S4E18 - The Heavy Weight (Fat Liberation & Acceptance)

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Denarii Grace: How I get treated and engaged within the world is because of all of these multiple identities. Once people see me, you know, they don't just see a black person, they see a fat person. And if I have my cane, which I usually do out in public, they see a disabled person. You know, it really makes. Has an effect on how I'm engaged with. It's inescapable.

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Chris: So we are ready to go with the episode? Ready to get going.

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Kayla: This is episode 418.

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Chris: Get going. Good. What's 418? Oh, we're only two away from 420, baby.

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Kayla: You know, we're gonna celebrate for real on that episode. So.

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Chris: What'S a weed paraphernalia thing that we can say? What's like a get baked, baby? I guess 420 is it?

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Kayla: We gotta stop.

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Chris: I don't know any other things to say about weed.

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Kayla: What do you have to say about today's episode?

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Chris: I'm cool.

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Kayla: No, we are not.

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Chris: Well, we actually do have some business today. I mean, not really business.

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Kayla: We've got some things to attend to.

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Chris: Things to attend to.

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Kayla: First thing is, we have a new Patreon patron that we'd like to shout out.

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Chris: Yeah, we had, like, several months of drought there.

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Kayla: So thank you to Kevin, who just signed up.

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Chris: Yes, thank you, Kevin.

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Kayla: As a new Patreon patron, we love all of our patrons as we love all of our listeners. But reminder that on Patreon, you get things like bonus episodes and you get outtakes, and you get access to our scripts and what else?

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Chris: The outtakes are free.

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Kayla: The outtakes are free, but it's on our Patreon.

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Chris: You just go there. The outtakes are free.

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Kayla: Oh, you get to participate in polls and things like that. And that's actually relevant today's episode.

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Chris: So again, if you polls are relevant today's episode.

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Kayla: Yes, they are. We will get into that.

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Chris: Oh, is this like, a thing where you said, what should we do an episode on? And then they voted and then we did it?

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Kayla: Yeah. So if you want to participate in our polls and do things like that, head over to our Patreon like Kevin at what is it? Patreon.com? Culturejustweird.

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Chris: That's right.

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Kayla: That sounds right.

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Chris: If you want to have influence over our choices, go right ahead. That's the place to go. But you're already supporting the show just by listening. So also, thank you to all of our listeners.

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Kayla: All right.

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Chris: And Kayla, before we get into the. The meat, into the topic, I kind of wanted to do, like a little. Little mailbag thing. Mail bag corner little mailbag corner. I mean, we're always getting interesting emails all the time from our listeners, and we super appreciate it. But there's a few that I just wanted to talk about on the show today because they were maybe extra interesting or, I don't know, they just caught my fancy. One is that somebody listened to our episode about pumpkin spice Lattes, who was a marketing manager and worked on Starbucks social media at the time that psls were, like, going big. It was like around 2014, I believe.

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Kayla: Good year.

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Chris: So thank you, Dan, for sending us this message about your time there. Asked him a few questions, and I'll just kind of tell you what the highlights are here on the show today. So I asked him a little bit about Uncle Howie. He said, he said that they actually in the marketing department. So, like, I was like, do you marketing guys call him Uncle Howie? Or is that just like, baristas? They call him Uncle Howie. And he's like, no, we call them Uncle Howie, too.

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Kayla: I'm glad to know that's a thing.

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Chris: And here's this little gem here. They were told that should he join our. So he's talking about a meeting that they had a. Should he join this meeting? We shouldn't make eye contact with him or address him directly unless he spoke to us first, though that last part might have been the brand managers messing with us.

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Kayla: Or he's just like Barbra Streisand.

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Chris: So I'm like, I'm not sure which of those is funnier. Like, whether it's funnier if he's, like, a Barbra Streisand, like, diva weirdo, right. Or if it's funnier that, like, they were getting punked by their brand manager.

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Kayla: It's both. Both is funny. Both is funnier.

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Chris: Yeah. So. So confirmed that, you know, Uncle Howie is a thing. I asked him about the social media campaigns at the time, and it sounds like they actually had some pretty funny stuff. Like, they were doing a lot of shit talking with Dunkin donuts and Star and not Starbucks. They are Starbucks and McDonald's at the time because they were, like, also releasing their own pumpkin spice stuff to basically be like, yeah, let's get it.

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Kayla: Let's get a piece of copying.

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Chris: Let's get a piece of the action. So Starbucks would post things like, ideas fresher than your burgers and then also claiming they'd introduce pumpkin spiced chicken nuggets, which I'm surprised is not real.

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Kayla: I would eat that.

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Chris: Would you? That sounds.

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Kayla: Why not?

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Chris: I mean, I would try it, but it does sound gross.

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Kayla: Yeah. Who cares? Oh, like you don't eat anything gross?

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Chris: No, I don't eat anything gross at all. Unless it's for funsies and trying new things like chapalines not to shit on somebody's coffee.

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Kayla: Oh, you just did, though.

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Chris: Look, they're crickets. It's hard for me and my. The way I was.

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Kayla: No, I don't think it's that. I think it's. We went to a place that had the chapolinis hyped up for us, and honestly, I think it was the place just didn't make them that good.

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Chris: Mmm.

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Kayla: I think it was the place's fall. I think it was the restaurant's fault.

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Chris: Maybe they could have been.

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Kayla: If they were pumpkin spice, I would eat pumpkin spice.

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Chris: Pumpkin spice.

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Kayla: Crickets. Yeah, any day of the week.

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Chris: Okay. So he also talked about them, like, actually, like, really playing into the basicness. Like, they would actually just, like, post, like, post images of, like, you know, christian girl, autumn's, like, just total, you know, fall, like, really leaning into it, which I think is awesome. And then they. The other funny thing is they obviously couldn't ever post this because it's, you know, false claim or whatever. But they talked about. Here, I'll just read this one here. Some discussions about whether or not we should be talking about PSLs and Starbucks in general helping to prevent osteoporosis because they were helping to increase milk and therefore calcium consumption in women. And I actually am like, I don't know that's actually a false claim. That sounds. Sounds right to me.

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Kayla: I mean, it sounds like it's a claim from big milk.

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Chris: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Big milk. That's true. I want to watch out for that. And then the other thing he said that was interesting is we kind of talked a little bit about how, like, why he thought that PSLs exploded the way they did. And a lot of the, you know, a lot of the stuff he mentioned was kind of echoed what we said on the show. Plus, also, you know, totally. I think part of it was Dan. I mean, part of it sounds like they did some pretty. Some pretty good stuff with their marketing. He also had another, like, a way to unpack the, like, the testing the different flavors that we talked about, you know, how they had, like, five different flavors that they tested before they settled on. On PSL.

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Chris: But he talked about how, at the time, they promoted a few other latte flavors along with PSL. But he kind of has the perception that they, like, promoted them with less enthusiasm, which he looks back on now. Less as trying to give people, like, you know, here's three different things to try and more as, like, giving the illusion of choice by offering less desirable flavors alongside the PSL, which I think is obviously speculation, but speculation from an insider and I think is, like, a super interesting take on it. So. Mail bag and so. Thanks. Thank you, Dan, for sending us that. That was. We do love getting these emails from you guys, you know, that have, like, personal experience with this stuff. It's. It's really cool to hear.

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Kayla: It helps validate.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: All of our bias.

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Chris: Speaking of personal experience, we all. We got another email from someone who's in the, like, a subset of the empty spaces community. And, you know, I don't know if it's like a. Was like a yemenite, like a private email just to us. So I won't, like, talk about who they were or anything, but it made me think of, like, some of the. Some of the stuff. Some of the rabbit hole I went down with that, like, after I looked up some of the things that the person was sharing with us was talking about, like. Cause empty spaces is, like, a lot of what drives the creativity. Empty spaces is, like, this sort of trauma based stuff, right? And the.

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Chris: The rabbit hole I went down with this illustrated the trauma in terms of, like, how much trans folks in particular are not, quote unquote, feel like they are not wanted by half of society, which I think is, you know, a very valid way to feel.

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Kayla: Right. That's what's demonstrated by that half of society. Right.

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Chris: Like, half of everyone doesn't want us here and would just be happier if were dead. And that's, like, a very traumatizing thing, and that is. That sucks. Like, that's a really. Of course that's trauma. Like, that feels really shitty. So I just wanted to say, because I know we have a lot of listeners, and this is not just for, like, this is not just for, you know, trans folks in empty spaces that are listening, but, like, you know, we have, like, a lot of listeners where it's like they're into something weird. Like, we have weirdos that listen to us, and it's really great. And I just.

