🌻

Being skinny ruined my life. If you’re thin and think to yourself, “why don’t fat people just lose weight?” Please read this

I was the “ideal fat” in the sense that I did everything skinny people wanted me to do. I tried every diet in the book. I exercised regularly. I worked with doctors and dietitians to figure out the best way to lose weight. But nothing worked. I did everything “right” to lose weight, and my weight stayed the same

But the thin people in my life kept telling me that I wouldn’t be happy, attractive, healthy, etc. until I lost weight. So, heartbroken, I came to the conclusion that anorexia was the only option left. It felt safer than bariatric surgery, and was obviously much more affordable

I became the perfect anorexic. 700 cal a day or less, except once a week I allowed myself 1400 cal. For reference, my body required at least 2800 to maintain weight, and at least 1800 to keep my organs and stuff fully functioning. Still, 700 a day, I persisted because everyone in my life told me weight loss was all that mattered. If dieting didn’t work, anorexia had to

And it did. My weight dropped all the way down to 110 pounds. I was skinny - underweight, even - in all sense of the word. The people in my life saw it as a miracle. The ultimate success story. My mother, my “friends,” my doctors, they all congratulated me on my accomplishment

When I confessed my eating disorder to my doctor, he told me, “that’s not the best way to go about it, but I’m glad you lost the weight.” My mother took pictures of me and sent them to relatives to brag

Okay, great. I was skinny. I did what I set out to do. But there were severe consequences

The most obvious was my joint pain doubled, maybe even tripled, to the point that I couldn’t leave the house without a wheelchair

I also developed several health complications, including fatty liver disease and extremely painful GERD. I had to see a handful of specialists and get an endoscopy because of severe stomach pain

My partner, who was the only person who saw my weight loss for what it was (a horrible thing that only happened because of an eating disorder), convinced me to enter a recovery program

For nearly a year, I relearned how to feed myself. I ate everything I was told to eat, nothing more and nothing less. My diet was 100% in the hands of somebody else

And I gained back every pound I has lost. All of the work to become thin went right out the window. It was proven to me that thinness and health were incompatible with my body. If I wanted to be thin, I had to forgo my physical and mental well-being. And vise-versa

Prior to the anorexia, I never once struggled with binge eating. I was naturally an intuitive eater, and I did a good job of having a well rounded diet. After the anorexia, after recovery, I developed a binge eating disorder. I had spent so long starving myself, that my brain and body got stuck in survival mode, desperate to consume any and all calories out of fear that I might starve again. To this day I struggle with binge eating

I did everything thin people wanted of me. I dieted. I exercised. And when all else failed, I starved myself. Now I have liver disease, stomach issues, and BED. Not to mention the loads of mental issues that accumulated as a result of my weight loss journey. During the throes of my anorexia, I had to be hospitalized for suicidal ideation

When you tell fat people to “just lose weight” you are suggesting they give themselves illnesses for which treatments are not always effective. You are asking fat people to destroy their stomachs and livers. When a fat person loses so much weight that they become skinny, they are likely giving up so much of their health in efforts to be treated like a human being

Then I read Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, stumbled across the Fatosphere (Shapely Prose and Junkfood Science...anyone remember those blogs?), and I stopped dieting for good. I bounced up back to my old weight in 18 months and have stayed there ever since. My body really, really wants to be fat. I didn't want to battle it, anymore. I wasn't going to win, and I had better things to accomplish with my time and effort.

I lost a lot of thin privilege, a shocking amount, in an incredibly short period of time. You can't ever convince me there isn't thin privilege. I was treated like a completely different person practically overnight. It made me--still makes me--incredibly sad. Fat people are the same people they'd be if they were thin.

Thin people, you would be the same, if you were fat. Do you think you'd deserve the derision you pile on fat people if you woke up fat, tomorrow? Side effects of medications, post-pregnancy body changes, accidents that reduce mobility, illness, and aging can all result in weight gain. Wouldn't you like to be treated like a human being worthy of good medical care, professional respect, romantic value, and basic dignity?

