In queer communities especially, so much effort is made to get tested regularly and know our HIV status. These are important and necessary campaigns so that those who engage in sexual practices can make informed decisions and negotiate potential risks accordingly. There have been great efforts made to normalize STI testing, and I see the effects when my friends post about it on … [Read more...]
Why I’m Wary of Being Friends With You When None of Your Friends Are Marginalized
One day I was grappling with shame and self-consciousness over my tendency to take stock of the kinds of people new people in my life surround themselves with. I was thinking about this in relation to bodies and, specifically, race and fatness. Until that moment I had internalized this behavior as unnecessary, judgmental, and even shallow. But I had a realization that allowed … [Read more...]
El Amor Romantico Nos Mata: Quien Cuida De Nosotros Cuando Somos Solteros?
Soy una persona deprimida, pero deprimida es un verbo. Considero mi depresión como el resultado de una posición social y de la inevitable historia de colonización, racismo, del estigma de la gordura y de la discriminación. Estoy tomando antidepresivos, pero éstos solo pueden reprogramar la química de mi cerebro y no la realidad social y material en la que vivo. No puede … [Read more...]
3 Reasons We Need To Be Critical of Compulsory Sex Positivity in Queer Spaces
Sex positivity often acts as an implicit — or sometimes explicit — foundation of leftist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ spaces for completely valid reasons. As women and queers, sex has been the driving force behind both our oppression and the spaces we create to separate, heal, and liberate us from our oppression. Sexualized spaces for socializing predate our modern understanding of … [Read more...]
Quienes son tus amigos importa: por qué soy precavido de ser tu amigo cuando ninguno de tus amigos son marginados
Un día mientras trataba de resolver con vergüenza y acomplejado por mi tendencia a evaluar las clases de personas con las que se rodean las personas que son nuevas en mi vida. Estaba pensando en relación a los cuerpos, particularmente razas y gordura. Hasta ese momento tenia internalizado que era un comportamiento innecesario, prejuicioso e incluso superficial. Pero tuve una … [Read more...]
Cuando Se Trata A Los Amigos Como Amantes: La Politica Del Deseo
A menudo cuando el deseo aparece en las conversaciones, esta queda reducida a una experiencia personal o se refiere a la frecuencia con las que se tiene sexo, o con cuantas parejas sexuales, lo que es, desde luego, parte de la conversación pero no “la conversación”. Esto provoca un modo sencillo de clausurar el tema y de evitar que puedan aparecer otros aspectos no tan … [Read more...]
Superfat Erasure: 4 Ways Smaller Fat Bodies Crowd the Conversation
For most of my life, and especially since coming into a fat identity, I have usually been one of the fattest people if not the fattest person in any given room I enter. When I came into fat activism, I did it operating under the (false) assumption that my experience of fatness was the same—or at least similar, or perhaps comparable—as other fat people’s. The more my community … [Read more...]
Romantic Love Is Killing Us: Who Takes Care of Us When We’re Single?
I am a depressed person, but depressed is a verb. I consider my depression to be the result of social positions and the inevitable history of colonization, of racism, of fat stigma, discrimination and antagonism. I am on antidepressants, but they can only reprogram my brain chemistry and not my social-material reality. They cannot reprogram the ones I love to give me the care I … [Read more...]
The Gender Nonconformity of My Fatness
Last month I was in a public space, meaning, I was in a space that left my body vulnerable to the interpretations of those around me and their responses. Two strangers met nearby, and one asked the other a question that necessitated acknowledging me. Stranger #2 responded to Stranger #1's question, referring to me as "she" (“She's waiting in line”). I noted this internally, … [Read more...]
10 Ways To Be Fat (In a World That Wants To Destroy You)
Writer's note: These are some things I have learned after living for more than two and a half decades as a fat person. This list isn’t, by any means, comprehensive or relevant to every fat person. Some things might be relevant to people who aren't fat. That’s great. But don’t forget that this is by and for fat folks. Some things I am still trying to learn. Some … [Read more...]
Treating My Friends Like Lovers: The Politics of Desirability
Frequently when desirability gets brought up as a point of conversation, it gets interpreted as boiled down to an individual experience or merely about the frequency with which culturally ugly folks have sex, or the access to sex partners we have which is certainly a part of the conversation but it is not the conversation. This becomes an easy way for folks to shut the … [Read more...]
Why We Need to Find Better Solutions Than ‘Gun Control’ to Gun Violence
We are reposting with thoughts, prayers and the work of the families affected in Florida. It has been an overwhelmingly active summer of gun violence. From the Pulse Night Club shooting, to the murders of Philando Castile, Alton Sterling, Korryn Gaines and Sylville Smith by police officers, too many people of color lost their lives at the hands of armed gunmen in recent … [Read more...]