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Chris: I just want to say to anybody that's listening that if you feel like there's people that don't want you here, that the people that do want you here more than twice as much as the people that don't want you here. So it's like, we want you here way more than they don't. So we make up for it. You are extremely valuable to be here. It's not just. It's okay to be weird. It's okay to be a tulpa. It's okay to be trans. It's okay to be a furry. It's not just okay. You are actually bringing value with your difference. You are bringing a ton of. Especially as normies. Right. Like, you are. You make the world a better place by being here. And if you weren't here, it would be a much shittier place. And I just want everybody to know that.

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Kayla: Thanks.

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Chris: All right, on with the episode.

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Kayla: No, that was that. I appreciate that message. And, yeah, thank you. Thank you to the person from the empty spaces community who reached out to us. And, yeah, we will keep trying to share that message with our small platform as best we can.

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Chris: And I think. I hope that, like, that's part of, like, the ongoing theme of our show a little bit, too, is, like, the value of, like, some of these things that aren't cults, that are just weirds.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Right. Is that. It's like. It's, like, super valuable. Right. It's like finding these communities sometimes and, like, learning about them brings, I don't know, it brings fun and joy and interest to our lives and hopefully to our listeners lives as well.

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Kayla: And hopefully we can do that today. Oh, maybe segue. I don't know.

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Chris: Fingers crossed.

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Kayla: I'm gonna start.

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Chris: Should we say our names in the podcast?

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Kayla: I'm gonna start by saying, my name is Kayla.

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Chris: My name's Chris.

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Kayla: I am a television writer.

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Chris: I am a game designer. And what else am I? Data scientist. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Kayla: And this is cult or just weird, the podcast where we love all of our listeners. I'm going to start today. Like, I start almost every episode with a question, except this time I have multiple questions for you.

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Chris: Oh, boy. Is it a knock joke?

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Kayla: No. So I'm going to ask you a series of questions. Just so you know. It's going to be one question after another. They're more rhetorical than, like, I'm looking for a real answer here, if that makes sense.

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Chris: Okay, so you say you just. You want to talk questions at me?

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Kayla: No, I'm gonna ask you these questions. I do wanna know the answers.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: But I'm asking you multiple questions.

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Chris: So some questions, pseudo rhetorical then.

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Kayla: Did you know that on the federal level, employers are allowed to discriminate based on physical characteristics, like weight, height, and physical appearance?

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Chris: Is that true?

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Kayla: Well, you know how there's, like, protected classes, like, the things you can't discriminate against, like, race, gender. Race, gender, those things. Yeah. No, physical characteristics are nothing federally protected like that.

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Chris: Really?

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Kayla: Yeah, really.

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Chris: So I just don't like the way you.

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Kayla: And I'm not talking about disability, but I'm talking about. Yeah, physical. I'm talking about, like, weight in particular.

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Chris: Oh. Because disability is a protected class.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Okay.

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Kayla: Did you know.

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Chris: I did not know that. No. That's. That's messed up.

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Kayla: Did you know that some countries, like New Zealand, have quote unquote weight limits for immigrants and will even deport immigrants years after their arrival if they become, quote unquote too fat?

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Chris: So not only does that sound dystopian to me, that also doesn't comport with how I view New Zealand in my head as this utopian place with just everything is perfect. That sucks. That's fucked up.

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Kayla: Did you know that in some parts of our country, the United States, not.

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Chris: Just to pick on New Zealand, you said there's multiple countries, right?

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Kayla: There are. But if you search about that particular thing, most of the information you're going to get back in terms of media headlines and media scrutiny of this practice is directed towards New Zealand. I don't know if that just means interesting. They are the quote unquote worst about it, or if that's.

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Chris: If you do want to pick on.

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Kayla: New Zealand, then I think that oftentimes countries that are viewed by people like us as like, utopia sometimes have some of the most dystopian things going on where it's like, in some ways it's great. But then Canada has a really big problem with that. New Zealand has a really big problem with that. A lot of european countries have a really big problem with that, where in some ways, it's universal health care and better maternity leave, but then genociding people very well.

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Chris: Right? Yeah. And we have this bias to, if they have one or two things that we like, then they must be perfect in every regard.

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Kayla: Not. Correct.

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Denarii Grace: I.

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Kayla: Did you know that in some parts of our country, the United States, fat people can be denied the opportunity to become foster or adoptive parents or to undergo ivf treatments?

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Chris: What do you mean, not allowed? Like, they're just allowed to, like, turn them away?

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Kayla: Correct.

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Chris: Dude. What? I thought this was the feel good season.

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Kayla: Did you know that trans people are frequently denied life saving, gender affirming surgeries due to bmi limits?

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Chris: What?

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Kayla: Did you know that these are just a tiny fraction of the ways fat people are discriminated against in our society?

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Chris: These are horrible already. All of those are horrible. All of those are like, each individual. One thing that you said is, like, really dystopian.

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Kayla: Yeah. This is what we're talking about today. We took a poll on our Patreon before the season started. A bunch of our listeners are eager to learn more about the fat acceptance movement and the fat liberation movement. And honestly, this is something we'd probably be covering even without this Patreon poll.

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Chris: So that's perfect then. That's like.

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Kayla: It's a good combo.

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Chris: They voted for what we already wanted. Excellent.

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Kayla: I, as you know, as a human being in the world, I am fat. Self identified also by the standards of the society we live in.

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Chris: I also am fat. I think part of the liberation movement can maybe help with that acceptance of that identity as well. Cause sometimes that identity is hard to accept, even for people who are fat.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: Also, I'm fat with a ph, too. So I'm fat in two different ways.

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Kayla: Agreed. Same.

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Chris: Is that still a thing? The nineties?

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Kayla: I think it was the nineties to the two thousands. I don't think they say it anymore.

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Chris: Nobody says fat with a ph.

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Kayla: Bring it back.

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Chris: All the gen zers right now are, like, cringing.

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Kayla: That's fine.

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Chris: If we even have any.

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Kayla: Cringe away. Anti fat bias and fatphobia have personally touched our lives and the lives of our loved ones in some pretty significant ways. And anyone who's experienced fatness knows that the oppressive experience of antifatness, it really extends beyond someone making a fat joke or your doctor commenting on your weight or not feeling super sad, not feeling confident in your looks. I think sometimes when we talk about being fat in society and the oppression that comes with it gets lost in the idea that the oppression is just. I feel bad about myself as opposed to all of those things we talked about, the actual upfront, that's what we're actually talking about.

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Chris: Yeah, I don't fat jokes. I'll make fat jokes. I don't care. But it's the doctor stuff.

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Kayla: It's having your doctor ignore a medical concern in favor of telling you to just lose weight and then that medical concern worsening until you later find out you have stage four cancer. You have something untreated that, like, could have been addressed years earlier if you had been taken seriously and not told to lose weight. It's being unable to purchase appropriate clothing in stores or online, which then impacts your ability to find employment because you can't find an interview suit that fits, or you can't participate in formal life events like weddings and funerals because there's nothing clothing made in your size that.

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Chris: You can afford, and not everybody can afford to get suits tailored for them. Like, that's an elite thing.

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Kayla: That's an expensive thing. And it's. Yeah, that's like, the feedback of it is like, oh, if you are fat, you are. It's easier for you to face employment discrimination. It is potentially more difficult for you to even get a job interview because you can't find a suit that fits, and then you can't afford a suit. And then you can't find a suit, and then you can't afford a suit, and you can't find a suit. And so what the fuck you're supposed to do? It's being unable to travel because even for family medical emergencies, due to the increasingly tiny sizes of airline seats and then again, the exorbitant costs involved, it's harsher sentencing in the criminal justice system.

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Chris: Wow, really?

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Kayla: Of course, likely or guilty verdicts in court, it is street harassment and violence and then the isolation resulting from that. It's the inability to live your life as simply as your nonfat friends, just due to the nature of our built environment. So it's being unable to just, like, meet up for lunch with your friends on a whim because they picked a restaurant that has cheap folding chairs that have a weight limit of 150. You can't go to that restaurant.

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Chris: Or, like, sometimes in the, like you said, the built environment, most of the time it's easy enough to move around. But then, like, there's some parts of the built environment where it's actually difficult to move around because it's like a narrow hallway or a narrow doorway or somebody set up their house to have things that are, like, in the hall. And then you're like, suddenly you're like, I'm moving sideways through this hallway, right?

