#fat bodies are the ones that are pathologized for existing

[seasonofprophecy]

I don't think reassuring people that skinny Narrators are valid is necessary. Skinny people aren't oppressed and will never lack in representation in all forms of media

#messages from mars #tsp #I'm not saying all narrators have to be fat I'm just saying that rendering a character without a canon appearance skinny #isn't going to make you at odds with the rest of the world #skinny is seen as the default body and the ideal body #fat bodies are the ones that are pathologized for existing #also ✋ i am skinny. do not say stupid shit at me about hating skinny people #and even if i wasn't skinny fat people acknowledging this sort of inequality shouldn't be seen as an attack #the Stanley parable

[astraltrickster]

What frustrates me about disability advocacy is that...of all the people I've seen talk about it, 99% of them - even ones who are disabled themselves - have eventually proven that their support has limits. Really stupid and arbitrary ones, at that.

You support disabled people...but if you see an adult with a DIAPER BULGE in their pants in public it's ON SIGHT, get your kink out of my face! Actually, even if it's not a kink, that's still gross and, like, it's not like the diaper exists to CONTAIN waste, you're a biohazard! Just stay home!

You support disabled people...but, ugh, you're so sick of masks, they feel so icky, the CDC isn't advising them anymore so really how bad can it be, if you don't want to be permanently disabled even worse than you already are then why don't you just stay home forever?

You support disabled people...but if you see anyone using a non-conventional straw that someone's billed as "anti-aging" on TikTok you proudly declare that you'll smack them, because what do you mean it might be a motor control or sensory thing?

You support disabled people...but no one is REALLY so disabled that they can't manage their lights conventionally, clean their homes by themselves, or hold a pen for extended periods of time or at all; that's just something people make up as an excuse for Bad Tech and exploitative luxury services.

You support disabled people...but, god, control your by-definition-uncontrollable tics, they're SOOOO annoying and rude!

You support disabled people...but when someone stops masking or runs out of spoons and starts speaking in a choppy, hard-to-understand way, it's a joke.

You support disabled people...but AAC is, like, sooooo annoying and hard to understand, learn to talk like a normal person instead of pointing like a baby or whatever, geez.

You support disabled people...but you hate image descriptions and video transcriptions because they're, like, sooooo ugly and transcriptions SPOIL things. (Not to be confused with "frequently not having the spoons to translate images and videos into text, which is a skill; one which everyone should try to develop, but a skill nonetheless" - I get that, it happens to me, but if you take issue with OTHER people adding them to your posts for Aesthetic Reasons, you're...kind of a dick! I'm not sorry for saying it!)

You support disabled people...but you think teehee funny joke annotations are a much more valuable use of caption tracks than, you know, actual captions are.

You support disabled people...but you still concern-troll people with armchair diagnoses of heavily stigmatized disorders for harmless weirdness, or try to paint them as icons of some kind of horrible social ill.

You support disabled people...but you're still convinced that every asshole is mentally ill, probably A Narcissist, and what do you mean that's a loaded thing to call someone when a heavily stigmatized disorder is rudely misnamed as such too, isn't it easier to, like, change the name of the disorder throughout the whole system than it is to just stop using that word as your go-to Bad Person Pathologizing Word, which you definitely need? (Or worse, you see no problem with this clash because you're convinced it IS Bad Person Disorder...)

You support disabled people...but you see someone mumbling to themself on the bus and you get as far away from them as possible because it's "scary".

You support disabled people...but you constantly try to pull "gotcha"s about people telling you not to touch people's assistive devices.

You support disabled people...but someone being okay with their delusional disorder and talking about that is BAD and PROMOTING SELF-HARM.

You support disabled people...but your body positivity still focuses exclusively on "people can be healthy and fat at the same time!" as if people who ARE fat because of health issues and/or have health issues BECAUSE of their weight don't exist or deserve support.

You support disabled people...but you declare that advocates who want us all to have more access to things that improve your quality of life are the REAL ableists for acknowledging that those things that you currently can't do tend to improve quality of life.

You support disabled people...but your advocacy for yourself involves distancing yourself from people with more support needs than you.

You support disabled people...but you treat addiction of any kind, or use of anything with known addictive tendencies, as a moral failing.

You support disabled people...until the accommodations they need clash with your own, then it's not just a benign incompatibility that sucks just as much for them as it does for you; no, you are an innocent victim and they are a horrible ableist.

You support disabled people...until it's too inconvenient. Too weird. Too scary. Once that line is crossed, it's not a disability issue anymore, they're, conveniently, just a Bad Person.

It's fucking exhausting and I'm sick to death of it.

#disability #serious tag #bitching #and even after i posted this i keep thinking of more shit people have said #not gonna edit them in because this post is long and has already been reblogged a couple of times #but might keep track of them in the tags or add more in a reblog #because. i can keep going.

[brehaaorgana]

Tbh every time I see someone start explaining the experiences of "skinny people" being treated with more idk...basic dignity regarding their body, I notice that they are inevitably wrong about the claims they make about what never or doesn't happen to thin people. And there's really no way to be like "actually, people do pathologize my appearance immediately and unprompted, this has happened all my life." Without derailing whatever point they're making.

I don't want to argue that skinny people are treated worse by society than fat people. I do wish people would stop making points about the insidiousness of fatphobia by declaring that skinny/thin people never experience xyz things when like...I have explicitly experienced them. That kinda sucks to hear.

"They never have to center their entire physical checkup around their weight or eating! The doctors don't ignore diagnosis of X or Y in favor of discussing their weight!" False, lol. Almost every single new medical professional I deal with has a lengthy interrogation about my weight, my eating, and what I eat. Every time. I also have to convince Drs that my weight is not a reason to refuse prescribing me medication I need. So.

"No one ever pathologizes their weight or appearance or assumes they're unhealthy based on sight alone!" Also false. Please tell that to the absolute unhinged weirdos who have diagnosed me with various eating disorders on sight TO MY FACE.

"people don't feel as entitled to making comments about their body, appearance, or clothes; they're not seen as a bad example for existing!" Again super false lol.

Hell, forget just comments! people would just grab me constantly from elementary through like, high school purely because of my size.

#body image cw #weight talk cw

[blubushie]

(this got long, sorry. I DID say you couldnt stop me, significantly less sorry about that.)