Treat fat people well: because we deserve it, because you might be in our place someday, and because it might save a life.

This is exceedingly funny because I, Aimee, descend from a jewish Holocaust survivor. My great grandpa Berco, paternal grandfather to my mom. He's the only surviving member of his family after they were invaded and murdered by nazis on 1930s Romania.

"Argentina is a white country" affects the brown, black and indigenous argentinians, not the racists.

"Argentina is an evil country aligned to the US and Israel" completely misses the point we're a third world country in Latin America under imperialist attack.

Milei's goverment is trying to pass laws that allow foreign goverments and corporations to buy our land. He's gifted them our water, lithium and scientific resources.

WE are the first victims of what's happening.

It's indigenous people whose land is about to be sold in this foreign takeover.

The victims of Argentinian racism are my brown friends who get stopped by the police.

The victims of the fascist state is my own fucking family, my 90 year old uncle with AIDS got his medication cut because they want him dead.

"Argentina chose its president, they must think like him" but Milei has support from foreign entities and rose to power thanks to the media painting him as "an economist" who would solve our terrible inflation problem. People were made to feel they had no other choice. We are a third world country with no global power whatsoever. We are the USA ans Israel's victim, not its ally.

Two-Spirit

Two-Spirit is a term created by Indigenous peoples of North America in 1990 to bring together the diverse gender identities and sexualities that exist within their cultures.

It is not a single gender. Each nation has its own traditions, names, and ways of understanding these experiences.

For many communities, Two-Spirit people held important social, cultural, and spiritual roles before European colonization.

The term should not be used by non-Indigenous people, as it is specifically connected to the cultures and experiences of the Indigenous peoples of North America.

Irawhiti (Māori)

Irawhiti is a Māori-language term used by some people to describe transgender or gender-diverse experiences.

The term is part of the contemporary revitalization of Māori language and culture, allowing Indigenous people to describe their identities through their own cultural frameworks.

Although it may be translated as "transgender" in some contexts, Irawhiti carries meanings connected to Māori cultural realities and should not be understood simply as a copy of Western gender categories. ( Flag design by Irauí on Tumblr. ) @irawhiti

takatāpui (Māori)

Takatāpui is a Māori term used by Indigenous LGBTQIA+ people in New Zealand.

Historically, the word referred to an intimate relationship between people of the same sex.

Today, many Māori people use the term to express both their Indigenous identity and their gender or sexual diversity.

More than a specific sexual orientation or gender identity, Takatāpui connects a person to their culture, ancestry, and community.

The term is part of the Māori cultural revitalization movement and demonstrates that gender and sexual diversity can be understood through Indigenous perspectives, not only through Western categories. ( Flag design by Irauí on Tumblr. ) @irawhiti

Māhū (Kanaka Maōli)

Māhū is a traditional Hawaiian cultural identity associated with people who embody both masculine and feminine qualities.

Historically, māhū people held important roles as educators, keepers of knowledge, healers, and transmitters of cultural traditions.

The arrival of colonization and Christian missions attempted to erase these identities, but many Native Hawaiians continue to preserve and revitalize the māhū identity today.

Māhū is not simply the Hawaiian equivalent of "transgender" or "nonbinary." It is a distinct cultural identity deeply connected to Hawaiian history, culture, and spirituality.

Tibira/ Tybyra

Tibira is a historical figure documented during the colonial period.

According to interpretations by Indigenous researchers and collectives, Tibira may be understood as a man who had relationships with other men, or as a person who lived with a feminine gender identity or expression, challenging the norms imposed by colonizers.

Their story is remembered as an example that gender and sexual diversity already existed among Indigenous peoples long before colonization. ( Made by me )

Çacoaimbeguira

Accounts of the Tupinambá people mention the çacoaimbeguiras.

According to interpretations by Indigenous researchers and collectives, they may be understood as women who had relationships with other women, or as people who lived with a masculine gender identity or expression outside the norms imposed by colonization.