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Kayla: Yeah. It's being told over and over and over again to just lose weight, even when to date, there is no scientifically proven or medically sound way for populations of people to safely and sustainably lose statistically significant amounts of weight. So, you know, greater than 10% of the body weight. Nothing about this is as simple as just lose weight. Like, we are talking about people's bodies here. We are talking about dignity and oppression and bigotry. And that conversation, it really extends far beyond the cruel and overly simplified message of just lose weight. Weight loss, or lack thereof, is just the jumping off point for discussions about fat liberation.

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Chris: Yeah. The stuff that you were just saying also kind of reminds me of just a few episodes ago, saying, my perception is that it's fair game to make fun of furries. I feel like that ten x with fat. Like, it's totally okay to dislike, to make fun of, to whatever. To, you know, have all these. This cruelty that you mentioned toward fat people, because it's totally like, they're just lazy, right? If they weren't so lazy, then they wouldn't be so fat. And then. So, of course it's okay to make fun of lazy people because lazy is immoral and fat is immoral.

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Kayla: It's okay to oppress those people, because if they didn't want to be oppressed, they could just change themselves, just lose weight, and not be in that oppressed class, when really, maybe we should be looking to not have oppressive classes.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: Or oppressed classes.

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Chris: Fair game.

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Kayla: Yeah. So this conversation, though, about being just. You should just change your body. You should just lose weight. Weight loss, or lack thereof, really is just the jumping off point for discussions about fat liberation. Even on this podcast, we're only gonna be able to scratch the surface of this very profound topic, very rotund topic. This is a journey. This journey is when we're starting for anyone. So let's take that first step on the path. So today, you and I are going to have a conversation with someone who is an activist in the fat acceptance space.

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Chris: Oh, cool.

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Kayla: We'll learn more about it as we get into the conversation. But I did want to talk upfront about how this is a space that has been building since at least 1960, and I'm specifically talking about, like, fat acceptance in the United States. So this is at least since 1960.

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Chris: My perception of it is, like, way more recent than that.

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Kayla: And truly, there's roots extending much earlier than 1960s, but that's kind of where we view the modern movement as starting. So, like, activists and academics have been building and constructing fat acceptance and liberation for decades, and some of the most powerful work has specifically been at the hands of black women, Latinx women, queer people, and feminists. Like, there's a lot of intersectionality here.

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Chris: Carrying the torch for the rest of us. Again, thanks.

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Kayla: We will tap into some of that work that's already. That's been built up with our conversation today. Fat acceptance, like any civil rights movement, is shaped by many voices working together towards shared goals. So I'm going to reference a few voices here just to get us started, get us tapped into this movement. This is a space that has been built out by Doctor Sabrina Strings, who wrote fearing the black the racial origins of fatphobia. I've heard of that book by Deshawn L. Harrison, who wrote the Belly of the Beast and is part of the unsolicited Fatty's Talk Back podcast, which I do highly recommend.

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Chris: That is a great title for a.

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Kayla: Podcast by the National association to advance Fat Acceptance, which was founded in 1969. N A F A, by Marilyn Wan, who published the seminal zine fat exclamation point. So question mark.

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Chris: Damn, these guys know how to title shit.

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Kayla: Absolutely. By Sonia Renee Taylor, who wrote the body is not an apology by Kat Powes, Jackie Wakes, and Samantha Murray, scholars who wrote queering fat embodiment by the fat Underground, a radical activist collective in the seventies that shaped the movement we know today and by so many others.

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Chris: There might be like one or two people listening to this that don't know what a zine is. It's just an underground magazine. It's like a lower circulation, self published indie magazine.

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Kayla: Thank you for the explanation.

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Chris: Yay.

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Kayla: So let's dive in now and begin to understand what we mean when we talk about fat liberation. First of all, can you introduce yourself to our listeners? So we like to ask for your name, your pronouns, anything like you'd like to share about your life or your work.

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Denarii Grace: Hi, my name is Daenery Grace. I use she they pronouns, and I strongly prefer that people mix it up regularly if they can remember to do that. And I am a blues singer, songwriter, poet, essayist, editor, including the editor in chief at rooted in rights, public speaker, and community educator and activist. I've been involved in various kinds of activism for about 15 years now. I started as a queer student activist at Rutgers University. I came out as bi and started off in that sort of world, you know, as I got older. And, you know, I started kind of like piling up all these different identities that I've written about and taught about over the years, from disability to calibration.

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Chris: And.

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Denarii Grace: And of course, you know, I've always been black, so that too. So that's pretty much what I do.

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Chris: What got you into activism in the first place? Like, what got you interested in that?

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Denarii Grace: I was kind of pushed into it.

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Chris: Oh, really?

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Denarii Grace: It's so funny. Like I said, I went to Rutgers, and my first year is when I came out to myself as bi. But when I returned to school in September of that year, you know, I went in knowing that I was going to try to find an organization on campus that I could, you know, sort of dive into and find community. And so I found this organization specifically geared towards queer and trans BIPOC called Yego, and it's basically spanish, where I arrive and so I joined my sophomore year, but the community was really, really sparse. I think five or so of us were showing up to the meetings of. And the end of the year came and the young woman who was basically the president at the time, she was like, okay, you guys are going to be the co presidents next year.

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Denarii Grace: Because, you know, like, there were so few of us, it was like were like new members. And she's like, okay, like, you guys. And were like, okay. And so by the time I left in zero nine, we had really, like, grown a lot. And that's basically how I got started with educating, advocating on campus, and, you know, learning. A lot of the learning that I did about social justice movements, a lot of that happened outside of the classroom. And that was also really, like, my gateway into realizing that, you know, that learning can and does happen outside of traditional classrooms. Specifically. My gateway into that liberation specifically was through learning about haze health at every size, actually, because of a friend at the time, she would talk about things with her family and just her own issues and things like that.

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Denarii Grace: And I remember being frustrated and confused that she was dealing with that sort of stuff. And that process got me to think, well, then, like, why am I thinking these things? And why am I doing, you know what I mean? Like, you know, if I can be, you know, if I can have that mindset for her, what am I doing? You know? And it was through haze that I discovered at liberation, body positivity and those different concepts and those in the communities, you know, and the people who built those communities and those concepts, and definitely forever grateful, but for me, like, I've been fat basically my whole life. And so it was really a game changer. It, you know, not only changed me personally, but it changed my work.

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Denarii Grace: How I engage with communities, you know, that's sort of like the nature of movement building and movement work, you know, is that it's not just about my personal relationship with food or my personal relationship with my body or, you know, how the world engages me. It's also about the material conditions that we deal with as fat folks, the way that it affects our day to day lives. And so because of that, you know, when you talk about, like, intersectionality, you know, I can't talk, you know, for example, about queer issues without also talking about fat issues and vice versa.

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Chris: So why is that for our. Just to help explain for our listeners.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, well, I mean, they can't see me, but, you know, I'm sitting here, a fat, black, bi non binary trans or person, you know, who is also other things. I'm also intersex. As Audre Lorde said, we don't. You know, we don't live single issue lives. I embody the experience of so many different things, and I can't extract one experience from the other and talk, you know, talk accurately about my life, because everything is so intertwined. How I get treated and engaged within the world is because of all of these multiple identities. Once people see me, you know, they don't just see a black person. They see a fat person. And if I have my cane, which I usually do out in public, they see a disabled person. You know, it really makes. Has an effect on how I'm engaged with. It's inescapable.

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Denarii Grace: So it's really important, you know, when you're doing movement work, that you're taking all those things into account. For example, the work that you do is centered around black folks. It's like, well, some of those black folks are going to be queer. Some of those black folks are going to be trans. Some of those black folks are going to be fat. Some of those fat folks are going to be disabled. And so, you know, we're not saying you have to be like a fucking Rhodes scholar. You know, about the. But, like, you at least need to know the basics of who you're serving in order to, one, serve people in the ways that they need, and two, in order to not enact violence on them.

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Denarii Grace: Like, for example, you know, if you're doing an event for women, for people of marginalized gender, and you're, like, having, like, a workshop about how to not be fat, you know, like, what are you doing?

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Kayla: Right? So it always makes me think about how. How Roxane Gay has talked about being invited. And Roxane Gay is an author for maybe our listeners who don't know, she's an author, and she's written a lot about fat experiences, black experiences, queer experiences, women experiences. It just makes me think a lot about how she's been invited to speak on those issues in particular and specifically fatness and then will show up to these events that are being hosted to talk about fatness. And the chair is a folding chair.

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Denarii Grace: And it just.

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Kayla: I think that if you're someone who's new to this concept of, like, intersectionality or how not considering people's identities can become violence, like, she has to sit on these chairs that physically hurt her body. And you wouldn't think about that if you don't consider the intersectionality of it. So just. It's really making me think of those kinds of examples.