Okay first of all, the characters are stupid thin. Yeah, its a stylized artstyle, I can get behind that, cool, Vivzie’s gimmick is that her designs are fun and bouncy and remind you of DeviantArt, good for her. But a gimmick shouldnt get in the way of quality! Not every character has to be stick-straight thin! Beelzebub is a character from Hazbin Hotel’s spinoff, Helluva Boss. One aspect of her character is that she’s extremely skinny due to her stomach being a lava pit. Except.. She doesnt looks skinnier than the other characters! Because they all look like they can fit a grand total of half their nervous systems in those scrawny torsos! AND more on Beelzebub, she lives in a hive, she’s referred to as a ‘Queen Bee’, theres a lot of bee/insect/honey/motifs about her… and she’s a wolf. A bee-wolf hybrid, sure, but functionally a wolf. The thing is, insect anthros exists, and they look good, and if you had any sense while running a show, you’d either ditch the heavy insect motifs or learn how to draw a damn anthro bee. Angel Dusts body is as thing as his arms and the other characters don’t fare much better. The buff characters have a bad case of ‘skipping leg day’ just so Vivzie can give THEM toothpick waists too. Give me Asmodeus with stomach fat or give me death. Actually, give me 75% of the characters with more body fat or give me death. I say 75% because the skinniness isnt an inherently bad thing, the whole show is stylized so its pointless talking about fat ratios. The problem is that ALL THE FUCKING CHARACTERS ARE BUILT LIKE THIS. Second of all, theyre way too overbearing. Take Husker. Cool design. Nice and simple. Digging the overalls-- oh god why does he have wings. Why does his tail look like that. I guarantee you if you take away the wings and give him a normal cat tail, his design would be good. But for some reason they keep on adding more details, more giant huge additions, more weird accessories that SCREAM “emo preteen who pathologizes their kinda strict parents”. Sir Pentious, now! Like that he’s a snake and remains legless. LIke the pinstripes. Aaand his hat has its own face. Why? It detracts from the character’s facial expressions because now you’re looking at his damn hat for the facial expression changes. At least the eyes on his hood are just tiny pupils, but his hat has a fucking mouth too! But even so, the eyes on his hood are still distracting, especially since Sir Pentious’ head is so small in comparison. Thirdly, SO MUCH GODDAMN RED HOLY SHIT. Cool it with the fucking red. Please. We get that its hell. We can tell because a character swears every other words and pulls the ‘>:D’ face every damn second. You dont need to make everything red. Please just fucking stop it. Its nothing but eyestrain and takes away from good character designs when so much of their colours are just black and different shades of red. Characters like Vox, who is mostly blue, was genuinely such a relief even though he still had some red because FINALLY something wasnt red or a light hue of red. Heres the kicker, that 50k video of Verbalase being chased by Charlie had better colour schemes than THE SHOW ITSELF. It was OKAY TO LOOK AT. The colours didnt give me a headache for once. None of the main cast’s designs work together. Husker looks like a cartoon character. Charlie looks like a “Sans’ Girlfriend” persona. Vaggie looks like a fantasy rpg character. Alastor looks like someone’s 2 edgy 4 u serial killer oc. And none of them work together. DOUBLE kicker, one character has a nose that isnt a pointy, anime girl, miniscule thing, its a hooked nose. And she’s themed after the 1920s. And she’s fat. And she likes money-- its a fucking jewish stereotype. 

You could make these designs so much better just by remedying ANY ONE of the points I made! Change the colours! Remove obstructive elements! Give them varied bodies! These designs only appeal to little kids cause theyre bright and move around a lot! But theyre functionally awful! There I said it. God.

Presented without comment (I have nothing to add cuz you said it all)

#blu whos #I'm not tagging the fandom purely for your sake

[lightandwinged]

It’s been a hot minute since I said anything about my life on here bc people just... haven’t been around? I guess? Or maybe I haven’t felt the need to, I don’t know. BUT there are important updates, and I can break them down into three categories:

1. I’m sterile, but this time, it’s on purpose.

2. I have an official diagnosis of fibromyalgia.

3. I’m going to fight God in a Wendy’s parking lot.

Sterility-wise: after Roe got undone in June, I decided that even though the odds of me getting accidentally pregnant are very small, I wanted to make those odds zero. My health is Very Not Good (more on that in a minute), and while emotionally, I’d love to have a fourth kid, it’s just not practical right now. And I didn’t want anyone to control whether or not that happens but me.

So I called my OB-GYN, the one who took care of me through both of my pregnancies, and on October 3, I officially had a bilateral salpingectomy, meaning that my fallopian tubes no longer exist. Ideally, I would’ve kept them in a jar of ether or something for Maximum Creepiness, but that’s also not practical with three kids (two of whom are four-year-old twins), so instead, they were shipped off to pathology and then discarded as medical waste. Before, I couldn’t get pregnant because my body was just a dick. It was still a possibility, but a remote one. Now, though, this one thing is completely in my hands. If I really do want to be pregnant, if Kyle and I decide at some point that we want one or two or six more kids, we’ve got six embryos in storage.

But for now: my body is mine and mine alone. Nobody gets to decide who lives here but me. And that feels really fucking good.

Fibro-wise: about two years ago, I dealt with a major spine injury. Nothing paralyzing, nothing severe, but it left me with permanent nerve damage in my left leg and sent me to the ER in excruciating pain on Thanksgiving Day (definitely my worst Thanksgiving, 0/10, I want a refund). Calling it traumatic is severely understating the matter; any time I feel the slightest twinge in my back or left side nowadays, I have to talk myself down from panicking that it’s starting all over again.

Worse, I couldn’t get any of it treated because of insurance bullshit. Kyle’s company laid him off around the beginning of the pandemic, and then his new job laid him off exactly a week before I was due to have the surgery that would have solved my issue entirely. I lost my insurance, and the hospital didn’t want to accidentally have me foot the bill for it, so the surgery got put off and put off and canceled. By the time Kyle found his current (and very excellent) job and got on their insurance, the spine issue had technically resolved itself, but not before leaving me with zero feeling in a lot of areas of my left leg and with a foot that likes to cramp up randomly because it’s a little slow to get the nerve signals that it’s time to move a certain way. It’s awesome.

Shortly after the injury itself, I found myself getting really tired, really easily. I was also in a lot more pain than usual, and all the doctors I saw had different thoughts about what was causing it. I saw a sleep therapist and got on a CPAP, but her diagnosis was ultimately “bad at sleep schedule.” I talked to my primary, but her diagnosis was something along the lines of “fat also drinks soda.” BUT to my primary’s credit, she did get me a referral to a rheumatologist (even though she said, “it’s probably your diet. Have you considered cutting out carbs?”).

