1
00:00:02,360 --> 00:00:05,800
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Laverne Cox Show. A reduction of shondaland

2
00:00:05,800 --> 00:00:15,200
Speaker 1: Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio. I ate only

3
00:00:15,600 --> 00:00:18,079
Speaker 1: like lettuce and toast for three months, and then I

4
00:00:18,079 --> 00:00:21,639
Speaker 1: remember going to my doctor after that summer and I

5
00:00:21,720 --> 00:00:25,480
Speaker 1: had changed sizes pretty radically. Clearly that's what happens when

6
00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:29,240
Speaker 1: you don't eat anything. And he just said, congratulations, and

7
00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:31,520
Speaker 1: if you just keep losing weight, maybe you can date

8
00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:34,320
Speaker 1: one of my sons. And there was no question of

9
00:00:34,400 --> 00:00:38,279
Speaker 1: this child on the verge of pubescence, like what's going on,

10
00:00:38,440 --> 00:00:41,760
Speaker 1: why are you what are you doing differently? This is alarming.

11
00:00:41,800 --> 00:00:53,480
Speaker 1: There was none of that from anybody. Hello everyone, I'm

12
00:00:53,479 --> 00:00:56,040
Speaker 1: the Verne Cox and welcome to the Laverne Cox Show.

13
00:00:56,840 --> 00:01:01,360
Speaker 1: On this episode, we're discussing fat phobia and diet culture. Now.

14
00:01:01,480 --> 00:01:04,200
Speaker 1: As an actress, I've been very lucky that I've worked

15
00:01:04,240 --> 00:01:07,520
Speaker 1: on productions where no one's ever asked me to lose weight,

16
00:01:07,560 --> 00:01:10,520
Speaker 1: and I haven't ever been body shamed in the context

17
00:01:10,640 --> 00:01:13,880
Speaker 1: of my acting work. But when it comes to fashion

18
00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:17,920
Speaker 1: and red carpets and magazine shoots, it's nothing very different.

19
00:01:18,360 --> 00:01:22,120
Speaker 1: When I've had photo shoots, particularly for higher fashion magazines,

20
00:01:22,520 --> 00:01:24,600
Speaker 1: I've gone in and there have not been closed that

21
00:01:24,640 --> 00:01:28,440
Speaker 1: fit me. And I'm generally a size ten or twelve.

22
00:01:28,680 --> 00:01:32,000
Speaker 1: Occasionally I've been a size eight, but um my weight

23
00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:35,959
Speaker 1: has probably fluctuated within thirty pounds since I've been in

24
00:01:35,959 --> 00:01:39,959
Speaker 1: the public eye. It is very difficult not to internalize

25
00:01:40,319 --> 00:01:43,400
Speaker 1: feelings of being less than because I'm not sample sized.

26
00:01:43,959 --> 00:01:46,920
Speaker 1: But what changed my perspective on all of this was

27
00:01:46,959 --> 00:01:50,760
Speaker 1: the work of my guest today, Virgie Tobar. Virgie is

28
00:01:50,760 --> 00:01:52,400
Speaker 1: the author of the books You Have the Right to

29
00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:56,880
Speaker 1: Remain Fat and The Self Love Revolution, Radical Body Positivity

30
00:01:56,880 --> 00:01:59,640
Speaker 1: for Girls of Color. She is also a contributor for

31
00:01:59,640 --> 00:02:02,480
Speaker 1: Forbes dot Com, where she covers the plus size market

32
00:02:02,680 --> 00:02:06,560
Speaker 1: and how to end weight based discrimination at work. Her podcast,

33
00:02:06,920 --> 00:02:11,320
Speaker 1: Rebel Eaters Club investigates the North American relationship to food

34
00:02:11,480 --> 00:02:14,840
Speaker 1: and body. I couldn't be more thrilled she's here to

35
00:02:14,880 --> 00:02:19,280
Speaker 1: discuss this important subject matter. Please enjoy my conversation with

36
00:02:19,360 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: Virgie Toba Virgie. How are you doing today, daring, I'm

37
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:29,079
Speaker 1: so good. I was just reading your piece in paper

38
00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:32,560
Speaker 1: and it's filled me with inspiration. And I really want

39
00:02:32,560 --> 00:02:34,799
Speaker 1: to talk about horror movies. But whenever you want to

40
00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:39,520
Speaker 1: talk about let's do it. The funny thing is so

41
00:02:39,639 --> 00:02:42,120
Speaker 1: the funny thing is that in Bad Hair, the film

42
00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:45,000
Speaker 1: that I talked about in that Paper magazine cover story,

43
00:02:45,480 --> 00:02:49,480
Speaker 1: I play a character named Virgie. Yes, I know. It

44
00:02:49,600 --> 00:02:53,840
Speaker 1: was so exciting, So I okay, so I do want

45
00:02:53,880 --> 00:02:55,960
Speaker 1: to say this. I became aware of your book and

46
00:02:56,000 --> 00:02:59,040
Speaker 1: then my friend Matt mcgory shared an excerpt of your

47
00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:02,040
Speaker 1: book on Stagram and it stopped me in my tracks.

