What RIGHTS are fat people denied, exactly? Not everyday inconveniences that happen to people of all sizes... actual violations of human rights. Can fat people not vote, get married, own property? Are they expected to eat in different sections of restaurants? Were they forced into slavery for hundreds of years? Were they moved from their native land or given infectious blankets? Were they put into internment camps?
Fat people are denied the right to work many jobs. Fat people are denied the right to health insurance coverage. Not on account of their health, simply for being fat. Even if they have good health (which, contrary to popular, misinformed belief, many fat people do) they can still be denied these things. Fat people are denied the right to fair treatment in regards to healthcare. I’ve seen this first-hand. I sat by my mother’s side for two weeks while she lay comatose. Her doctor told her the weight she was gaining suddenly was from overeating, that a person could gain weight no other way. Meanwhile, she’d had congestive heart failure, the rapid, excessive weight gain was from edema (or “water weight”) and while she clung to life in a two week coma, she lost 125 pounds of pure fluid weight. If she had been thin, the proper tests would have been done and the CHF discovered, but because she was obese she was told “Go on a diet” and no tests were done.
No, fat people have not been through the things that People of Color, indigenous people, LGBTQ* people have been through in the past. This does in no way negate the fact that fat people today are second-class citizens. We are one of the last groups that be discriminated against openly (in America, for certain) and have little to no recourse. Fat women are sexually assaulted and told they should be grateful they had any sort of sex at all. Fat youth are bullied cruelly in schools, many commit suicide, but no one comes to their aid because “The bullying would stop if they’d just lose weight!”. Fat people can’t shop in a grocery store without fear of people doing as little as commenting on the food they’re buying or going as far as to take items out of their cart telling them they don’t need it. These are rights, these are the rights that are denied: basic human dignity is a right.
That’s what this movement is all about: Fighting for the right to be treated as well as any other person and to not be mistreated, insulted, disrespected, discriminated against, raped or assaulted and told it’s our fault because we’re fat.
You bring up about being made to eat in different sections of restaurants, did you know that they are trying to get laws passed in this country to allow restaurants to refuse service to people for being fat? Did you know, and I’m sure you do, that many airlines make fat people buy extra seats if they’re over a certain size? Okay, fair play, but then you have a case like what happened to Kevin Smith. He paid for the extra seat on a Southwest Airlines flight and was still kicked off simply for being fat. EVEN THOUGH HE FOLLOWED THEIR GUIDELINES AND PAID FOR THE EXTRA SEAT!
THESE are the rights we are denied. Rights are rights are rights. Just because the rights we’re denied aren't the same as those denied to another group doesn’t lessen what we go through as fat people or negate it.
- Riann