The rheumatologist did easily one of the more painful examinations of my life. She poked and prodded and pushed and pressed, and when it was all said and done, I’d apparently demonstrated pain in all of the areas necessary for a fibromyalgia diagnosis.

Fibromyalgia, essentially, is a disorder of the nerves. It typically happens after a physical or mental trauma, and it results in the brain misinterpreting every signal sent to it by every nerve as pain.There are a whole bunch of therapies available--some with more evidence behind them than others, some more accessible than others--but there’s no cure. It’s essentially a diagnosis of “you can do things to make things a little easier on yourself, but as of now, you’re going to be in pain the rest of your life.”

Which is neat.

So I’ve been processing that. On practical levels, I feel somewhat like I’ve been given permission to give myself a small break. No, I can’t do the things that I used to do, but I also didn’t used to have this condition that makes my everything hurt all the time and, gloriously, makes it so that NSAIDs and other pain relievers are more sugar pills than anything else. I don’t beat myself up as badly anymore when I look around at my messy house because I’m like... okay, it’s not just having twins and depression and no time. It’s having twins and depression and no time AND EVERYTHING FUCKING HURTS. And in that vein, too, I don’t feel terribly bad about renting a wheelchair for our Disney trip later this year OR about ordering a handicap placard from the state.

There’s also some vindication in that fibromyalgia isn’t caused or worsened by a lot of things that you, personally, can do. It can get easier to bear with exercise (essentially, you’re pointing out to your brain that pain is not the correct sensation here, so we can still walk and function), but it affects people of all walks of life in roughly the same way. It’s annoying as fuck, but I feel vindicated that no, this is not my fault.

BUT the biggest emotion is just... grief, I guess. Something is fucked up about my body, and it’s not a fixable thing at this point in time. I can do a lot by myself, but there’s also a lot I can’t do by myself, and that leaves me more than a little dependent on my family and friends for everything, and I do not like that. I was hoping that when the doctor checked me out, she’d say that I had RA or OA or something that’s inflammatory because at least then, I could look into anti-inflammatory treatments, but no. This is a pain disorder where anything inflammatory-related is completely irrelevant.

And I’m mourning because I hoped that it was something that I could easily reduce the pain about. There are nights I can’t sleep because I’m so uncomfortable and there are days when I can’t write or use my computer because my fingers hurt so much. And I’m moving into a treatment plan (after we get back from Disney because I literally do not have time for anything right now), but it’s still like. Ugh. UGH.

I feel unworthy of anyone. I’ve been flirting a lot more lately, and I’ve been pursuing some things casually, but I also feel like there’s never a real chance for anyone who doesn’t already love me to love me because I’m pretty damaged goods. And YES I know this is not intellectually honest of me and that I wouldn’t even dream of saying those things to someone else I know dealing with this, but it’s not always easy to turn off that spiral when it starts.

Which leads me to...

Fighting God: Ages and ages ago, I wrote a big long treatise here about my religious history, but the tl;dr is that I’m nonreligious/vaguely witchy. I’m a pastor’s kid, grew up all gung-ho about the whole thing, but gradually, it all slipped away. I was content with that, and up until recently, I wasn’t really mad about anything with the church because, hey, not my thing but whatever. At worst, following 2016, I was kind of :| at all the people in my life who weren’t considering how their actions affect others, but I was willing to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Not anymore.

In late August, I lost someone to cancer. He was someone who meant a lot to me for most of my life, and we met through church theater things. In a way, he was a sort of last tie back to that life--I built an imaginary life around him when I was a teenager, loved him like crazy. They say that you truly become an adult when you realize who “Landslide” is about for you, and for me, it was about him.

Anyway, he died of cancer, which is awful in and of itself. The church that we’d both been part of had this big fucking spectacle planned around his death and were thanking God for his death in the “at least he’s not in pain anymore” sense, which I found kind of sick. Like God put the goddamn tumor there, why would you thank God for literally any of the situation?

But THEN I found out that he had refused conventional treatment in favor of alternative bullshit, like he wanted some sort of miraculous “and then I had my scan and the cancer was just GONE and the doctors couldn’t explain it!” cure or he was anti-science or whatever the fuck. He refused conventional treatment until this past summer, and then he had surgery and it became apparent that, no, God had not chosen to do things bombastically, but by that point, it was too late. He died of a cancer that could have been easily fixed, had it not been for his faith, and that disgusts me.

Add my fibro diagnosis to that--because it’s treatable but not fixable--and I am very put out with God in general. And yes, we can obviously go into volumes of bullshit the church does anyway that I’ve always hated, and I’ve never been happy about any of it, but now I’m fucking pissed. Anti-Christian, anti-god, anti-whatever. And maybe that’s 3edgy5me, but anger is part of the grieving process, and I’m enjoying it far more than I enjoy when the anger fades for a minute and I can’t do anything but sit there and cry.

(yes, I am seeing my therapist about this, and we’re working through it, slowly but surely)

So there we go. My update. I’ll post pictures of the kids later.

#abby’s physical health #or lack thereof #abby's mental health #infertility #family planning #bilateral salpingectomy #abby and religion #and a partridge in a pear tree

[rachelsennott]

not to be one of those radical anti medicine/“modern medicine is an agent of social control, pathologizing/medicalizing behaviors society considers imoral, ugly, wrong, that deviate from our normal/acceptable bc if it’s a disease, it it’s an illness, if it isn’t how ppl are supposed to be or behave, then we don’t have to accept these ppl and their behaviors, we can instead focus on curing them so they can become healthy and normal and moral again” activists (esp bc im a doctor LMFAOO imagine the fucking irony) but we gotta STOOOOOP pretending we (ie our society) really actually truly honestly gives a fuck about eating disorders.

society only gives a fuck about bodies they label as repulsive and unattractive. especially female bodies!!! it’s only when they are “forced” to see ppl existing in bodies (too thin or too fat) labeled as unnatural, as ugly that eating habits become an issue.

we fucking THRIVE on disordered eating!!! what girl doesn’t have at least one memory of being body shamed by their mother? who hasn’t at least seen one “omg i also live in a ‘mom only eats a handful of nuts’ household!!”? influencers and celebrities make fucking bank advertising weight loss shakes and teas on social media. not to mention the billion dollar industry of diet and weight loss books.

it’s when bodies become bothersome, when they become unattractive (“men don’t like fat girls”/“men like girls with big butts and boobs and small bellies”/“men like a little bit of meat to hold on, who wants to hold a skeleton??”. always men always women alwaysalwaysalways men dictating what women need to look like alwaysalwaysalways a normal body is a body men want to fuck and show off and lust after) that they become sick bodies.

on the dsm criteria for anorexia? must have low bmi. oh, u have every single behavior of anorexia but u have a high bmi? nah, sorry, that’s not anorexia! oh, u have every single anorexia behavior but a high bmi? then congratulations on starting ur weight loss journey, we’re so proud of u!!

oh, so u used a diuretic/laxative or u fasted before a big event bc u want to look good/fit in ur outfit? omg we’re just like kim k on the met gala!!! omg noooo, it’s not an issue, it’s only like once in a while, relax!

eating the entire mcdonalds menu on a tiktok video? it’s a mukang when they r thin and a “today i had a binge episode” video when they r fat.

the sickness of eating disorders isn’t, ironically, in the eating behavior, it’s in the body that bears the behaviors.