48
00:03:02,120 --> 00:03:04,119
Speaker 1: And the moment I saw it, I was like, oh

49
00:03:04,160 --> 00:03:07,519
Speaker 1: my god, this is me. So I went and write

50
00:03:07,520 --> 00:03:09,600
Speaker 1: your book immediately, and I cried a lot, and I

51
00:03:09,680 --> 00:03:13,639
Speaker 1: made me think and I knew that we needed to

52
00:03:13,680 --> 00:03:16,120
Speaker 1: have a moment like this some day, and I'm so

53
00:03:16,160 --> 00:03:20,519
Speaker 1: excited that we're having it now. Can we start with language,

54
00:03:20,919 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: Because you use the word fat in the title of

55
00:03:23,080 --> 00:03:25,000
Speaker 1: your book, you have the right to remain fat. You

56
00:03:25,040 --> 00:03:27,160
Speaker 1: call yourself a fat activist, but there are a lot

57
00:03:27,240 --> 00:03:29,480
Speaker 1: of people out there who do not embrace the word fat.

58
00:03:30,280 --> 00:03:32,120
Speaker 1: We have where it's like curvy, we have where it's

59
00:03:32,160 --> 00:03:34,639
Speaker 1: like overweight plus size. I was on Twitter one time

60
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:36,760
Speaker 1: and I used the word overweight and someone was like,

61
00:03:36,760 --> 00:03:41,560
Speaker 1: that's problematic. Can you tell us in the fat Activist movement,

62
00:03:42,040 --> 00:03:45,000
Speaker 1: What language do we want to let go of, what

63
00:03:45,240 --> 00:03:49,640
Speaker 1: we reclaimed, what language we using to talk about this? Yeah,

64
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:53,040
Speaker 1: I think that fat really is the word that we

65
00:03:53,160 --> 00:03:58,080
Speaker 1: use to talk about bigger bodies. And there's definitely a

66
00:03:58,120 --> 00:04:00,720
Speaker 1: lot of interrogation and criticis them, and you know, just

67
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:06,680
Speaker 1: kind of like critical awareness of medicalizing and pathologizing terms

68
00:04:06,720 --> 00:04:10,640
Speaker 1: like overweight or obese, which are just essentially ways of

69
00:04:10,840 --> 00:04:15,440
Speaker 1: medicalizing a type of body. But I think another important

70
00:04:15,440 --> 00:04:18,240
Speaker 1: thing is when you are somebody who is living in

71
00:04:18,240 --> 00:04:21,320
Speaker 1: a bigger body, you get to decide what language you

72
00:04:21,360 --> 00:04:23,880
Speaker 1: want to use about your body. So I think that

73
00:04:23,920 --> 00:04:28,440
Speaker 1: there's a political vernacular that is useful to understand, but

74
00:04:28,520 --> 00:04:33,320
Speaker 1: when it comes to the individual experience, whatever language feels

75
00:04:33,440 --> 00:04:36,279
Speaker 1: right is really the language that people should stick with.

76
00:04:36,320 --> 00:04:38,760
Speaker 1: And I think also there's a code switching element, right,

77
00:04:38,800 --> 00:04:41,479
Speaker 1: Like I might not use the word fat to talk

78
00:04:41,520 --> 00:04:43,640
Speaker 1: about myself the first time I meet somebody if I

79
00:04:43,640 --> 00:04:45,680
Speaker 1: don't know where they stand on this, or if I

80
00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:48,080
Speaker 1: just don't want to have a thirty five minute conversation

81
00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:51,240
Speaker 1: about whatever their attitudes about it are, right. So I

82
00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:54,760
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of fluidity, there's a lot of

83
00:04:55,000 --> 00:04:58,560
Speaker 1: change that's happening both on the individual and the political level,

84
00:04:58,560 --> 00:05:00,400
Speaker 1: and I think that there are people who would say

85
00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:03,039
Speaker 1: plus size is offensive, there are people who say fat