Jim Holden

Haytham's friend and companion Jim Holden - this man was ready to risk it all for Haytham. Special shoutout to @freysai for converting me to these two, I'm an emotional wreck and haven't recovered (holtham doodles part 1/?)

I have never seen another allergy that has been so viscerally hated and mocked by people working in education like nut allergies. I’ve seen fellow teachers cringe that their classroom was the “nut free” classroom that year. Support staff that are trained and willfully don’t follow cross contamination protocol in the lunchroom because it’s too “tedious” or “time-consuming”. Full preschools + childcare centers that refuse to accommodate nut allergies. Schools where the only free lunch is a PB&J. Before/after school programs and summer programs whose food curriculum has nuts and doesn’t provide an alternative activity.

Allergy discrimination is so so insidious and prevalent. It’s happening behind their back and it is everything from the exposure joke to possibly causing someone to go into anaphylaxis from willful ignorance.

I was not downplaying this. The stigma is real, and people are 100% willing to let people with allergies die.

When my mom tried to enroll me in preschool, the school principal refused any basic accommodations like asking everyone to wash their hands after lunch before re-entering the classroom, not bringing straight up peanuts to snack time, etc. There was no such thing as a nut free classroom at the time. The principal told my mom and me (I was 4 at the time and definitely in the room when this happened) “if she’s so sick, she belongs in a bubble, not at school.” THE FUCKING PRINCIPAL! My mom had to threaten legal action under the ADA to get them to comply.

Look, I was on a 504 accommodation plan under the ADA for the entirety of my formative education (elementary thru high school). That’s all 12 years!!! And yet I have had teachers hand me items I’m allergic to as a “reward”. I have had other kids intentionally try to send me into anaphylaxis. One girl in 3rd grade asked me why I “wasn’t dead yet” when she had put on a lotion with almonds in it and then held my hand. I’ve had other parents write letters to the school saying what a terrible inconvenience it was to them to not be able to send their kiddo to school with PB&J, demanding I be Removed to a special education only class if my “needs” were such a “burden” to others. During elementary school “parties” held in the classroom on holidays and for student birthdays, I was always sent to sit out in the hallway or go to the library, because even though parents were only supposed to bring safe foods into the room (they had a list of all my allergies) they never once got it right. Administrators fought me tooth and nail for the right to carry my epi pen and other meds on my person at all times. Why they thought I would start dealing benadryl on the playground, I do not know. At lunch, I was always sat at a specific segregated table labeled the “Nut Free Table” alone because who the fuck is going to sit there with the literally segregated outcast? But ONCE notably I was sat on one side of a line of blue masking tape down the table top with the rest of my class on the other. One side was the NUTS side!!! As if allergens would respect that tape barrier. (Spoiler alert: they do NOT!)

Literally from preschool to my senior year of high school, I was “the peanut kid”. Other parents gave my mom books about how to “cure your child’s food allergies from HOME” by micro dosing with things they are allergic to (please never ever ever even attempt anything like a food challenge with a known allergen outside of the care and supervision of a medical professional, holy shit that’s so dangerous). My mom joined the PTA in my last year of high school so that I could maybe participate in all the senior-focused events like pool parties and breakfast at school on the first Friday of the month. The number of times another parent either (a) decided it wasn’t worth it to care or (b) intentionally brought peanut products to an event to spite either me or my mom??? I literally could not count. It happened constantly.

College was better, but I still occasionally had people BALK when I asked them to please not eat a Nature Valley bar with whole nuts in it right the fuck next to me in lecture, thanks. Work parties and catered lunches were always impossible. A few conferences I went to as an undergrad were SUPPOSED to be nut-free, but always fucked up the catering. At one, they set up snack tables by every exit of the conference auditorium so that when people left after the talk, they all congregated around the exits and opened macadamia nut cookies and granola bars. When I had subsequently had a massive allergic reaction and needed help getting home (I’d walked) after taking like 200mg of benadryl, the staff offered me a stack of napkins and a lukewarm apology.