(if u try arguing w/ me on this post i want u to know ill fucking doxx u u ugly rat, i have enough money to pay a good lawyer i won’t even hesitate!!!!)

#tw ed #tw eating disorder #diet culture #medicalization #medical industrial complex #patriarchy #misogyny #eating disorder #mental illness #fatphobes and proana/thinspo dont fucking touch this post #dont even breath near this post ill fucking kill every single on of yall #also no republicans #yall could never understand this level of reflexion and critical dee thinking #so dont even try arguing

[heavymetalyogi-blog]

It Isn't a Fetish, Fat People Are Sexy!

Coming to grips with my bisexuality wasn't a cake walk.  I came out to close friends as gay half a dozen times in high school, only to recant the next day.  When I was 19 I came out as bi, and the past 27 years haven't always been easy. Before I learned to recognize the ebb and flow of my bi-cycle, I would often get stuck in eddies of desire where I would question whether I was one way or another.  This was in no way helped by the monosexuals on either side of the aisle telling me it was a phase or a stopover on my way to gaytown.

As tough as it was to learn to exist within my desire for my same sex and other sexes, it was in many ways more difficult to learn to exist with my desire for people in fat bodies. I am excited by extra curves and it's just part of my desire quotient. It's not a fetish.  When I was young, I allowed others to shame me for what I was into.  I had a boyfriend in my twenties who was a chub. Gay men would find out I was with him and make comments.  I caved to those comments and a shadow of shame eclipsed our relationship until I faded away from it. 

People attempt to pathologize desire for fat people, which is why people sometimes develop fetishes. A totem doesn't develop without a taboo.  It is only through accepting bigger bodies are part of our desire quotient that we can develop healthy relationships without shame, where we learn to love the fat person as a person.

People judge me less now that I am fat. It makes sense that a fat person would be romantically involved with another fat person.  It's not because it's all I can get, it's my preference. I prefer BBWs, beefy bears,  chubs, and plus size Enbies. I love kissing, caressing, grabbing, nibbling, and biting on extra flesh.  I am mad the way their body shimmies and shakes while I'm inside them.  I love the way that rope frames their curves and recesses, the jiggle from a slap. I love holding them after our desires are meted out,  pressing myself into them, resting my head on big bellies and plump rumps.

When I was younger the shame made me embarrassed of public displays of affection including the casual intimacy of holding hands while walking down the sidewalk.  Now I'm proud to show off the prize on my arm, to have found someone supremely sexy and beautiful who wants to be with me.  I'm happy with me.

#fat acceptance #fat positvity #bisexual #bi bear

[vroooom2]

To all the haters prone to cancel culture, who write open letters for naming and shaming, with the hope to become insignificant internet celebrities inside their echo chambers of gross losers' community #hackeryou?howcrassur!goforaruninsteadofpromotingurdysfunctionaluselessegotistveilidntwkweakprotocol).

We're awake and better equipped than your fat bigorthin ill bodies that drown your ignorant brains into pathetic social attitudes reflected into poor technical skills. You have no interest for users security, as you're just egotist insecure individuals, who spend time to spread out your shitty private intimate information on social media. Your main driver is to be seen (and famous), and accepted into groups of like-minded dumb sickos, who validate your weaknesses, that you promote as rebellious strengths, which are just pathological. You fool yourself with immature behaviors, as you lack the knowledge to make a real difference in the world you hate, but you fully embrace.

We recommend to get a test for diabetes-2*, if you want to survive inside the bullshit created by your pitiful egocentric self, that would remain invisible if you couldn't bash those who can think for themselves, and who are obviously not you. You need us to exist and fill your empty life with jealousy, but we never needed you to keep our good vibes. To all the parasites:

You have zero talent unlike my

[explode-this]

I’m no longer eating disordered. At the height of my eating disorder days I was quite thin but kept hearing from everyone how good I looked. I’m happier mentally now but exist in a fat body; being fat is actually a victory because it means I’m no longer in daily battle with my body and mind. I eat moderately and until I got Covid and my hernia worsened I was exercising. But being fat means the medical establishment doesn’t see a person who has overcome significant challenges. They just see a “pathology” to be solved first before treating anything else, even the “nice” doctor who assured me she didn’t see my fat first.

All that to say if this hernia kills me, I’ll be haunting every doctor I’ve ever seen who didn’t take me seriously. Especially the one whose response to my explaining something about a milestone of being able to have icecream in the house without bingeing was to give me a list of good and bad foods like I was a fucking simpleton.

#cosmic thoughts #actually kind of concerned with my mortality right now #unlike any doctor I’ve seen

[whileiamdying]