86
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:05,320
Speaker 1: is offensive, or even within the movement, there's a lot

87
00:05:05,400 --> 00:05:09,320
Speaker 1: of disagreement, and I think that's really powerful because we're

88
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:13,599
Speaker 1: trying to create an identity in a culture where our

89
00:05:13,720 --> 00:05:18,120
Speaker 1: humanity has just been fully denied. Oh and I think

90
00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:21,960
Speaker 1: that is what I hope to get across to people

91
00:05:22,120 --> 00:05:25,880
Speaker 1: that reading your book, it is so clear your humanity

92
00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:28,880
Speaker 1: and what this struggle is, and I hope people will

93
00:05:28,880 --> 00:05:30,760
Speaker 1: go out and read You have the Right Roomain Fat.

94
00:05:30,800 --> 00:05:33,360
Speaker 1: It totally changed me. But can you talk to us

95
00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:36,600
Speaker 1: about that journey how you came to be a fat activist.

96
00:05:37,040 --> 00:05:39,039
Speaker 1: What were some of the first times in your life

97
00:05:39,040 --> 00:05:42,080
Speaker 1: where you even realized that fat was a thing and

98
00:05:42,120 --> 00:05:46,159
Speaker 1: that it was an issue. Yeah, I come from a

99
00:05:46,200 --> 00:05:48,960
Speaker 1: fat family in some ways, like my journey to being

100
00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:53,880
Speaker 1: a fat activist started with being born into a culture

101
00:05:53,920 --> 00:05:58,719
Speaker 1: that hates brown people, hates fat people, hates women and girls,

102
00:05:58,880 --> 00:06:01,560
Speaker 1: and I'm at the intersection of those things. And I

103
00:06:01,600 --> 00:06:05,200
Speaker 1: think growing up I did not learn fat phobia from

104
00:06:05,240 --> 00:06:09,080
Speaker 1: my family. I learned a lot of love and self acceptance. Actually,

105
00:06:09,480 --> 00:06:12,120
Speaker 1: but it was when I was about five, when I

106
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,000
Speaker 1: was introduced to kindergarten, when the word fat became part

107
00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:18,599
Speaker 1: of my life and I had no I had no

108
00:06:18,680 --> 00:06:21,560
Speaker 1: context for that word as a negative thing. It wasn't

109
00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:24,040
Speaker 1: in my world before then, and then it was all

110
00:06:24,040 --> 00:06:27,160
Speaker 1: of a sudden, it was everything in my world. And

111
00:06:27,200 --> 00:06:30,200
Speaker 1: I mean, looking back on it, it was really lavern.

112
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:33,159
Speaker 1: It was like an onslaught, you know. It just felt

113
00:06:33,200 --> 00:06:38,039
Speaker 1: like this united front of people who wanted to put

114
00:06:38,080 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 1: me in my place, and it just felt like they

115
00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:44,320
Speaker 1: didn't stop until I mean, they didn't stop even after

116
00:06:44,400 --> 00:06:46,960
Speaker 1: I had internalized the message and something was wrong with

117
00:06:46,960 --> 00:06:50,360
Speaker 1: me and I was working actively to try and not

118
00:06:50,440 --> 00:06:52,599
Speaker 1: be that thing. And the way that I was introduced

119
00:06:52,640 --> 00:06:55,080
Speaker 1: to it was no one will ever love you. You

120
00:06:55,200 --> 00:06:58,280
Speaker 1: are ugly, you are monstrous, and like when you think

121
00:06:58,320 --> 00:07:01,280
Speaker 1: about a five year old here about the idea that

122
00:07:01,320 --> 00:07:05,279
Speaker 1: they're never going to get love is just it's like unthinkable, right,

123
00:07:05,320 --> 00:07:08,239
Speaker 1: And so the steaks felt so high, and the thought

124
00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:12,160
Speaker 1: was right, if I just became thin, the torture, the

125
00:07:12,200 --> 00:07:14,800
Speaker 1: abuse would stop. And so it was my fault. It

126
00:07:14,880 --> 00:07:18,440
Speaker 1: was my job then to become the kind of person

127
00:07:18,800 --> 00:07:21,920
Speaker 1: who didn't get tortured by these people. And I really

128
00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:25,440
Speaker 1: took that on, that kind of ideology of like victim blaming.

