Red No. 3 @red3blog - Tumblr Blog

re ehrc guidance. which is not legally binding.

Also, "Will the organization cover my court costs if I am sued for sexual harassment for asking about someone's genitals?"

red3blog

Have what I suspect is an UNPOPULAR OPINION about fat politics/fat liberation but I also I don’t really have a platform anymore, so maybe it’s pointless to express anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

red3blog

So, I understand there are risks of toxic positivity setting people up to feel like they are a failure if they ever experience internalized negativity. I understand the value of concepts like “body neutral” as a step in the process of recovering or just responding to a world of cruel fat hatred.

But at the end of the day, I also feel like fat liberation has suffered from a lack of unambiguous and unapologetic fat positivity. I think we could have better handled the nuances there but too often the community was reluctant to allow space for fat positivity because too many didn’t really feel positive about fatness and that was a bad fucking reason that has left all of more vulnerable, more targeted, more stigmatized. At its most well meaning, I think people thought we could build a bigger tent if we didn’t challenge people too much. At its most bad faith, people scorned fat positivity and wanted to rationalize not wanting to engage with it.

Fat politics and fat liberation shouldn’t even need to make room for fat positivity. It should have always been a core ambition and I feel angry for what collectively neglecting that has resulted in. It’s a theme I often wanted to come back to, sometimes with a playful irony that I hope no one ever mistook for shame or self-mocking. Fat people deserve celebration, not just tolerance or acceptance. Some people who only barely ever tolerated us were waiting for “permission” to hate us with all their spirit and I loathe that so many of us knew that but have been stuck watching the predictable play out.

But, like I said, I don’t have much of a platform and never really had much influence, so I feel helpless in the face of it all. I know a lot of people do. You all deserved better. We deserved better. I hope each in our ways can get some of what we deserve. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

boomer-mythology-destroyer

red3blog

I recently saw a post on Nextdoor where they complained that Animal Control wouldn’t come out and deal with some ducks they saw in a pond.

Like, that’s where ducks go. That is duck home. This is where they are supposed to be. Call Animal Control if the duck is in your living room. Not when you are in the duck’s living room.

lovertm

nodietedrecovery

Image ID:

Pink text on a black background with white stars surrounding it. Text reads, "Don't talk to me about your weight loss journey."

End ID.

A pet hate I’ve had for going on a quarter century is the impulse among far too many fat activists to try to play nice with dieters. It’s a waste of time and effort and isn’t even worthwhile in a vacuum. We are so afraid that being anti-diet will be perceived as being anti-dieter that we willingly bloat our own advocacy with soothing reassurances about how we aren’t going to take anyone’s diets away. It’s absurd on its face even if it wasn’t always disregarded out of hand by people who really are just offended that someone out there isn’t dieting.

They will never be placated. They will never have their concerns assuaged. They will never be mollified. Stop trying. You are making a mockery of the REAL dynamics of power and privilege here by acting like we need to beg forgiveness of the socially privileged and mandated position. They aren’t going to give us permission and we shouldn’t be asking for it anyway.

Being unambiguously anti-diet isn’t being anti-dieter, but we also can’t do anything to address the concerns of people who will act like it is. They are acting in bad faith. Yes, even the people you are sure are really nice and surely you could get them to understand. They may not all be bad people, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t acting in bad faith. We can’t tie ourselves or our activism into knots to gain their indulgence. It’s simply not on offer and decades of attempts to satisfy them have gotten us here.

And here sucks. I get this is an unpopular opinion, but like I said. It’s been my pet hate for literal decades for me at this point. I’ve seen exactly what it has accomplished. We need to move beyond constant apologizing for who we are. If we have any chance, we have to stop prioritizing people who don’t want us to exist just because we can empathize with how they got to that point. I’m not saying the empathy is bad or wrong, just that we can’t limit ourselves to other people’s imaginations. We can’t live under their boundaries, much less thrive. We cannot liberate ourselves by centering the comfort of dieters. If anyone has a problem with that, we need to recognize that problem as fundamentally unfair and not live down to it. We need more. We just do.