Arca and Marina Abramović on Divas, Death, and Body Drama

ARCA: Yes. I’m a little afraid of it. Have you ever felt that there’s so much synchronicity that it can feel like paranoia or delusion? Sometimes there is so much meaning and symbolism moving through me that I start to forget where I end and where the world begins. When I think about synchronicity, I worry that maybe one’s agency is not driving things. What do you think about free will? ABRAMOVIĆ: I’m not crazy about it. We’re connected with the trees and the birds and the rocks and the cosmos and the stars and the black holes and the universe and everything. We are little dots in this big puzzle. When I was a kid, I always imagined that humanity was in the heel of an old, fat lady and that she was just kicking us around. ARCA: The one place I would argue that free will might exist is with ego. There’s an idea from Jungian analysis where you imagine that ego is like a sphincter. Waste moves through it, but it’s able to produce a lot of pleasure, too. If you give the ego too much power, then you’re a prisoner of it, but if you give the ego too little space, you also become a prisoner of it. ABRAMOVIĆ: Our problem as human beings is that we don’t live in our bodies enough. We live in our intellect, and intellect has fucked us up in so many ways. The body has ancient wisdom. It knows everything. It’s the most extraordinary machine or computer that we have. Think about our cells and our atoms. It’s like a microcosmos. The body can heal himself. The body can do anything. But the mind overthinks, and it fucks up every time. ARCA: If the mind is responsible for something as amazing as having the idea to come up with a performance and then doing the performance, that’s cosmic, too. ABRAMOVIĆ: So, what do you think about sex? ARCA: When I think about sex, the first word I want to say is “libido,” because we tend to think of libido as erotic energy, but really, it’s a life force. Imagine how it moves our bodies to touch and collide with each other and mate and breed and love and fear. Art comes from it, too. Our sex drive and creativity are birthed from it. ABRAMOVIĆ: I agree. There’s only two times in life that the brain stops thinking: when we sneeze and when we orgasm. That’s it. Let’s talk about transitioning. ARCA: I was trying so hard not to do it, but the image that finally reached me was of the body that I want to leave behind when I die. I support body modification in all its forms, and I like to think of transness not as a pathology, or transitioning as a response to a symptom, but rather the manifestation of an expression. It’s not about trying to fix a glitch. It’s about an expression that comes from within that you can’t shake and you don’t know why and the curiosity doesn’t disappear and it makes you unhappy not to listen to that. ABRAMOVIĆ: This is listening to your body more than listening to your brain, because what the body needs is transformation. That’s what it’s telling you. ARCA: You know what I see it as? It’s a static that was inside me that others didn’t realize was there. And what I did was I moved it outside. So now it can cause friction between my environment and my identity, but it feels less noisy that way than to keep it in. ABRAMOVIĆ: What do you think about dying? ARCA: I believe in death positivity. The more we face our fear of death, the less of a grip it has over our actions. ABRAMOVIĆ: I think I should adopt you.

#interview magazine #marina abramović #arca

[bhagwatiayurved]

Ayurvedic Medicine Of Diabetes

Ayurvedic medicine is an ancient Indian practice used to treat and prevent various diseases. It can be described as a set of habits that integrate physical and mental aspects to guarantee a longer and better quality of life. In recent times, Ayurveda has become an increasingly well-known practice, even in the daily management of diabetes, as it brings various benefits for treating this pathology. The increasing popularity of Ayurveda has led to the emergence of companies like Bhagwati Ayurved, which specializes in Ayurvedic Medicine of Diabetes, providing individuals with more options for integrating Ayurveda into their lives.

Ayurvedic Medicine Of DiabetesWhat is Ayurveda?

Ayurveda was born in India 3,000 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. It is a holistic treatment to preserve the person's health. Ayurveda acts on the body, mind, and emotions. According to Indian science, these last two aspects are the determining factors in the appearance of diseases. “Ayurveda is a disease prevention tool. In fact, it suggests the necessary formulas to avoid getting sick”.

Madhumeha (diabetes) in Indian history

Diabetes is not a pathology, and it is not something born recently. Diabetes has already been known in India for many centuries. The name by which it has always been referred, up to the present day, is Madhumeha. Madhumeha is a compound word of “ madhu ” (meaning honey or sweet) and meha (meaning excess urine). In the days when laboratory tests, which exist today, did not exist, Ayurvedic doctors diagnosed diabetes from urine. If there was a lot of sugar in the urine, many ants and mosquitoes were attracted to it, and therefore diabetes was diagnosed.

According to tradition, Ganesha, a Hindu god with an enormous human body but the head of an elephant, suffered from Madhumeha. His "messy" eating had caused him to develop diabetes. Diabetes, or Madumeha, is considered by Ayurveda to be a serious pathology that, if left untreated, can have serious consequences for the whole organism.

If glucose isn't absorbed properly, it stays around in the blood when we eat. Its presence can cause cardiovascular complications (heart attack, angina pectoris, stroke), sleep apnea, retinopathy, periodontitis, or even diabetic foot. In particular, in the main Ayurvedic texts, the following symptoms of Madhumeha are distinguished:

Sweet urine

Polyphagia (feeling of constant hunger)

Polydipsia (excessive thirst)

Obesity

Burning sensation on the skin

Epileptic foot

Cramps

Insomnia

Ayurveda and some useful treatments to manage diabetes

The Ayurvedic perspective on body balance and nutrition coincides with the recommendations of Western medicine on the correct diet for diabetes. It suggests, in fact, minimizing simple carbohydrates, fats, and other heavy foods, while increasing the consumption of "lighter" foods.

Guidelines

Limit intake of sweet products, reduce fat intake and avoid drinking alcohol.

Eat small portions of food throughout the day so that you don't experience blood glucose spikes.

Increase your intake of bitter foods like a gourd, bitter melon, or green leafy vegetables like chard, spinach, arugula, and others.

Eat lots of vegetables. Well-cooked green leafy ones are particularly recommended.

All spices, except salt. Liberally use hot spices in your diet, such as ginger, pepper, mustard seeds, even cayenne pepper, and astringents like turmeric.

Drink a lot of water. This will help eliminate toxins that can inhibit the valuable functions of the liver and pancreas. Drinking hot ginger tea helps stimulate slow digestion. Drink 2-3 cups of ginger tea daily to lower sugar levels.

All legumes are fine except soy and tofu, which should be eaten in moderation.

Eat lighter fruits like apples, pears, pomegranates, blueberries, and apricots. Cut back on heavier fruits like bananas, pineapples, grapes, and figs.

Whole Grains and Non- GMOs: Choosing barley, corn (non-GMO), millet, buckwheat, rye, quinoa, and amaranth. Reduce or eliminate oats, rice, and wheat.

Avoid fasting or skipping meals, which stress the body and reduce the flow of valuable nutrients.

Stay calm for good quality sleep to favor the dream phase.

Exercise or stay physically active.

Take warm baths with a few drops of sandalwood or lavender, and perform self-massages with dry ginger and cardamom.

In conclusion, Medicine of Diabetes in Ayurved offers a holistic approach to health and well-being, focusing on the balance between the body, mind, and emotions. The principles of Ayurveda, including healthy eating, physical exercise, positive thinking, hygiene, and balance, can benefit anyone, even those without specific health concerns. Additionally, Ayurveda has a long history of treating diabetes, or Madhumeha, with its emphasis on diet, exercise, and stress reduction. While Ayurveda may not be a substitute for Western medicine, its principles and treatments can be complementary and offer potential benefits for overall health.