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Denarii Grace: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, like I said, it's not just about, oh, I hate my body, blah, blah. You know, it's also about the material, physical things that we have to deal with when we aren't considered or when we are considered, but we're considered malice, you know, to where, you know, we aren't included. You know, when you're building spaces, and this is for disabled folks and fat folks, because there's so much overlap with those issues in terms of movement work when you're building or designing a space and you're not taking folks into account. And a lot of times, just because of capitalism, right, think about, like, airplanes, seating thing. They want to fit as many people as possible, so they make the seats as tiny as possible so that they can have more customers and make more money.

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Denarii Grace: But as I think it was fat fab feminists who posted about if we took fat folks into account, like, it would make the flying experience comfortable, more comfortable for everyone.

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Kayla: Yes.

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Denarii Grace: And that's really, like, the truth of so many different movements. A lot of people talk about, like, accessibility and, you know, like, elevators and things like that. And it's like, elevators are important for people like me, but also, like, they help people carrying strollers or, you know, heavy luggage or whatever. It's really centered on the most marginalized, but it benefits everyone.

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Kayla: And entering the most marginalized, like that makes life good for everybody. Like it just there.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah. I mean, in so many different ways, just materially, to be clear. Like, even if people or able people or whatever didn't benefit from these things, just, they'll do it because it's the right and just thing to do. But, you know, the reality is that in a lot of ways, these things benefit everyone.

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Chris: I want to back up a little bit just to help our listeners who may note, I know the term maybe unfamiliar, how would you define fat liberation? Like, how would you explain that to somebody who has not heard the term for me?

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Denarii Grace: And this is something that for me is applicable to all liberation movements. For me, liberation is about living in a world, I mean, its most basic, really. It's about living in a world where the structural forces that currently exist to oppress a specific group of people no longer exists, so that people are free to live in the world as they are without any impediment. So for me, fat liberation is really about what does the world look like if fat people aren't systemically oppressed? And that's in order to try to imagine that world. In order to try to build that world, we have to first know what fat oppression actually looks like because you can't dismantle it, obviously, if you don't know how it manifests. Fat liberation looks like.

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Denarii Grace: I mean, it looks like a lot of things, but it looks like no more billion dollar dieting companies or, you know what I mean, where the industry is literally a billion dollar industry precisely because diets don't work. And so people are coerced into trying to find whatever works, not knowing that we know that statistically, diets or lifestyle changes or whatever you want to call the bullshit just doesn't work for most people, like the overwhelming majority. And so an abolishing of that industry for me is one of the concrete ways that, you know, fat liberation would impact the world. Fat liberation, you know, would look like going into a space, an office building or doctor's office or whatever, and seeing an abundance of chairs that are not only wide enough, but that are armless, you know, and are sturdy enough.

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Chris: What's interesting about what you've been talking about is just like how broad the topic is. Like, it's kind of hard for me to wrap my head around it. Like, you've talked about, you know, the diet industry, which is like its own whole huge thing, right?

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, you've talked about.

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Chris: Right. You've talked about the built environment, right? Which is both things, like chairs, but also planes, but also like hallways and doorways and cars, right? So there's built environment and then there's, like, attitudes, right? There's like, the general, like, way that fat people are treated or seen. And then there's also, like, the medical establishment, which is his own whole thing. So it just feels, to me, it kind of feels a little overwhelming. Can you speak a little bit to, like, how you grapple with, like, the, like, enormity of the issue and, like, do you particularly, like, do you find something to focus on or are you trying to broadly think about everything? Like, how do you attack the size of the problem?

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Denarii Grace: Lol.

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Chris: It's hard.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, I do tend to think broadly about multiple issues. And that is a good question. I mean, that's like, so many things are, you know, applicable to different movements. You know, they're like, there's so many different moving parts precisely just because of. That's the way oppression works. You know, it doesn't just affect your employment. It doesn't just affect school. It doesn't just affect medical experiences. And so for me, you know, like I said, I tend to take a broad view of things, and so I'm touching on all the different ways that these things, you know, affect our lives, including the personal, just how folks can transform their ideas about their own bodies.

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Denarii Grace: Like, it's definitely important in the sense that, like, you know, that's how I came into fat liberation, through the way that my mind was changed about how I viewed my body and the value that it has, you know, and that desire to be smaller. So it's definitely important. But in terms of the day to day, the material effects that fat oppression has on our lives are really the big things. And a big part of the reason why it's more important, at least for me, to talk more about the material aspects of fat oppression is because so many people have this misconception that fat liberation is just about, you know, and fat oppression is just about our feelings and being teased, you know what I mean? Which is, like, its own thing, the effect that it has on your mental health.

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Denarii Grace: But, like, you know, people think it's just about, oh, like, I hate my stomach or whatever, and it's like, no, it's about, like, we're paid less and, you know, we're dying because doctors refuse to treat us.

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Kayla: It's like, there's this idea that we can. We can, like, body positivity our way out of this, like, gigantic monster that we've been describing. And it's like, yeah, no individual person, like, listening to Megan Trainor enough and, like, you know, buying a cute pair of jeans. Like, no individual person being able to body positivity their way out of some, like, negative feelings or bullying experiences is going to change the fact that, yeah, people. People that are fat die earlier, get worse. Medical treatment can't take a plane. Like, it's not about thinking your individual way out of this.

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Denarii Grace: Right, exactly.

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Chris: So I'm thinking about what we're talking about right now in terms of correcting some of these misconceptions about, like, what the actual difficulty is and, like, you know, broadening our perspective on, like, what the actual difficulty is. If there's somebody listening to the show right now, because I know there's this sort of, like, a prevalent attitude that someone might say, oh, well, it's your personal responsibility. Like, if you didn't want to be uncomfortable on the plane, you could just lose weight. I don't know if we have any listeners that might still engender some of that attitude, probably right. There's a lot of people that listen to the show. So what would you say to someone who thinks that way has that mentality.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah. So, one, I would definitely reiterate that we know for a fact that the science says, and that's the other thing, too, is there's this misconception that people who are fat activists don't care about the science, that we're just trying to do what feels good so we don't have to, quote unquote, take responsibility. And, you know, the whole taking responsibility thing, you know, I've talked about this before. You know, obviously, like, there's no, like, you can't compare being black to being fat or, you know, being disabled to being trans. But there are certain similarities and certain tactics that, like, no matter what kind of oppression you're living under, you know, that's. That's sort of their go tool. And one of those things is brandishing oppressed people as liars.

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Denarii Grace: So a fat person has to be lying to themselves if they feel good about their bodies or, you know, clearly that disabled person is lying about, you know, needing to be on SSI or, you know, some other government assistance. Or, like, that trans person is clearly lying to themselves. Like, you know, like, this is this. There's this common thread. And so another one of those common threads, you know, is personal responsibility. So that's. So I would want to point that out first. You know, kind of, like, if the rhetoric that you're using undergirds and upholds and perpetuates oppression, maybe you might want to rethink your argument. Am I. Am I reproducing harmful rhetoric? You know, and that's one of them.

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Chris: Would you say red flag for, like, if I'm like, let's say I'm one of those people. And I'm thinking, like, oh, yeah, I do kind of have this sense that fat people are lying all the time. Would you say that might be, like, a red flag for someone to, like, think more broadly about their beliefs?

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Denarii Grace: No, absolutely. And then the other thing. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that I would say, too, to that person, you know, is that I would reiterate about what the science says, because a lot of times people will say, like, oh, well, you know, that it's calories in, calories out, blah, blah. But the reality is that, you know, the science that we have available to us makes it very clear that there is actually no scientifically viable way to not only lose weight, but to keep it off permanently for most people. And that's kind of like, the real key, you know, is the keeping it off permanently part, because, you know, people will say, oh, well, I lost 50 pounds in six months, so we know we can do it. And it's like, yeah, like that's the quote unquote easy part.

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Denarii Grace: The reality is that most people cannot sustain weight loss over their lifetimes. And so because it's not sustainable, people who are still trapped in that mindset, they'll continue to go back and forth through that. We may not know a sustainable way to lose weight and keep it off, but we do know the harms of yo dieting, which is why it's called when you're going back and forth trying to lose weight. And maybe you lose a bit, maybe you lose a lot, but then you put that back on. And for a lot of people, not only do they put the weight back on eventually, but they also often gain more than they lost.

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Denarii Grace: So if you started at 100 pounds, just like, obviously that's not fat pretty much in any context for adults, but if you start off at 100 pounds, you lose 50 with yo dieting eventually. Now you're at 50 pounds, but then you gain 60 pounds. And so now you're 110 pounds. So then you try to lose weight again and you lose like 40 pounds of, but then you gain 65 pounds, you know what I mean? And that's essentially how it works. And we know not only that's a phenomenon, but that the health impacts that it has on the body, you know, physiologically. And a lot of those health impacts are the health impacts that are often blamed on a larger body size, that are blamed on being fat, you know? And so now you're at 200 pounds after years of yo yo dieting.