Food allergy is a disability which touches literally every aspect of a person’s life. Everytime I share with someone new about what it was like growing up with my allergies, they have never heard anything like it in their lives. They’re always like “holy shit, seriously??? People did that??? Kids tried to kill you??? Parents wanted you kicked out of the classroom????” Yeah, man. Yeah. My own brother (who doesn’t have any allergies at all) doesn’t understand why I don’t “eat more adventurously” and why I won’t travel internationally. So, saying it REALLY LOUDLY for people in the back:

I can’t digest legumes or alliums. Period. End of. It isn’t an immune response, it’s a poison response. Those are not foods, to my body. Those are poisons.

Alliums include: garlic, onions, shallots, spring onions, chives

Legumes: peas, beans, soy

These are some of the most common foods in the world. They are in every ethnicity’s cuisine. They are in everything.

I too have had people say I should kill myself rather than live with the inability to have garlic and onions. I have had the “we should all stop eating meat” crowd tell me that I’m “throwing a tantrum” and that they’d rather have me die of malnutrition than let me eat the only protein I can digest. I was punished over and over and eventually kicked out of a homeless shelter for having “too many dietary restrictions”, even after getting a doctor’s note from the doctor that diagnosed me.

IBS is not uncommon, it’s so common that a lot of people assume common adverse reactions to FODMAP foods are normal when they are signs of IBS–and it’s a continuum. Some people, like me, absolutely cannot eat what their triggers are, but there are other FODMAPS they’re fine with. Some people have milder responses to FODMAPs. Some people, like my mom, basically can’t eat ANYTHING triggering or they are violently and dangerously ill for sometimes weeks on end. And sorry to talk about gross body stuff, but diarrhea can kill you, particularly if you do not have ready access to sanitary toilets and water and the ability to lay down (I was homeless on the street when I was diagnosed with IBS, I did in fact almost die).

Imagine having food poisoning all the time.

I am not in any way saying it is as sudden in its lethality as anaphylaxis.

But it wears you down. It takes away hundreds of sources of nutrition. I struggle with things like vitamin D deficiency, iron deficiency, scurvy, and on and on. The list of triggers is as long as my arm and it’s mostly vegetables. It isn’t just one food that makes me sick, it’s hundreds. Whole chunks of the food pyramid are just poisonous.

The prejudice is the same. The danger of someone else poisoning you on purpose, out of spite, is the same. The inability to eat adventurously is the same. The inability to engage in the most basic of human social behaviours, sharing food, is the same.

Because to many people, we are both the same thing: A Picky Eater.

And being A Picky Eater is apparently a capital crime, as in the punishment is death.

You are cut off from a huge source of sensory play and enrichment. You are cut off from doing anything but cooking from absolute scratch. You are cut off from a huge piece of human social experience. You are cut off, as illustrated above, from education. These are not small things. These severely lower your quality of life every second of the day. They isolate you from having friends or meaningful social interaction or an education. They force you to pick between not eating at all and using up all your energy on cooking from scratch; guess which choice I usually end up picking when I’m too depressed!

All because other humans will not accommodate you.

Because food allergies and intolerances don’t HAVE to be a disability. It doesn’t have to be this way. Abled people MAKE it one, for no good reason than laziness and cruelty.

And dietary restrictions are seen as something of a luxury, I can tell you that right now. Hospitals, asylums, shelters, group homes, schools, charities, rehabs, and other institutions simply will not accommodate anyone with food allergies or intolerances in my experience–like at all. Period. They would rather you die. I actively dread the idea that I might end up in one again someday, because I know I’ll starve to death while being blamed for it and mocked the whole time.

I don’t even bother asking for accommodation anymore, I simply tell people I will not go out to eat with anyone, I will not accept food gifts from them, if they want me to come over they have to let me cook, and the isolation and depression are the price I have chosen to pay for my safety. But I can only do this because I’m no longer homeless and have the luxury of a kitchen and a private home. That is not a guarantee for many, and it wasn’t always for me.