#Herpes Simplex Ka Ilaj #Herpes Ka Ilaj #Genital Warts Ayurvedic Treatment #Best HSV Treatment #Medicine for HSV #HSV Treatment

[tanadrin]

Maybe part of the reason you don't hear an alternate narrative to what science says about being fat is that people take it personally and get defensive and avoidant, and decide that "common sense" is enough. It's easy to think of examples that confirm the received wisdom. That's only a limited part of the picture, obv, but when you want to believe, it's persuasive. If you look for more info, you might be wrong, and that's worse(1/3)

Ex)I want to believe bc I was chubby, gained some weight, and it really seems that it made some existing pain issues worse - I'd love to believe the pain would lessen if I lost it, bc nothing else works. Plus, I hate how I look. Maybe in a better world, I wouldn't, but I live in this one. Despite trying for decades, I cannot love it. So if the science says there's nothing I can do about either of those things, that's a threat.(2/3)

(No one needs to tell me this is wrong, btw, I already know this, I'm just using my feelings as an example) (2.5/3)

So I won't listen to MP despite enjoying You're Wrong About, bc if they present that kind of evidence (esp in that triumphant outraged tone that often gets used in these discussions), I'll literally want to die. It's easy to take that feeling and say "therefore the evidence must be wrong". This is bad to do, but hard not to, and a lot of ppl are fucked up about this. Not saying this is better than basing this position on disgust, just saying it might be part of what's happening.(3/3)

I sympathize, anon, and this is sort of exactly what I was trying to get at in my original post on this subject. There are people who for whatever reason don't want to be fat, or can't just "learn to accept it," and while it might be all well and good to say dieting doesn't work, I think it's still worth asking what does work. Maybe it's appetite-suppressing medication--this is looked down on, seen as somehow tawdry or unhealthy, but I think people should be allowed to choose what they do with their own bodies, and that that goal isn't mutually exclusive with trying to make society's standards of appearance less toxic. Heck, there are some people out there for whom the psychological benefits alone of that crazy pill that sometimes causes people to overheat and die might be worth that risk, if being fat makes them sufficiently miserable.

It sucks that the only way to get society to take bodily self-determination seriously is medicalization and pathologization.

[fatliberation]

FAT BODIES EXISTED BEFORE COLONIZATION AND THEY WILL EXIST AFTER

By Caleb Luna, Fat Queer (of Color) Critical Theorist | @chairbreaker 

(Tw: Anti-Blackness, kidnapping)

The Venus of Willendorf, carved nearly 30,000 years ago (28,000–25,000 BCE) is the oldest three dimensional representation we have of a human being. 

[ID: Text that reads, “She was carved during the Aurignancian period of the paleolithic age by a prehistoric people known as Grimaldi Man. The Grimaldis were Black homo sapiens migrants from Africa and the first inhabitants of Europe... What does it mean for this celebrated, ancient work of art to be the naked body of a fat Black woman?” Andrea Shaw Nevins, “The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies” To the left of the text, an image of Venus of Willendorf, a small, brown, faceless sculpture of a round female body with her knees bent and her hands resting on her breasts.]

Fat bodies are not aberrations of a modern era of excess and indulgence; we have been here since the beginning, early race scientists pathologized & uglified fatness when they saw it on Black & Indigenous people; in contrast, thinness became a value of white supremacy through beauty standards.

Thousands of years after the Venus of Willendorf was carved–and before it was uncovered–Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman was one of the many Indigenous Khoi Khoi (South African) women kidnapped by European settlers & displayed throughout Europe as exemplary of Blackness at the turn of the 20th century. “[Baartman’s] presence as a symbol of Black femininity helped... Make fatness an intrinsically Black, and implicitly off-putting, form of the feminine embodiment in the European scientific and popular imagination.” -Sabrina Strings, “Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia”

[ID: Text that reads, “How many statues of Black women do the ancients have to hide for you to dig up and understand what God looks like. How many times do fat Black women have to save your life in song. What are you paying attention to? This is why you can never see God in yourself. You are damned by hatred of fat Black women. And no part of you could ever live without them. This is why the universe (huge, black, unfolding, expansive) shakes and shakes her head, you fools. You wasteful fools.” Alexis Pauline Gumbs, “M Archive: After The End of The World” To the left of the text, is the same image of the Venus of Willendorf as described in the first image.]

We cannot think fat stigma outside of anti-Blackness; we cannot think fat liberation outside of Black liberation. 

[ID: Text that reads (in bulletpoints), Further Reading: •Combahee River Collective Statement •Rebecca Earle, “The Body of The Conquistador: Foor, Race, and The Colonial Experience In Spanish America, 1492-1700″ •Amy Farrell, “Fat Shame: Stigma and The Fat Body in American Culture” •Andrea Shaw Nevins, “The Embodiment of Disobedience: Fat Black Women’s Unruly Political Bodies” •Sabrina Strings, “Fearing The Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia” To the left of the text, is the same image of the Venus of Willendorf as described in the first image.]

Source: @chairbreaker on IG

#@chairbreaker #tw: anti-blackness #tw: kidnapping #fat liberation #black liberation #colonialism #anti-blackness #anti-fatness #intersectionality #misogynoir #misogny #fat history

[cuntess-carmilla]

On disability and gender

I'm writing this from my perspective as a dyadic TME non-binary lesbian (also mixed but very pale and non-Black, as well as relatively thin). I will group myself with women but like, I'm also not really a woman it's complicated lol. I say this because I can't have first-hand comprehension of all the possible dynamics between gender and disability, and other physically disabled people are very much encouraged to add their own thoughts and perspectives to this post.

I don't feel equipped to speak on how being disabled and intersex impacts gendered experiences because I have too much left to learn, so I'm sorry that I'm not going to go into it. It's not because I don't recognize that struggle, it's because I just don't have the range, so please, if you're an intersex and physically disabled person and you want to expand on this, don't be afraid to do so.

Able-bodieds can reblog but don't speak out of turn.

------------------------------------------------

For a long time I've been trying to articulate my thoughts and pain on how physical disability impacts our gendered experiences and I think I'm finally starting to get to it.

When you're physically disabled you're immediately stripped of a (willing) gender identity as well as desexualized.

Gender is embodied and performed. You can embody it "incorrectly" and perform it "poorly". Everything regarding the embodiment of physically disabled people is seen as incorrect, and the literal meaning of "disabled" is that we can't perform the same way that able-bodied people can, or at least we can't without severely impacting our wellness.

Disabled men are emasculated. Constructs of ideal manhood are in big part built on things such as physical prowess, never expressing vulnerability, being self-sufficient outside of anything domestic, and conquering women sexually and romantically.