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Denarii Grace: It's like, well, now you have diabetes, you know, type two diabetes, now you have congestive heart failure or whatever the condition is. And it's like, well, that's because you're fat. And there's no examination of the life that you've lived and the impact that has on your body.

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Kayla: It feels like there's such an investment in. We talked about, at the beginning of this question, we talked about how a lot of people may feel like fat people are lying about their lifestyle, about what they're doing, about what they're eating, about all these things. And it feels like there's such an investment in that belief. Like it's so much easier for most of society to believe that all fat people are lying about our experiences than it is to believe that diets don't work. And I wonder if that is because there is, like you mentioned, there's a multi billion dollar industry supporting diets and diet culture. Like, there's billions of dollars promoting the idea that diets work when, like you said, the science says, no, they do not, and our lived experiences say, no, they do not.

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Kayla: But the vast majority of society would rather believe that, would rather believe in that falsehood rather than the truth of fat people's lived experiences. Like, it is easier to believe that we're all lying all of the time.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, I mean, I definitely think it's part of it, but it's also our government that, you know, sells those lies. And I think, too, I think part of the issue, too. And this goes back to, you know, what you were talking about personal responsibility.

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Kayla: Justin's wait, if you don't want us to treat you like shit.

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Denarii Grace: Right? And I think, yeah, and I think part of where that comes from as well is because there's this idea that there's this magic, you know? And this is true for as a survivor, as poor folks, as disabled folks, again, this is another one of those tropes that can be applied to so many different forms of oppression that if I just do this thing, this one thing, or if I just practice this one thing, then I won't become that, you know? And so clearly, you as a fat person are lying and you as a fat person are just lazy. And all you have to do is this and that.

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Denarii Grace: Because if it's not true, if it's true that diets don't work, if it's true that disability can hit you at any age, if it's true that you're just a paycheck away from being completely homeless and food insecure and all these other things, you know, it's really about control. You know, like I have, you know, I kind of like about the final destination films, you know, in the first movie, which in my opinion is the best one of the franchise, but agreed, you know, it's Billy and he's like, I control my destiny, like blah, blah, blah. And that's like a really huge part, I think, of american culture in general. And that's also so deeply ingrained into us because of capitalism. Know, the sort of like bootstraps.

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Denarii Grace: If you just do this and that, you know, you too can be successful and right and successful is white and thin, you know, and able bodied and able minded and all these different things. And, you know, like I said, even as a survivor, oh, you can avoid abuse and you can avoid rape and, you know, molestation and all these different things. If you just do this and this. But if that's not true, then it's like, oh, my God, all of us can be targets. What are we doing? Why aren't we funding this? You know, it becomes this really big, scary question of, like, how much control over my life do I actually have? Because the idea is to avoid at all costs. At all costs.

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Denarii Grace: Literally avoid being one of the oppressed, you know, going to conversion camps, exercising 50,000 times a day, and eating kale and beets and blah, blah. Not that there's anything. I mean, I hate, but, you know, not that there's anything.

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Chris: Kale likes beets. So be careful. I'd be careful.

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Denarii Grace: You know, there's nothing inherently wrong with those foods. But, you know, this idea that if I just eat meats and if I just eat carrots, you know, not only will I avoid being fat, but I'll also avoid disability and, you know, and all these different things. And it's like, that's not how any of this works. You know? Unfortunately, there's a lot, you know about life that is out of our control, and that's just the reality. But reality is scary.

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Chris: You know, that's an interesting idea that, like, trying to lose weight is not just trying to lose weight. It's. There's, like, this inherent. I'm trying to dodge, some oppression that, like, some. Whether it's consciously or subconsciously, I know that there's this oppression that I'm trying to actually dodge by. By doing that.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, absolutely. And that's one of the things, like, you'll see, you know, people who, you know, the few people who have lost weight and kept it off, you know, I think about, like, Jennifer Hudson, for example.

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Kayla: Right.

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Denarii Grace: You know what I mean? And, like, not that she's ever said this, but, like, a lot of people who, you know, have done it, they'll talk about, like, man, like, you know, like, it was one of my worst fears to see, you know, once I lost the weight, like, how much different people treat differently people treated me, you know? And, like, that's kind of like, when you're fat, it's like, you know, that there's this difference. But then when you know, for those who lose weight, and to be clear, like. Like I said, I've never been or even close to it, but, so I don't. I don't know what that feels like.

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Denarii Grace: But for those who do know what it feels like to see that stark contrast and have your worst fears confirmed, that people treat you differently based on the way you look, based on the way you present, based on the assumptions that they glean from the way that you look and the way that you present.

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Kayla: I've been fat. I've been thin. I've been fat again. And even just down to who will smile at you on the street versus who won't once you're fat. Like, just even those little things, there are stark differences that, like, that worst fear, I mean, that is so real that, of course we know that this oppression is real. And I think that you're right in talking about, like, even subconsciously, if we're trying to avoid fatness, we're trying to avoid that oppression because we know it's real. And a lot of us also enact that oppression. Like, if we're fat, if we're not fat, we have enacted it upon others so we know that it can be and upon ourselves.

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Kayla: And, yeah, actually, that's a question that I want to get into with you because we talked a lot about fat phobia and the different ways that manifests, but we haven't talked as much about, like, internalized fat phobia or the ways fat people take in these messages that we get and apply them to ourselves, apply them to other fat people. We feel bad about ourselves, or we say to ourselves, like, I should just lose weight, or this is my fault, or all those different ways that we internalize the suppression. What are some steps that fat people can take to move out of that internalized fatphobia?

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, I think, and obviously, I can only speak to my own experience, but I think one of, and again, this is one of those things that's applicable across so many identities is that I think is really important, is finding community. I found haze and I found that Facebook group, and it was through that I began to learn, like, oh, wait a minute, things can be different. And I think that's, you know, such an important part of any community sustainability is finding each other and commiserating and sharing experiences. And that's only a part of it, obviously, because a lot of people, I wrote a poem about this, like, related to disability specifically, but I wrote a poem about this recently because, like, it's just so frustrating because a lot of people think that their lived experience alone makes them an expert in something.

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Denarii Grace: And so it's like, no, that's not how this works. And a big reason why it doesn't work that way is because of that internalized isms that we all carry with us. It's inevitable, you know, in a society that is fat antagonistic that is ableist, that is racist, you know, that is anti black, anti indigenous, anti survivor, you know, rape culture, all that sort of stuff, abuse culture, it's inevitable that whether you're part of those groups or not, that you absorb these messages, you know, like you said. And so because we, those of us who are part of those communities absorb those messages, too.

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Denarii Grace: If you only have the lived experiences, but you haven't actually challenged your knowledge, if you don't know the history, there are still so many ways that you can trip up and perpetuate things, you know, like even like the science that I've learned. Because one of the things about, you know, any kind of marginalized identity is, you know, at the end of the day, like, we fight for fat liberation, but we aren't actually there yet. And so as a fat person, you know, as a black person, as a disabled person, etc. Etcetera, I'm still living in a world that thinks I'm ugly, you know, and treats me as such, that thinks that I don't have any worth, that thinks in a lot of cases that I should die, you know, or otherwise not existential. And those mess, that messaging still exists.

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Denarii Grace: And so I'm still absorbing it even as I know better and have learned and have found community. And so because of that, people who, as they say, don't do the reading, you know, they think, oh, well, I'm fat. Oh, I'm a survivor, you know, I'm disabled. And that's all that it takes. And, you know, it's like, well, I'm blanking on that guy's name. He's in Congress. He's a wheelchair user.

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Kayla: I know who you're talking about. I can't think of his name.

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Chris: He's got the eye patch.

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Kayla: I know who you're talking about.

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Denarii Grace: I'm so mad, but I'm blanking. He's like, he's a Republican. And there are people like that who exist. You know, there are people like, you know, there are log cabin Republicans, queer and trans folks, you know, Caitlyn Jenner, Candace Owens, and you know what I mean? And so, like, having those experiences alone isn't enough to make you an expert in something. It's really important that in order to combat those beliefs that folks are also reading and listening and, you know, and learning and unlearning. Unlearning is such a big part of how you get to that point. You know, they used to say when were kids, knowledge is power, you know, but I mean, it really is in so many ways, which is why it's.