#fat liberation #fat acceptance #fat activism

sitronsangbody

I feel like when people shut down ANY debate around ozempic with "don't talk about other people's bodies / choices" what they actually mean is just "stop questioning thinness as the ideal".

It's absolutely possible to talk about societal trends without making it about specific individuals. I do think it's shitty for the media to pick apart one person's body and to be like "LOOK at HER" with clickbaity before and after pictures and speculation about their diet. I don't think that helps anyone. But we can and should talk about the clear returning trend towards very skinny bodies and the normalisation of weight loss drugs. And the impact this will have on people growing up in the midst of this culture.

astarions-jester

What I need people who aren't fat and aren't disabled to understand too is that doctors are actively pushing Ozempic on us even when it would be actively harmful to us. Ozempic is contraindicated for several of my conditions, it would actually damage my heart. But I have had doctors literally put the Ozempic needle in my hand and tell me "I can't treat you if you don't take this." I got told to take Ozempic at my ADHD assessment. I got told to take Ozempic when I was having my regular endometriosis checkup. It isn't just "judging other people" there is a serious, genuine problem with how it is being forced on people, especially disabled people being falsely told we won't get treatment if we don't go on it. I'm very lucky that 1, I did the reading and found out "holy shit this actually would be very dangerous for me" and 2, I have a fantastic GP who understands my conditions and told me directly "I would never recommend Ozempic to someone with your conditions" but most disabled people do not have the luxury of a good GP who has your back (and note that I'm in Australia so I actually have time to talk to my GP for longer than 15 minutes)

I seriously consider the current push for Ozempic a disability rights issue.

sitronsangbody

This!! I've been offered ozempic by my GP, thankfully she listened when I said I wasn't interested in that. But most fat people I know have been recommended it or been on it. A friend of mine (who isn't even fat) was told to go on ozempic for a while to lose some weight for a hernia surgery, and no one had even told her that it makes you nauseous. People are so convinced that weight loss is such a magical wonderful thing that no price could be too high, they act like the risks and side effects of ozempic don't exist. And I know this is not a new phenomenon but it's definitely having a Moment.

These were good tweets that no one ever cared about but I literally remember every time I visit an Amtrak station.

#stuff i made

Joy can be an act of resistance, but I sometimes wish we did more to respect that despair is also a valid act of resistance.

Not everyone makes it out to the other side. We don’t have to like that to respect the reality of it. We don’t have to embrace it to still try to destigmatize it.

I don’t really have a blueprint for how we could do better about it, but I know sometimes all of the calls to persevere can feel like a condemnation of those who won’t and that’s so deeply unfair to people who’ve already seen so little fairness. Just an observation.

#Useless Thoughts #Did I used to have a Tag for this sort of thing?#doesn't look like it

sniffanimal

god I could be so wealthy if I had no ethics. that's so fucking frustrating. I'm living paycheck to paycheck because I'm not grifting vulnerable idiots on TikTok. I feel like I have the ability to very easily scam people. I could make a killing with AI. but god. I have morals and ethics and so I get to be poor as shit. I hate this fucking world

madfishmonger

I could have made a killing as a psychic, but noooo I have to feel bad about lying to people ugh

contact-guy

I think abt this all the time because the thing is, evil rich people truly believe that they’re geniuses who have discovered a way to make money that the rest of us dummies haven’t…but the truth is that they are just willing to do evil shit that everyone else would prefer to not to because we have standards

stopsignsworstenemy

i was going to do a rant about this before seeing this tweet but imma just leave this here

arrows-for-pens

#been saying for years#rainbow capitalism isn't a movement but it sure is a fucking canary (via @runawaymarbles)

deramin2

This goes hand in hand with pushing for only queer people to play queer roles. Which in theory sounds like a good thing to push for authentic representation when so much of the past stuff was bad.