Disabled men are seen as weak, they are seen as pathetic for having visible vulnerabilities or (if their disability isn't immediately visible) for exposing their vulnerabilities instead of "sucking it up". By needing aid, accessibility and carers that do more than what a wife would traditionally do for any man, the sense of self-sufficiency men are supposed to perform is unavailable to disabled men. All disabled people are desexualized and seen as repulsive once our sexualities are acknowledged, and even disabled dyadic cishet men can't escape this. Able-bodied women see them as unfit for any sort of serious romantic or sexual partnership. Not to mention too the traditional role of men as providers and how difficult it is for any disabled person to acquire wealth at all, let alone enough to support more than ourselves alone. The rates of poverty for physically disabled people are fucking astronomical, so most disabled men can't even use that to their advantage in romance and sex to make up for all the other ways in which they're at a disadvantage compared to able-bodied men.

Disabled women fail at embodying and performing every single aspect of traditional womanhood too, but in particular; domestic labor, sexual labor, and beauty standards.

All labor is difficult if not downright impossible when you're disabled. Disabled women who need carers as adults are seen as complete failures because, even as children, but especially as adults, we're the ones who're supposed to be the carers of others, not the other way around. People love to pretend that women are coddled more than men, but nothing breaks that illusion more than being a disabled woman. A woman's needs are supposed to be invisible and self-fulfilled, or else we're whiny spoiled bitches, and guess what that means for disabled women. When we can't perform this pristine role we're immediately marked as failures, we're undesirable and nothing but a parasitic drag in the lives of abled people.

Yes, not all disabled women are straight, plenty of us are bi or lesbians, many are also aro/ace, but the point is that the patriarchy doesn't really give a shit what a woman's sexuality is, because no woman is seen as having sexual agency, so even if we're not straight we're expected to exist to satisfy men sexually. I cannot describe how difficult it is to be sexual, even when you're not ace, if you're physically disabled. Speaking from my own experience, trying to maintain a sex life as someone who experiences chronic fatigue and chronic pain is one of the most frustrating and demoralizing aspects of my disability. I want sex, I want to want sex, to be able to fuck my fiancé, but most of the time I simply can't gather the energy to even feel horny. I feel like such a failure of a lover because of it. Even though my fiancé is patient and understanding with me!

Can you imagine what it is like for disabled women who aren't as "lucky" as me, to have a partner who understands that we simply can't do it all the time even if we do want to? I don't want to go into too much detail about this because it's very painful and triggering to many, but I think you can imagine what happens to a lot of disabled women (and disabled people in general) when we're not satisfying a partner sexually and they get too frustrated by it. Being as vulnerable as we are, nobody cares much what happens to us. More so since, again, physically disabled people are seen as sexually repulsive, so if anyone wants sex with us we're supposed to be "thankful" for it, no matter the circumstances.

As for beauty standards, any woman who doesn't fit traditional beauty standards will know just how badly men treat you when they don't find you physically appealing, and well... Let's just say that a cane or a wheelchair aren't seen by society as particularly attractive, no matter how much the woman using them fits traditional beauty standards otherwise. Then there's female amputees, women with deformities, etc. In my case, I'm a literal mutant. If I don't disguise my tells with corsetry, long sleeves, and so, so much more, my body looks "off", I have been told repeatedly that my body looks "off" my whole life, and I'm one of the least visibly disabled ones! Even regarding body hair it's fucking hell. My collagen is so elastic that when new hair grows it stays ingrown unless I manually break my skin with a needle or a pumice stone (no, gentler ways of exfoliation don't work), but shaving isn't ideal either because my skin is, due to my altered collagen too, literally transparent and you can see the roots of my dark hairs under it even if I shave down to accidentally harming my skin with the blade.

Performing femininity at all is just... It's fucking hell. If it's exhausting for able-bodied women, can you imagine what it is like for us? I can barely manage to shower, by the time I'm done with my hair, makeup and outfit, every bit of my very limited energy is depleted and then I still have the rest of the day to go through. And I LIKE being feminine. I like wearing makeup and wearing the outfits I wear and yet I still dread it when I know I'll have to do more than stay in my pajamas at home.

Also, the perceived fragility of disabled women isn't the type of fragility that is seen as desirable in women. It's not delicacy. Wheelchairs, canes and other mobility aids aren't seen as "delicate" or "demure". Neither is kinesio tape, or compression stockings, or any other sort of medical equipment which, on top of it all, tend to not be very "aesthetic". Our fragility isn't the romanticized type, it's the "wow, you're an useless burden who can't serve me the way I expect you to" type.

When it comes to "binary" disabled trans people (for a lack of a better term) the degendering is even more intense than it already is for their cis counterparts (all that I described above applies to them too). There's a dichotomy of the even heavier denial of their actual genders as men and women due to the combination of their transness and disabilities, contrasting with how even if they were to conform to their assigned genders at birth they'd still be seen as failures at it due to everything I've already stated. There's also the sentiment that their identifying outside of their assigned gender at birth is a sort of consolation prize, something they're going for only because they were failing at being proper cis men and cis women, and thus their actual genders are even more invalidated and effectively pathologized in the most medical sense of the word, which is already a problem for all trans people, but for physically disabled trans people this intensifies the problem even more.

When it comes to non-binary disabled people things get so fucking confusing and infuriating. If binary disabled people get denied their manhood and womanhood, best believe that multigender disabled people (bigender, genderfluid, etc) are denied all aspects of their genders even harder. Not even completely agender disabled people are safe from being seen as failures of their gender identities by people who would perfectly respect the identity of an agender but able-bodied person. The fact that the default gendered status of all disabled people is forcefully degendered makes it so agender disabled people aren't seen as having any agency or self-determination in their (lack of or neutral) gender identity, it's seen as a passive inevitability from their embodiment, so it doesn't really "count", while simultaneously being subjected to the general transphobic bullshit any other agender person would be subjected to.

All of these things already affect white, thin and dyadic physically disabled people. When you add race (especially Blackness and/or being dark skinned), fatness and being intersex into the mix, the ways in which we're degendered and misgendered are off the fucking rails.

We can't fucking win.

