Unlearning things 1: Fatphobia

(Since this is one of the first posts after our plurality announcement, just know when one of us refers to "we", that means our past self/host.)

Opening

We live in quite the interesting time, huh?

Though Xenia would comment the fact that the internet as we knew it in the 2000s and 2010s is fading away fast, we still use the Internet, this gigantic network of computers all around the world, to share thoughts, ideas and emotions to so many. And so, we can see so much love and hatred between groups of people.

What is more interesting, though, is the fact that we can share thoughts that question some foundations of the society we live in, and cause others to question things they may have taken as fact for years. The one that really brought us to make this post, I think, would be the relation of body fat and physical health, or better said, the fact that they are a lot less related than we thought.

Some context

Since we have memory, our family has been insistent on keeping our health in check, mostly cause, if you did not know this, we have some allergies, sometimes get migraines, and are not very keen on exercise. As such, the places we went to for education in our childhood usually were coupled, either internally or externally, with some form of exercise.

Usually this exercise would be swimming, which, don't get me wrong, we adore! Swimming is quite the exercise, both because it makes you coordinate your entire body in an elegant and mesmerizing manner, but is generally a powerful and efficient way to get your whole body in action, as this coordination is needed by every muscle along with strength to move forward in an efficient way.

The point that we look regretfully upon was the fact that we forced ourselves beyond our regular limits to chase a goal that, in retrospect, was something that gave us dysmorphia in quite the way. We are quite skinny in every way possible, but even then there were signals that something was not right, as we kept comparing ourselves with a stick in a negative way, and were constantly out of energy to an alarming degree after exercise sessions. Words of comfort from our parents talking about how what we were doing was good for us were not quite reaching the expected degree of reassurance that one would expect.

We were also born in an era where, as a child, we would have been quite exposed to several of those really weird shows that depicted overweight people in a severely negative light, and talking about about quite a number of ways that people were being exposed to health problems via weight gain. To finish the thought off, our parents, even in recent times, have had quite a freakout at the first sign of us gaining weight. While that may be excused by the fact our allergies would imply most (not all) things that would cause that to happen quickly would also bring down several conditions upon us, it certainly did not bring the greatest of concepts of mind.

And as such, while we were browsing areas of the Internet we had not thought to stumble across after our first egg crack (realizing the MtF part, not the plurality just yet!), we came across some concepts we had not thought of, and one of them was fatphobia, the way it influenced the views of society, and the fact that we were dangerously close to being influenced by it.

Some things to know

So as it turns out, being plus sized and having medical issues are not nearly as strongly related to each other as society's rules would have you believe. Though our journey into investigating these concepts is quite short as of this text, I have come to realize that medical opinion seems to enforce the idea of "being plus sized is bad and you should stop it" in quite the unhealthy manner, effectively shaming people that lie outside the standard of beauty that the fashion industry at large dictates. This sadly grows into a situation of discrimination and exclusion from social life or even medical attention, which is one of the rights that all people should have. This is a disturbingly familiar story for anyone who is part of a marginalized group, which really puts the segregation that is going on to light.

This was quite the revelation to us, and ever since we were made conscious of the injustice going on in this situation, we have been seeking assistance to understand said situation and help how we can. While sadly we have been quite ineffective in doing this, due to being not very attentive at times and unable to act on our own in others, here are some thoughts we wanted to share to you in this post.

1. Medical research is directly affected by the concept of fatphobia.

The concept of being fit in a way that denotes lack of body mass or a generally slim body has been one of the foundations of medical studies for quite some time. This is easy to note in the fact that there are quite a number of doctors or hospitals that may restrict or outright deny treatment to plus sized patients based on their BMI despite this being directly opposite to the duty of any medical professional: to treat any and all patients as beings deserving of life. As things are, people with certain BMI levels are excluded from research outright, which leads to a lot of potential for misinformation.

2. Patient autonomy is very important.

The fact remains that, despite a lot of factors, a doctor should not impose their thoughts and actions on their patients. While some things, like the anti-vaccine movements, are indeed the direct cause of a patient disregarding the medical research and statistics, patients are still to be treated like people that have dignity and the right to make their own choices regarding their health.

3. One must be willing to question one's ideas.

As I have said, society has had a big part in extending the ideas that cause plus sized people to be judged and ostracized by others by enforcing a lot of ideas, like bringing fitness to a worrying conclusion, the denial of attention for people with high BMI, and the humilliation of fat people in general. As it is, one must acknowledge that one is not inmune to being exposed and molded by these actions happening around them. This is something we ourselves have had to acknowledge for a couple of years, with both internalized transphobia and fatphobia, and it's a fight we believe more must acknowledge and allow themselves to participate in. To surrender pride and reexamine the concepts one has learned in their earlier life with the objective to be respectful and inclusive, we believe, is a great show of increasing maturity.

Some thoughts

We are far from perfect beings, and we know we will never be, but something we have always been trying to include in our lives is to be respectful to all those we meet. And we hope that whoever reads this can be willing to reexamine things that they have been told are not worthy of respect and wonder why would that be the case. We have had to struggle with some opposing forces when doing this reflection, so we hope this message can reach those who need it: You are beautiful, you have the right to be how you want to be, and you have the right to be loved.