Except the actual real world outcome has become queer leftists abusively dog piling any actor they deem "inauthentic" leading to actors being forcefully outed against their will before they were ready in an attempt to make the abuse stop. Including children. People have been justifying psychologically tormenting literal children for not publicly disclosing (and being firm and set in) their gender and sexuality in order to work.

In many wants it's set back queer media and made people just as afraid of queer roles ruining their careers and their lives as they were when bigots were doing it. Which is not an improvement to the situation! It's really only giving cover to people who want none of this to exist.

We could have just praised the process we wanted to see. Personally I love seeing Jim Parsons take that big normative sitcom money and fucking off to make emotionally powerful queer films with it casting queer actors whenever he can. But praising that will always be more constructive than bullying Kit Connor. If Daniel Craig wants to spend the rest of his career making charming gay detective movies about helping marginalized woman get revenge on abusive rich assholes, then I don't care what his sexuality is because it's still pushing queer media far forward.

We could have positively addressed rainbow capitalism by supporting queer-owed business. We could have accepted that mainstreaming queer iconography at Target (much of it designed by queer people who got to pay their bills making it) would make space for people buying that small batch t-shirt at Pride. It's not like people only ever buy one t-shirt in their life.

A closeted-for-safety trans boy buying his first binder at Target could have created an opening for the next one to be from Shapeshifters. Instead he may never get the chance to know what it would feel feel like to take the first step because the wrong packaging could endanger him and the (fair) price mightbe unaffordable.

We can't built perils into doing better. We can't keep calling nigh-impossible next steps"the bare minimum" and tearing into them for every imperfection if we want people to do them at all. At minimum that's a burnout machine. At worst it gives bigots leverage to maker sure we have nothing. Kindness and enthuses support of what we want to see happen makes way more progress.

Unfortunately many leftists are still so stuck in the purity-sin-redemption mentality, even when they surface-level reject Christianity, that instead of growth and change everything keeps getting treated as blasphemy unless it's perfect. Even though perfection is impossible. So the whole well is primed to be poisoned by the people who genuinely hate us.

fatliberation

I was listening to my asmrs to fall asleep (as usual) & I’m suddenly bombarded with whispering about their diet and weight loss plan because, in their words, “who wants to be fat?” bro this youtube video is supposed to be about making relaxing sounds. I can’t even fall asleep without people reminding me my body is unwanted. IS NO SPACE SACRED?

red3blog

Ugh, this would be infuriating. I was once watching one of those lawn care channels and in the middle of clearing out an overgrown driveway, they started just straight up playing a Jordan Peterson lecture. No warning, no context. It amazes me that these people will turn around and accuse us of living in a “bubble” as if we can ever really be free of their bullshit.

red3blog

Have what I suspect is an UNPOPULAR OPINION about fat politics/fat liberation but I also I don’t really have a platform anymore, so maybe it’s pointless to express anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

red3blog

So, I understand there are risks of toxic positivity setting people up to feel like they are a failure if they ever experience internalized negativity. I understand the value of concepts like “body neutral” as a step in the process of recovering or just responding to a world of cruel fat hatred.

But at the end of the day, I also feel like fat liberation has suffered from a lack of unambiguous and unapologetic fat positivity. I think we could have better handled the nuances there but too often the community was reluctant to allow space for fat positivity because too many didn’t really feel positive about fatness and that was a bad fucking reason that has left all of more vulnerable, more targeted, more stigmatized. At its most well meaning, I think people thought we could build a bigger tent if we didn’t challenge people too much. At its most bad faith, people scorned fat positivity and wanted to rationalize not wanting to engage with it.

Fat politics and fat liberation shouldn’t even need to make room for fat positivity. It should have always been a core ambition and I feel angry for what collectively neglecting that has resulted in. It’s a theme I often wanted to come back to, sometimes with a playful irony that I hope no one ever mistook for shame or self-mocking. Fat people deserve celebration, not just tolerance or acceptance. Some people who only barely ever tolerated us were waiting for “permission” to hate us with all their spirit and I loathe that so many of us knew that but have been stuck watching the predictable play out.