#disability

[colorisbyshe]

lizzo promoting “detox” “fast” diets and supplements makes me so sad. i’m on my own weight loss journey, so i won’t pretend to be some morally superior fat person, and i absolutely recognize that making real people count as “representation” or “inspiration” for their marginalized identities only ends up in pain. real people don’t exist to make you feel good about yourself, i know that.

but like... fat people really do so rarely see themselves in the media. to have one of the most famous fat icons promote such unhealthy weight loss (while claiming that it’s nutritionist based) is such a major fucking blow, especially since you can scroll back just a couple posts on her instagram and see her posting body positivity.

i don’t think weight loss is inherently anti-body positivity, the same way i wouldn’t accuse someone who wears make up as being anti-feminist, because i do get how even the proudest people can bow to the pressure. in many ways... i did.

BUT to any fat person who is considering weight loss (for any reason), it’s only responsible to explain healthy ways to do it. so much of diet culture is just dressed up disordered eating and it’s so, so easy to fall into that in the name of speed and self hatred. so much of diet culture pathologizes food and being hungry. to crave food is a moral failure. to give in is a punishable offense.

to anyone who is seeing shit like this... i don’t want to just say “be proud and ignore it” because i know it’s not that easy. you can know your body can be beautiful, healthy, and what’s keeping you alive while not truly internalizing that as positvity. you can be proud and resent the fact that your pride is punished at the same time. you can not care about beauty standards and still feel the opportunities and love lost because other people do.

so, i just want to say... no matter if you are content with your weight or not, please don’t give in to images like what lizzo is posting. if you want to lose weight, do it safely, healthily, and take your time. your goal should be losing less than 2 pounds a week. you should still be eating when you’re hungry, even if you hit your calories for the day. food is your friend, don’t make it your enemy. detoxing isn’t real. juice diets aren’t healthy. don’t cut things out completely, that often just leads to binging it later.

if you want to claim you’re losing weight for your health, you can’t do it unhealthily. developing an eating disorder is not healthy. stressing out and feeling guilty about food is not healthy. feeling resentful of your own body is not healthy.

your body does everything it can to keep you alive and well. no matter what, please don’t hate it. don’t hurt it. don’t punish it for craving fuel.

there are safe ways to lose weight. you aren’t a bad fat person for being tired of fatphobia and wanting out. but please, please if that’s where you are, do it safely.

i wish we didn’t live in a society where it comes down to that, where anyone feels pressured to lose weight, let alone do it unhealthily (and then promote it, like Lizzo is), but i get the reality of it. i was a hundred pounds overweight at just over 5 feet tall. i get it. 

just... please do it safely. if you need advice, i got it. just... don’t starve yourself or go on a dumb ass cleanse. please. for your sake. for mine. for every other fat person who sees you do that and internalizes it.

be careful. treat yourself with care, even when it’s hard.

#fatphobia cw #weight loss cw #diet cw #eating disorders cw #ed cw #body image cw

[genderqueerpositivity]

1) Nonbinary, to me, is a word that I can used to express that my gender is outside the man/woman binary. I also identify as trans: my gender identity is different from the one expected of a person who was assigned female at birth.

I identify as genderqueer, which is my preferred gender label. I connect with the history of the term, and the association with queer identity. I also like that genderqueer describes my gender for what it is instead of what it is not ("My gender is queer" as opposed to "My gender is not binary".)

I'm also transmasculine and gendervague (my experience of gender identity is inherently connected to my neurodivergence).

2) My pronouns are they/them/their, he/him/his, or ey/em/eir.

3) I prefer Mx.

4) On the nonbinary flag, the yellow stripe. On the genderqueer flag, the green one. On the trans flag, the white one. All of which are for people whose genders are outside of the binary.

1) 17/18. This is around the time I joined tumblr and around the time I discovered an article about genderqueer identity written by a genderqueer person. (I googled to link it, as I still remember the author's name and the article name, and the website no longer exists. That sucks.)

2) Same as above. I was just, amazed, that being neither a woman or man was something that a person could actually do. Actually be.

3) I definitely questioned if I could be trans before I learned that I was possible to be nonbinary. I would've been like...15/16? I remember hearing about Chaz Bono's transition on TV. And again, I was like, people can do that??! Everyone around me reacted to the news of his transition with so much disgust and confusion. I didn't think I was a man, not entirely anyway, and if you aren't a man then you must be a woman. And the way that people around me spoke of transgender people, I believed that I didn't want to be like that anyway.

Fuck internalized transphobia.

4) I've come out to some people. Mostly other trans folx--friends, people in my local community. I was outed as a lesbian to my family around the same time that I discovered nonbinary genders (almost a whole decade ago). And it went very badly for me. As a result, I'm not out to most of my family as trans. But I did just come out to my dad on the 4th of July, and that went far better than I could have expected.

5) Being out is important to me. But I'm not certain how the rest of my coming out will go.

1) I get to define myself on my terms. I get to choose the names, and the labels, and the pronouns. I get to play with gender presentation and to find different ways to express my gender. I love being in trans centered spaces, I love the name tags, the pronoun pins, and the consciously inclusive and neutral language.

2) I've learned a lot about gender and self-identity. I've learned that what makes me happy matters.

3) I've gained a better understanding of myself and what I want for my future. I've gained friends within the community.

4) When someone uses my name, when I hear my pronouns spoken out loud, the first time (and every time since) that I've put on a binder.

1) I'm neurodivergent, chronically ill, and fat. I am not 30 yet, but I'm much closer to 30 than 20.

2 and 3) My gender identity and neurodivergence are very connected, I'm gendervague. That isn't a popular statement to make. Transphobes manipulate the overlap between the trans and neurodivergent communities in an attempt to pathologize transness. In reaction, those within the trans community who buy into respectability politics openly mock the terminology created by autistic and otherwise neurodivergent trans people that we use to describe the ways that our genders and neurology are connected.

In some ways neurodivergent and/or autistic trans people are both invisible and too visible.

At a few weeks short of 28, I'm older than many of the most visible faces in the nonbinary community; I'm almost 28, and the closer I get to 30, the more I wonder what aging as a nonbinary person will look like. There aren't as many visible nonbinary people over the age of 30 as there are under the age of 30. Nonbinary identity is often presented as a phase that young people go through--that is unfair to nonbinary youth, and it is also unfair to older nonbinary people.

I'm fat and afab, which means that I cannot achieve the nonbinary ideal of thin, flat chested, androgyny. The majority of visible nonbinary people are thin and conventionally androgynous. Even while binding my chest, my fat body is only ever perceived as afab.

4) Nonbinary people can look like anyone. I look like a nonbinary person right now, just as I am. I'm just as nonbinary right now as I will be once I've medically transitioned (which I intend to in the future.) My other identities don't make me less nonbinary.

#catching up on these