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Denarii Grace: And, you know, book banning and, you know, trying to keep queer and trans youth away from, you know, all these things is because we know the power that knowledge has. And so it's a lot harder to, for example, shake someone like me, you know, who knows a lot of this statistics and the science versus someone who's just like, I feel bad about my body and I don't want to, but I also still really want to be thin.

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Kayla: Right. Reasons why you. Not to interrupt you. I'm sorry. Is that why you created fat acceptance month, to have a place for that knowledge sharing, that community? Like, is that one of the reasons behind it?

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Denarii Grace: Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I started it in January 2019. And, you know, of course, started it, rather designated it for January because, of course, that's the time of year when, like, we're new me, you know, I.

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Kayla: Know we just signed up for a gym, like, not for weight loss pursuit at all. And I'm like, oh, God, this timing is terrible. We're going to be going when everybody's.

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Chris: Going, January is always the worst month to be at the gym.

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Denarii Grace: Yes, that time of year. And so, you know, as a way to sort of counteract the message, I mean. Cause it's like, you know, that antagonism is year round and inundated and embedded into so many different parts of our lives. But, you know, I mean, I literally cannot think of a year where it wasn't like an extreme bombardment of, yeah, check out these deals. Join our gym. You know, check out our milkshakes. Like.

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Chris: Lose weight with this milkshake.

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Denarii Grace: It's so ridiculous. And so. Really?

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Denarii Grace: Just to create a space to counteract at least some of that. You know, I don't have billions of dollars to invest, but just to try to counteract some of that messaging and have a space that people can go to, a virtual space to have community to learn to unlearn. Speaking of unlearning, to go back to the other question that you asked about how to counteract, you know, how people can learn to counteract this stuff. I think, too, in finding community is surrounding yourself with messaging about whose bodies are valued. You know, so a lot of the folks that I, you know, that I follow on social media are fat. You know, obviously, social media is, you know, where we share a lot of different things, but, you know, we also post our pictures.

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Denarii Grace: And so for me, it's really important to be connected to people and see bodies like mine and larger to really begin to undo that messaging, that these bodies aren't attractive, that these bodies, you know, are unlovable, you know, uninteresting, grotesque to see them in a different light. And so I think specifically, you know, because it is about our bodies. And so I think it's really important, you know, in terms of unlearning. If you're in those spaces where fat bodies are being celebrated and not maligned, I think that's also a really important places like Instagram, you know, following certain pages, not following other certain pages.

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Chris: Right.

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Denarii Grace: You know, I will immediately unfollow a celebrity if they start trying to, like, pedal bullshit, you know? You know what I mean? Like, I've literally, like, in the past, like, no, we're not doing that. Because I know that's not something that I need.

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Kayla: And it's that flat tummy tea comes out, I'm like, no, thanks.

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Denarii Grace: You know, and that's also an act of self care, you know, once you come into this knowledge, like, yeah, there are certain messages that I don't need to see, you know, like, that's the status quo. That's the norm. Like, y'all got that? Like, I'm good. You know, I'm moving this way.

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Chris: I think the fat acceptance. I think it's fantastic that you've created that space because, yeah, like you said, like, if you have that space and that community, like, if you can view somebody else as valuable, then, like, that might be easier for you to view yourself as valuable, too. So that makes a lot of sense. And I also love your point about the lived experience alone isn't enough. There has to be a balance with the unlearning and then learning new things, because that's the only thing that can give you the context that really covers everything.

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Denarii Grace: Right, exactly.

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Chris: I'm going to go ahead and ask you our last question here, which is, since we're a show about cults, we always ask a question about, is the thing a cult? For the purposes of this episode, I don't think it makes sense to evaluate the cultiness of fat liberation. Rather, it kind of feels like maybe fat phobia or the structural oppression of fatness and fatphobia. Do you think that has cult like elements? Would you call fatphobia a cult?

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Denarii Grace: Yeah. So first, I'm very interested in cults.

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Chris: All right, listen to our podcast.

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Kayla: Me, too.

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Denarii Grace: That's not something I'm an expert in. I mean, like, obviously, like, I understand the basics, but for me, you know, when I. When I read this question, what really comes up for me is that cults are really a symptom of abuse culture. And one of the things that's really important to make the connection of is like, one of the reasons why we live in an abuse culture. You know, a culture that upholds abuse as the status quo and normalizing it in so many different ways, whether it's the language that we use, you know, victim blaming, you know, so many different methods of establishing and upholding it. One of the reasons why, you know, that exists is because of the many different forms of oppression that exist, whether it's capitalism, anti blackness, ableism, or whatever.

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Denarii Grace: They're all basically, like, really big, really big systemic examples of abuse. Cults are a specific kind of abuse and a specific kind of upholding of abuse culture. But whether it's capitalism or cults or an intimate partner relationship or whatever, abuse has a lot of the different, a lot of the same components. Gaslighting and different sorts of manipulation, hoovering, sucking you back in when you're trying to get out. And so in that sense, because it's all connected, it is a cult, so to speak, but it's a cult because it's abusive. It's not necessarily a one to one, obviously. There's not like this one person or this small group of people that's like attacking you know, when it comes to fat antagonism or any other kind of oppression. And it's not like, you know what I mean?

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Denarii Grace: And a lot of times you're not even directly interacting because it's a system. It's not one person. But the parallels are so similar. And when you're dealing with oppression, you're dealing with so many of the different types of, again, like, we're called liars, you know, the gaslighting about our experiences, the sort of, like, you know, Darvo, like, reversal. Like, no, you're really the bad. You're the racist. You know, stop calling me a racist. This is racism. When you talk about racism, you know what I mean?

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Chris: Like, pointing it out is racism.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: You know, I really love your perspective on cults. Like, the framework of looking at it as like an abuse thing, I think is something we might steal. Yeah, that's a really, that's a really interesting perspective.

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Denarii Grace: So white of you.

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Chris: I'm only half drinking. At least I'm admitting it, right?

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Denarii Grace: No, but no seriousness. No, yeah, absolutely. I think a really important framework, you know, that it's a form of abuse. Right. But it's like on this massive scale, depending on the size of the organization, even the idea of, like, you know, pushing, you know, when you're like, sort of just starting the relationship and you're the abuser is like sort of pushing your limits of to see how far outside of your boundaries that you'll go, you know, how far can I take this? And that's, you know, obviously something that a lot of cult leaders will do, like, how far can I take this? You know, how far will you follow me?

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Chris: You know, and that's its own method of control. Yeah.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, right. Yeah. Culture are a symptom of a larger abuse culture, you know, and that's part of why they're so sustainable, you know, is because there's not this larger effort to support survivors like myself or to dismantle, rather. You know, we try to, like, solve these band aids, but we're not tackling the actual roots. The problem. And part of the reason why is because if we tackle the root of problems of abuse culture, then we also have to tackle the root problems of racism and anti blackness and anti indigeneity and ableism and fat antagonism. And no one wants to do that because those things are really powerful, you know, want to hold on to that for as long as possible.

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Chris: Yeah. And to your point about, like the, like airplanes, right? Like, if you really tackle the root of the problem, then you start messing with the money. And that's where. That's probably part of why this stuff is so difficult to move on.

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Denarii Grace: Yeah, absolutely.

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Kayla: Daenery, where can our listeners find out more about you and about your work? We'd love to be able to direct our listeners to you.

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Denarii Grace: So I am writers delight. W r I t e r s b e l. Pretty much everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, even my patreon is backslash. Writers delight. And my Facebook as well. And then, you know, my website is daenerygrace.com, but you can follow me everywhere. I like having new followers. That's always nice.

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Kayla: Daenery, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation. This was, I think we learned a lot. I think our listeners were learning a lot. It was healing in a lot of ways. So I just, I appreciate you coming and talking with us.

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Chris: Yeah. Very, very good nuggets of insight there. Thank you.

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Denarii Grace: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

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Chris: Kayla. Thank you for finding us an expert to talk to about this topic. That was very interesting.

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Kayla: Always talk to the experts. Always refer back to the experts, except when they're your doctor telling you to go on a diet.

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Chris: Refer to the experts, except when you shouldn't and also no hint as to which experts to believe.

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Kayla: Gotta love living in a Covid world. So, yeah, what are your. I guess I wanna just get your. I felt like there were many parts of that conversation that were just like a bomb to the soul. It's just always. It always means so much to be able to connect with other fat people who are activated in a fat politic and activated in the fat liberation space. It just is healing and just feels so good. But I think I've had more of those conversations than maybe you've had. So I want to get your reactions on all of this.