But, like I said, I don’t have much of a platform and never really had much influence, so I feel helpless in the face of it all. I know a lot of people do. You all deserved better. We deserved better. I hope each in our ways can get some of what we deserve. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Have what I suspect is an UNPOPULAR OPINION about fat politics/fat liberation but I also I don’t really have a platform anymore, so maybe it’s pointless to express anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

cardassiangoodreads

Honestly, the history of the Republican Party since at least the Tea Party era proves the lie to leftists who say stuff like "well if we don't withhold our vote, the Democratic Party will never move left!" In fact, Republicans have shown that it is specifically voting for their candidates faithfully in every election that allows a "radical" faction within a party to have leverage. That you can do that and also criticize candidates for not conforming to your views enough - but you only get leverage to do that by voting for the party regardless, but utilizing primaries, the media and other tactics to try to make your voice heard as much as you can within that party. I know this doesn't make "logical" sense on first blush, and isn't how other forms of political pressure (like boycotts) work, but history has proven that that is how you get leverage within a political party in the United States. And the left has done the right thing on this a lot! But when we don't get our full wishlist (or even when we do, but checked-out people online lie about it - see the myth in the 2024 election that the Dems "weren't doing anything/were the same as Republicans" on trans rights, and then after the results where Dems lost big, a few of them wrongly concluded that they should back off on trans rights!) we pull away and that sends the message that we can't be relied upon. Republicans, though, know how to play the long game and that even if they don't have their preferred person this election cycle, faithfully turning out and then reminding those politicians that they did later will, little by little, over time, result in more of their preferred candidates. This is the story of how the far-right took over the Republican Party - and the left could learn from it, if we wanted to. (Well, I want to, a lot of us want to, but we are too often drowned-out by the ideological-purity, no-knowledge-of-history-from-before-a-couple-years-ago, would-rather-critique-power-than-have-power ignoramus segment of it.)

fresh-bag-of-ham

If the hardline anti-choice evangelicals who believe in their tiny brains that abortion is a genocide had spent the last 50 years throwing up their hands every election saying, "the Republicans haven't stopped the abortion genocide yet, they must not actually care about this and are just posturing to win our votes, we should withhold our votes in protest" we would still have Roe v. Fucking Wade.

A while back, I was on vacation and went to a fancy, gourmet market and I got these fancy, overpriced “Mediterranean Sea Salt” potato chips from Torres Selecta. As a rule, I only like basic potato chips, but they had all these absurdly high-end flavors like “sparkling wine”, caviar, and foie gras. I waited months to open them because I horde rare items in real life and video games. I assumed they’d never live up to upscale price and presentation.

Best chips I’ve ever eaten. 😒 I’m legitimately so annoyed but I’ve also gotten them twice since then because they really are that good.

#Torres selecta #potato chips #food #trying to post here again #feels less evil than literally everywhere else #red3blog

Vaguely considering posting here again, but I’m not sure how to find a community I fit into anymore and I’m not sure what vibes I bring to the party anymore except sadness and fury in equal measure. Whee.

anonymousyellowlizard

Thing is, I'm not just anti-fatphobia as in "I don't want people to be mean to fat people"

I am pro fat liberation as in "I want to dismantle the systemic biases against fat people and the diet culture and medical industrial complex that feeds into the very real systemic oppression that fat people face"

I don't see fatphobia as a mere interpersonal issue where if you are being nice to fat people or saying things in a polite way to them you're automatically free of fatphobia. I see it as essential to challenge every bit of diet culture myth that we might encounter and break the unscientific ideas of "health" as defines by weight, fat, calories, bmi, and other nonsense. I see it as essential to view fatphobia as the political issue it is and take it seriously as such, and to unlearn and help others unlearn oppressive baseless ideas we have assumed to be true and natural.

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Red No. 3