cannot find a bra.
She’s short and fat, and Fat Bras are usually full cup, but because she’s short the full cups are usually too tall, or the armbands around them are too tall, to the point where what’ll fit around her chest and over her boobs will also dig up into her arms or have such high coverage that she literally cannot wear a shirt with a neckline high enough. Any bra that goes out enough goes too high.
This affects her ability to find clothing, impacting her ability to go outside sometimes, because she has this tiny selection of bras and she constantly has to wash them and when they’re gone she has no idea when she’ll next be able to find another unicorn bra. They appear in a flash usually in startups that die soon after, and COVID has killed most the small businesses remaining where she had even a hint of a chance of finding a fitting bra.
So she wears bras that don’t fit. Or she doesn’t leave the house. One gives her back pain. The other is, obviously, not very active. She likes to be active.
If she brings it up, people suggest breast reduction surgery.
But the thing is, with a good bra, she does not get back pain.
But if it’s that hard to find a good bra, they say, wouldn’t a reduction just be easier?
Wouldn’t it be easier for you to chop off part of your flesh, they say, then for us to cut fabric and underwire to more sizes? As if that is normal. As if that isn’t horrifying.
It’s not just bras. It’s chairs. It’s benches. It’s goddamn shoes. It’s seatbelts. It’s exercise equipment - I just got an exercise bike for Christmas. I had to shop around to find an affordable one that was also rated to take my level of fat. If I were 100 pounds heavier, which some people are? I don’t think any equipment would have existed in a price range that any working person could expect to afford. I don’t think most people even look at the weight ratings on chairs and couches and furniture. Once you start? They are lower than you think. There are absolutely 100% people you love in your life - whether really tall men or just average kinda overweight fat people - who should not be using the things they are using. Who are not getting support from their mattress, their footwear, their office chair. It might be you! You might be thinking “but I am average size!”, but the amount of furniture out there that’s only weighted to about 200lbs? Or 175??? It’s SO MUCH MORE THAN YOU REALIZE. Get into the Proper Fat? The 350lb, 400lb, 500lb fat? There’s virtually nothing.
Seatbelts are not tested for fat bodies and seatbelt extenders aren’t regulated.
We know about the problems with too small a blood pressure cuff. With too low a medicine dose. With no MRI a really fat body can fit in for a thousand miles.
We know, from multiple studies on multiple oppressed communities, that social bias by itself, with zero other compounding factors, can give people worse health outcomes.
Now add up
+ one of the social biases with the least pushback even from the educated liberal set with
+ having a world that is literally not made for you. Where you cannot get clothes, furniture, or transportation in a way that will actually accommodate you,
+ where society is constantly blaming you for this. And
even if you somehow (and if you know how, please tell me) manage to
retain some sense of self worth and optimism and determination despite all that
+ that’s not gonna magically give you access to the daily supplies a person needs in their home and out in public that’ll make living safe and healthy life literally physically possible.
If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health start a bra company. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health mandate changes to seatbelt requirements. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health have a variety of chairs in your waiting room with at least some being properly Fat Rated. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, make it easier for fat people to be active by making exercise equipment that fits them, swimwear that’ll actually stay on them, athletic shoes that can bear them. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health ask they be included in more medical trials. If you’re really so concerned about fat people’s health, promote fat visibility and fat people loving their bodies - because hating yourself has literally never been good for anyone’s health.
If you’re using “concern for health” as a shield to allow you to judge and criticize strangers, you don’t give a fuck about anyone’s health. You’re just an asshole who prefers a veneer of respectability when you bully people. You’re hateful and we can see right through you.
But fatphobia isn’t just bullying. It isn’t just judgment from strangers. It isn’t just medical neglect and medical bias. Even if we could wave a wand and make all that go away, my best friend still wouldn’t have a bra that fits, people still wouldn’t have a chair that supports them, a seatbelt that protects them. It’s literally engineered in. And it slowly kills people day by day by day.
“Researchers gave 50 recently homeless people a lump sum of 7,500 Canadian dollars (nearly $5,700). They followed the cash recipients’ life over 12-18 months and compared their outcomes to that of a control group who didn’t receive the payment. The preliminary findings, which will be peer-reviewed next year, show that those who received cash were able to find stable housing faster, on average. By comparison, those who didn’t receive cash lagged about 12 months behind in securing more permanent housing.
People who received cash were able to access the food they needed to live faster. Nearly 70% did after one month, and maintained greater food security throughout the year. The recipients spent more on food, clothing and rent, while there was a 39% decrease in spending on goods like alcohol, cigarettes or drugs.“
It’s almost like people self medicate to survive intense stress like, idk, not having the cash to live anywhere but outdoors. People who are extremely poor do not want to be poor, we WANT to be safe and have autonomy in our lives but capitalism makes that impossible for some people.
And drug/alcohol abuse, even when prioritized over eating and other necessities, isn’t some kind of alien mindset, it’s very often a matter of not having the resources to actually be safe and fully meet your actual needs so you have to cope somehow with the suffering that deprivation causes.
This is a perfect example of the kind of important study that shouldn’t NEED to be done, but does need to be done so we can once and for all implement policies that actually help people.
i think it’s important that it was a lump sum all at once, instead of little amounts intermittently. If you’re homeless and, say, addicted to alcohol or meth or whatever, and someone gives you $20 a day, for 12 months, what are you gonna do with that? $20 isn’t enough to pay for a place to sleep that night. You can get some food, but you can’t stock up on anything because you have nowhere to put it. You can’t buy a new pair of shoes. You can’t pay for medication. You can’t really save it up because what are you gonna do, walk around with $5000 worth of twenties in your pocket? until they get lost or stolen and you never got anything out of that money? But you can go and get $20 worth of alcohol and maybe the rest of your day will suck a little less.
But if you get that $5000 all at once and then nothing for the rest of the year, that’s enough to get an apartment for a month, and your meds, and food, and clothes, and then well hey you can look for a job (and you have a mailing address, wow!).
if you’re in a shit situation getting dribs and drabs of money can keep you alive but it won’t help you really change your circumstances, but a large lump sum can do that.
I have brought this study up to multiple people who despite the research, still cannot break their stereotypical image of people who are homeless.
If you are concerned about the 1931 law that will ban abortion outright once Roe v Wade falls, here are some steps you should take:
1) Call your state senator and ask them to support passing SB 70, which would repeal the 1931 bill banning abortion. Type in your address to this page to get their contact information: https://www.senate.michigan.gov/fysbyaddress.html
2) Attend one of the MANY abortion rallies scheduled this weekend and sign the Reproductive Freedom for All petition. The petitions MUST be signed in person, and you must be a registered voter for your signature to count. There will be volunteers in Ann Arbor, Plymouth, Big Rapids, Grand Rapids, Detroit, Ypsilanti, and more this Saturday, May 14th. There will be a petition worker in Lansing on Sunday as well. The petition is to put abortion rights on the ballot come November, and we need as many signatures as possible.
And lastly, please reblog this post so it reaches as many Michiganders as possible!
This is going to be a very big deal for folks in Michigan. Please share.
white trans mascs specifically those around my age (15-19) need to understand that their experience of being trans isn’t universal. my gender isn’t ‘feral little gremlin who never washes’ bc as a black person i am already seen as dirtier than my white counterparts. i also have no interest in being seen as feral bc once again, as a black person, i am dehumanised against my will. i’m not the first transmasc of colour to discuss this either.
this is why so much of the trans activism is just really freaking white washed, because everything “considered” liberating for white trans folks is often usually just un-liberating for black people and I think when we try to speak up on this we often get a ton of shit for it