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Chris: Yeah, it was interesting for me because I haven't, like you said, I haven't. I don't have as much exposure to that. I don't, you know, listen to as many podcasts or read as many articles or books as you do on that topic. So it was definitely interesting for me to have some of my questions answered. Like, specifically, I get really curious about things like, if the science doesn't support the idea that diets work, then, like, what is the continued. What is the perpetuation of that? That's the thing I think I want to talk about the most. But do you want to go into the criteria to decide if it's a cult and then that can kind of.

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Kayla: Like, oh, the scaffold out?

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Chris: Yeah, I mean, she said it was.

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Kayla: We got Daenery's thoughts on whether or not fatphobia is a cult, and they said, yes, but we also need to go through and use our own criteria.

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Chris: Right. I like their abuse thing. I feel like we can kind of talk about that in context of, like, the expected harm criteria.

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Kayla: Oh, sure, right.

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Chris: That kind of feels like that can kind of slot into that aspect.

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Kayla: Let's do it. I think the first question is going to be a toughie because our first one is charismatic leader.

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Chris: Charismatic leader. So just to level set, we are discussing fatphobia, not fat liberation.

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Kayla: Correct.

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Chris: Right. Okay.

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Kayla: I think if we tried to do fat liberation as a cult, it would just be a really boring answer of like, no, not really.

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Chris: I mean, we can apply the criteria to whatever we want, I guess.

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Kayla: True.

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Chris: But it seems like the direction here is actually fat phobia and fat oppression.

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Kayla: And I'm more interested in turning our critical lens on the oppressor versus the oppressed.

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Chris: Mmm, fair enough. Fair enough. Let's punch up. I don't think there is a charismatic leader. I don't know.

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Kayla: It feels like that's part of the insidiousness of fatphobia, is that it doesn't need one is that it is so baked into every structure and every system and every facet of our society that there doesn't need to be somebody at the top going, you should hate fat people and you should try to not be fat. It doesn't need to have somebody running the show for it to perpetuate itself.

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Chris: Yeah, I was thinking about maybe talking about this under dogma, but actually maybe it belongs here because one of the things that I asked her about that I'm curious about is. Yeah, is this motivation? I just mentioned this motivation. Like, why does this persist? Why does this myth of personal responsibility persist? Even though there's evidence, there's ample evidence that doesn't actually do anything. Your personal responsibility for your diet and your shape of your body or whatever is not a viable way to become the body that the airline needs you to be in order to maximize their profits. I think where the rubber really hits the road on that is actually, I think the airline is the best, is the easiest example for me to think of because it's very clear to picture. Oh, yeah, fewer seats, less money.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: So there's this inherent motive. Right. There's this inherent motivation of putting the onus on individual citizens and consumers. And that's something we see in a.

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Kayla: Lot of places, time, everywhere.

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Chris: Everywhere. In fact, I think that is one of the most. Like, that's the thing that resonated the most with me about this conversation because it also resonates the most with me about the situation we all find ourselves in with this, whatever you want to call it, late state, late stage capitalism, digital feudalism, whatever you want to call it. We find ourselves in the situation where the powerful, and by this I mean things like corporations always are able to offload their costs and expenses and harms onto the less powerful.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: But, and the mechanism for that is this personal responsibility thing. It's not the corporation's responsibility to fix global warming. It's your responsibility for global warming. It's not the, it's not the powerful's responsibility to fix Covid. It's your individual. You have to wear the mask, and you have to figure out when to do this and that. And you have to like, so it's, there's so many things, and this just feels like it's one more of those things where the airline companies, car companies, what diet companies could shoulder that cost, right? That cost of having fewer seats on the airplane. But instead, like everything else, the cost is on us because the corporations never pay the cost. They are the powerful ones, they have the strings of the government. They have the strings of culture and everything else.

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Chris: So I think that's, like, what really drives some of this stuff. And it dovetails for me a little bit back into. I know this is like, you know, we're kind of, like, tangenting a little, but kind of not really. When we talked about unionization efforts with Tyler and Josie and I mentioned, like, these guys are the only ones that are going to save capitalism for itself if it can be saved.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And it's for that reason that, like, the only way for the less powerful to fight back against all of this offloading of cost is to join together and to become more powerful as a unit, the same way that a corporation or whatever is, then you can push back against some of that stuff. And if you can't push back against some of that stuff, the costs are just going to keep getting offloaded onto us as individuals until it breaks.

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Kayla: Right. So it's not a charismatic leader.

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Chris: Not a charismatic leader. I guess that's the. Where it connects back to. That is what you were saying. Like, that's what makes it so pernicious. Right. There's no one person that's like, that's.

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Kayla: Saying we should do this and then that phobia is over.

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Chris: Right, exactly. It's a systemic thing.

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Kayla: Right. Expected harm. I actually want to say about expected harm. Okay. I think that expected harm in fat phobia is extremely high based on what we're just talking about. You know, we talked about with Daenery. They talked about that. I think you've referred to it, and you probably got it from somewhere else. The curb cutting effect of how I got it from 99% invisible, accommodating all abilities and specifically accommodating disability or fat bodies or marginalized bodies in our built environment actually benefits everybody. So the curb cutting effect means I curbs were cut on crosswalks in order to accommodate wheelchairs, and that the cutting of that curb also accommodates strollers and shopping carts and luggage. And other people, like able bodied people.

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Chris: Trip less all the way up to the most able bodied actually do benefit.

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Kayla: So building a world that is fatphobic doesn't just hurt fat people. We should be centering that hurt. It also hurts non fat people. Everybody is fucking annoyed sitting on those goddamn airplane seats. And the expected harm of fatphobia is that it literally kills fat people. People go to the doctor and say, doctor, I'm coughing up blood.

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Chris: Is that his last name?

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Kayla: Doctor, doctor, I'm coughing up blood. Or I can't put weight on my knee, or my period hasn't come in six months and I'm not pregnant. What's going on? And doctor goes, well, have you tried losing weight? You're just fat. And then that person goes, I guess I'm just fat. Tries to lose weight, fails, because, as we know, diets don't work. And then their stage four ovarian cancer has gone unnoticed, and they die. This is not a speculative theoretical thing.

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Chris: Now, there are a terrifying number of.

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Kayla: Stories about this, that this is something that happens. And if the constant prescription for fat people is diet, diet, diet. Which, again, it doesn't reduce the number of fat people in our world, if diets worked, there would not be two thirds of our country labeled quote unquote fat. That just would not be, considering that there's billions of dollars put into diet.

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Chris: Culture, the diet industry would not be put itself, out of business by now.

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Kayla: So if people can't lose weight themselves out of fatness, yet they are prescribed something that does not work. And we also know can contribute to chronic heart conditions, can contribute to things like high blood pressure, brain issues, all of the things that we tend to blame on fatness. We are actively harming people's bodies by prescribing this quote unquote treatment that doesn't.

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Chris: Work and ignoring the root causes and things that are actually there that might work. Like you might actually be able to get chemotherapy in time to save yourself if you actually had a correct prescription.

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Kayla: And even taking it out of this medical context, even if we didn't live in, like, what if diets worked, okay, great. That doesn't mean that anybody deserves to be oppressed. If somebody were fat because they ate more calories than you thought that they should, and they didn't want to reduce the number of calories, that doesn't mean that they deserve to die. We don't condemn people who make different health choices than us to death or to miserable lives. And we shouldn't do that. Like, it doesn't make sense to go, well, I think that you should do XYZ differently. Otherwise, you should. Yes, you should be condemned to death and suffering. And we don't do that with anything. That's the medical thing.

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Kayla: But that also ignores the emotional harm, the psychological harm, the traumas that we put people through, somebody trying to move through the world as a fat person, and how every single day is full of microaggressions and aggressions, and that wears on somebody, and you get traumatized and you get bullied and on and on. There's an Endless number of harms here. Right.

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Chris: And the built environment is not for you and every. Yeah. So the expected harm is extremely high, multiplied across a very large number of people. High, high, high.

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Kayla: I like this one. Presence of ritual. It's Extremely high. It is Extremely high. Diet culture is performative.

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Chris: Diet culture is ritual.

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Kayla: It is so ritual. The steps that people take, in particular the steps that thin people take who maybe are genetically thin, we have learned. The science says weight has a lot to do with YOur genetics, so you're more likely to be fat if your parents were fat. Your grandparents were more likely to be thin if your parents were thinning, and your great grandparents are thin. On and on. So if somebody who is genetically thin does all of these rituals, it's to, like, magically avoid becoming fat. It's to magically avoid that oppression, right. Or a fat person does these rituals of, like, doing the protein shake or doing the flat tummy tea, or counting their steps or working out in the gym in a certain way or going on this diet or documenting their weight loss on the Internet or this, this and this.

