What is Body Terrorism?

The historical and contemporary violence associated with body hatred is widespread and horrific. Terror is defined as intense, sharp, overmastering fear. Terrorism is the inflicting of such fear on an individual or group. The Body Is Not An Apology is a movement focused on countering the devastating impacts of hating our bodies and having others hate our bodies.

From racist and antisemitic violence including lynching, slavery, the Holocaust, and internment camps;

to LGBTQIA+ bodies being assaulted, murdered and driven to suicide regularly;

to rape and sexual assault;

to the bombing of abortion clinics and the murder of physicians supporting cis women’s, trans men’s, and non-binary people’s right to autonomy over their own bodies;

to the involuntary sterilization of disabled people;

to the debilitating shame that people around the world live with as a result of the psychological attacks our social and media machines wage against us, ending in bulimia and anorexia, addiction, stigma, racism, homophobia, ableism, sizeism, ageism, transphobia, mass self-hatred, and senseless violence as a result of body hatred —

it is clear to us that there’s nothing overly rhetorical about clearly stating the impacts of body hatred and calling the promotion of such hatred on any scale an act of body-based terrorism.

TBINAA seeks to engage people in the individual work that fosters self-love — and, just as importantly, we seek to dismantle the structural and systemic emotional, psychological, and physical violence that plays out against “different” bodies all over the planet. We believe it serves those who profit from our self-hatred to minimize its impact and to disconnect it from the larger social framework of violence and intimidation that allows oppression and injustice to thrive.