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Kayla: Like, how is that not ritual?

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Chris: When you say ritual, I think of the self flagellation that we all do when we eat. It's when you start noticing it. It's everywhere and it's constant. And it's like this ritual that you are expected to do if you're eating certain foods, you're expected to say, oh, this is so bad.

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Kayla: I'm being so bad. You want to order fries and be bad?

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Chris: Let's do cheat day. Oh, this is such a cheat day. Sinful food. Like, so this. This ritual of self flagellation that we do when we are simply consuming something that is pleasure should be just a pleasurable thing to do, right? Eating food, eating tasty food, and necessary. We must. Yeah. And it'll keep you alive. We all do this ritual of, we have to acknowledge to each other that, like, I don't even know what we're really acknowledging there. It's like, I must whip myself before I eat this. I must punish myself before I'm allowed to have the good thing.

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Kayla: Right?

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Chris: It's like, very weirdly, like, I don't know, like, acetic.

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Kayla: Yeah. I have to. I have to acknowledge that I am doing something bad. And the bad thing is just eating animals. Don't do that.

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Chris: Are you sure? Have you heard animals talk?

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Kayla: I'm just saying, you think dolphins, like.

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Chris: Get, like, a fish and they're like, oh, maybe. Oh, I'm being so bad. This is a mackerel.

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Kayla: Dolphins have diet, culture.

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Chris: I should be eating salmon, but I'm eating a mackerel. I'm so bad.

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Kayla: The next one is a real easy answer. Is it niche within society?

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Chris: No, no, it is society.

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Kayla: Yeah.

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Chris: Yes, it is.

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Kayla: Omnipresent antifactuality.

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Chris: Yeah, I mean, this one feels pretty quick, right? Like, we talked about this with denarii. Like, the science doesn't support the prevalent attitude about personal responsibility.

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Kayla: If you want to learn more about what we're talking about, because I know it can sometimes be hard to hear that. It can sometimes feel really wrong to hear the science doesn't support this thing that society has implanted into our minds over and over that calories in, calories out, just go on a diet, just lose weight. It can be hard to hear that. Maybe there's more to the story here, and maybe that's not right. Real. So if you want to look more into that, a really easy jumping off point is the maintenance based podcast. They very much are a, they debunk health and wellness trends and claims, and they've gotten into this specifically. I don't want to. They're not, they're not doing the research, but they are science communicators on this. So I will recommend them for that purpose.

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Chris: Yeah.

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Kayla: So antifactuality, pretty high percentage of life consumed.

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Chris: Well, we're not eating fat people, but the fat people are consuming mackerel.

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Kayla: The mackerel.

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Chris: No, that's fat dolphins. Excuse me.

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Kayla: I think that for a lot of us, and maybe it's changed, maybe it hasn't. I don't know. I think that the percentage of our lives consumed by fatphobia is larger than any one of us would like to admit.

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Chris: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, if I sat and, like, counted the number of times per day, like, I. Right now, I want to say, like, I probably think about it like, once a day, but it's probably like dozens and dozens where I'm like, if I, you know, just even, like, looking in the mirror, I'm like, I don't like how I look from the side or, you know, I. Oh, God, I can't get. I can't sit in the seat. Like, I need to fucking lose weight.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: And that's even, like, knowing about some of this stuff, right? So, yeah, I think the amount of mental attention that on average a person gives this thing seems to be pretty high.

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Kayla: And the amount of effort that people who are not fat may put into not becoming fat. I mean, that can take over your entire life. Like, it just makes me think about, there are times in my life where I would thinner and I took steps to not become fatter. And there were times in my life where I was thinner and I, my entire life was consumed by that. And it was to the point of an eating disorder where literally every second of the day was dedicated to not becoming fat. Every second of my day, every second of my life. And I think a lot of people live that way. And it is depressing to think about, nobody should have to live that way. And we've kind of self flagellated into feeling that way. But again, it's not a personal responsibility thing.

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Kayla: We've also had, like Daenery said, she talked about how the huge systems that are behind this, there is the billion dollar diet industry, there is the government, there is capitalism, and there's probably other things. But, like, how could any one of us not be thinking about this all the time when the powers that be have forced us to do so?

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Chris: Yeah, I mean, what chance does an individual have against the billions of dollars of just the diet industry alone, much less all of the other things that you were just talking about? And it also kind of reminds me of what you're talking about, of the abuse framework that Daenery was talking about. It feels like it kind of fits into that, too, where it's like you're in this abusive relationship with these things that's like, so hard to get out of and it ends up consuming your life. Like, that's to be that consumed by something that should just be like, oh, it's food, right? That is abusive. And there are systems of control that.

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Kayla: Keep you in that dogmatic beliefs.

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Chris: I guess, relatively high.

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Kayla: Yeah. Like I would say for you, say it's high. I know it's tough for you to say, sorry to interrupt you, but I'm interrupting you anyway.

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Chris: Do it.

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Kayla: I would say it's high simply because I know in my own head, even with the understanding of the science that I have through my own research, through reading academic texts, through listening to podcasts about this stuff, to literally having a dietitian for 15 years who is up on all this research, even having all of that knowledge in my head, I still have a voice that goes, but what if you could just lose weight? What if you're wrong? What if that's just you being lazy? What if that's just, what if it is just calories in, calories out? Like it's you're just fat. You're just fat. You're just lazy. You're just lazy. It's calories in, calories out. You're just eating more than you need is.

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Chris: I have that, too, by the way.

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Kayla: And that to me is dogmatic. Where it's like, I think it is where it's like no matter what youre presented with, no matter what you're presented.

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Chris: With, the belief the outside the dogma.

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Kayla: Is wrong, the belief persists of like, and you see this happen where you can present your doctor with, no, it's not. This issue is not because I'm fat. And they're like, no, it's because you're fat. That feels dogmatic to me.

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Chris: I think you make a strong case. All right.

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Kayla: High dogma, chain of victims. Hi, hi.

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Chris: Yeah, diet culture here, I think, is where I would point to for chain of victims. Right? Like, we all kind of that ritual of, like, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I'm on this diet. I'm on that diet. Are you on keto? I'm on this. It definitely feels like that's something that, like, spreads a bit like a contagion.

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Kayla: Right? Safe or unsafe exit? I would argue that it is not.

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Chris: Safe to exit, really?

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Kayla: And I would argue this because there's a reason why a lot of fat liberationists find each other and find community with each other on the Internet. And it's because that is the only way to find community. When you decide to extract yourself from living in fatphobia and living in diet culture, it's really possible that you're going to lose access to community in some ways. Even if you have those people as your friend, still, they're not the people that you can be your full, authentic self with people that are still around you. If you're fat and you still have people around you talking about how fat they are, how much weight they need to lose, what diet they're on, how fat you are. Like, that is an unsafe environment. And then to leave it, you are isolated.

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Chris: Yeah, I think about the, like, it's like, really a faux pas kind of, to not participate in the I'm so bad, I'm such a sinful eater ritual. Like, if you don't say that, like, people become, like, visibly uncomfortable.

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Kayla: Right. If you don't hate yourself for being fat, people are weirded out by it.

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Chris: Right, right.

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Kayla: So it feels, that feels high, too. And it's something, you know, I mentioned that I found Daenery through a Twitter community that we're both a part of specifically for fat liberationists. And this is a conversation that just came up recently. I don't remember if they participated in it or not. And how many people talked about how they do not have a single person, a single other person in their real lives that operate or even have an understanding of fat liberation. They do not have a single other person in their non Internet lives that has given up on diet culture that has rejected fatphobia. Not a single other person. Person in this.

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Chris: So, yeah, that tracks.

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Kayla: So what do you think? Is it a cult?

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Chris: Well, it scored really. It's the only one it didn't score really high on was charismatic leader. But that was where we talked about, like, how there's like, this pernicious structural problem.

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Kayla: Right.

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Chris: So, yeah, so it's a cult. It's a cult.

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Kayla: We agree with Daenery. Thank you.

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Chris: Good call.

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Kayla: Thank you again to Daenery Grace for joining us on this episode. And thank you to all of the fat scholars and activists rebelling against an oppressive world and fighting for fat liberation. I want to leave us with a quote from fat activist and scholar Virgi Tovar, author of many things, including, you have the right to remain fat. Quote, my life wouldn't be easier if I were thin. My life would be easier if this culture wasn't obsessed with oppressing me because I'm fat. The solution to a problem like bigotry is not to do everything in our power to accommodate the bigotry. It is to get rid of the bigotry. This is Chris, and this is Kayla.

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Chris: And this is cult or just weird or just fatties?

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Kayla: Just fatties.