129
00:07:25,560 --> 00:07:28,760
Speaker 1: I completely accepted it. I had no alternative, and so

130
00:07:28,920 --> 00:07:31,480
Speaker 1: I did what a lot of that people do, which

131
00:07:31,520 --> 00:07:34,400
Speaker 1: is diet work really hard. I mean, the thing that's

132
00:07:34,400 --> 00:07:37,000
Speaker 1: really interesting now looking back as sort of somebody who

133
00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:40,680
Speaker 1: does this work all the time, Like dieting pretty much

134
00:07:40,680 --> 00:07:44,680
Speaker 1: always is progressive because the body is fighting against the

135
00:07:44,720 --> 00:07:48,480
Speaker 1: impulse of food restriction. So as you diet, it might

136
00:07:48,520 --> 00:07:51,480
Speaker 1: start out my old quote unquote, but it will get

137
00:07:51,480 --> 00:07:54,520
Speaker 1: more intense over time because your body is actively pushing

138
00:07:54,560 --> 00:07:58,360
Speaker 1: against it, assimilating reassimilating. For somebody like me, it was

139
00:07:58,400 --> 00:08:01,200
Speaker 1: inevitable that I was going to end up essentially having

140
00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:04,200
Speaker 1: an eating disorder, like an undiagnosed eating disorder, where I

141
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:07,560
Speaker 1: was starving myself for very long periods of time. I

142
00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:09,000
Speaker 1: just want to slow you down a little bit because

143
00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,120
Speaker 1: I told everyone to be with you and to feel

144
00:08:11,680 --> 00:08:14,240
Speaker 1: what I feel. First of all, what you just said.

145
00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:16,160
Speaker 1: You said you developed a neating disorder where you were

146
00:08:16,200 --> 00:08:18,400
Speaker 1: starving yourself for a long period of time. At what

147
00:08:18,520 --> 00:08:21,640
Speaker 1: point did that develop? Yeah, Honestly, the first time I

148
00:08:21,720 --> 00:08:26,080
Speaker 1: ever experimented with starvation was I think I was ten

149
00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:29,480
Speaker 1: years old, maybe eleven. I remember it was the summer

150
00:08:29,640 --> 00:08:33,920
Speaker 1: before sixth grade, and I really wanted to go back

151
00:08:34,000 --> 00:08:39,520
Speaker 1: to school and have that beautiful American transformation story where

152
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:44,600
Speaker 1: I would go from this ugly duckling to this swan

153
00:08:44,960 --> 00:08:47,120
Speaker 1: like in a matter of three months. And I had

154
00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:49,720
Speaker 1: seen it on so many movies it felt possible. In

155
00:08:49,760 --> 00:08:51,480
Speaker 1: the book, you talk about a movie at the time,

156
00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:53,160
Speaker 1: I forget the name of the movie that was your

157
00:08:53,200 --> 00:08:55,920
Speaker 1: life where this transformation happened. Do you remember this? It

158
00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,040
Speaker 1: was Greece. There are two movies like the two movies

159
00:08:59,080 --> 00:09:01,560
Speaker 1: that informed my dream. We're like She's out of Control

160
00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,840
Speaker 1: starring Tony Danza, and then Greece, like the moment where

161
00:09:05,880 --> 00:09:09,240
Speaker 1: she transforms into this total like rockabilly babe. That was

162
00:09:09,280 --> 00:09:11,440
Speaker 1: gonna be my swan song or whatever, Like when I

163
00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:13,679
Speaker 1: finally became a thin sixth grader, that was going to

164
00:09:13,800 --> 00:09:16,719
Speaker 1: be my dance. Right. So I knew even at that

165
00:09:16,800 --> 00:09:19,600
Speaker 1: time that if I wanted those extreme results, I had

166
00:09:19,679 --> 00:09:22,880
Speaker 1: to take extreme measures. And I was like, the fastest

167
00:09:22,880 --> 00:09:25,760
Speaker 1: way to do it is to reduce food to pretty

168
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,600
Speaker 1: much nothing. And I ate only like lettuce and toast

169
00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:31,720
Speaker 1: for three months. And then I remember going to my

170
00:09:31,800 --> 00:09:35,840
Speaker 1: doctor after that summer and I was I had changed

171
00:09:35,880 --> 00:09:39,240
Speaker 1: sizes pretty radically, clearly that's what happens when you don't

172
00:09:39,280 --> 00:09:42,960
Speaker 1: eat anything. And he just said, congratulations, and if you

173
00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:45,160
Speaker 1: just keep losing weight, maybe you can date one of

174
00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:48,360
Speaker 1: my sons. And there was no question of this child

175
00:09:48,440 --> 00:09:52,000
Speaker 1: on the verge of pubescence, like what's going on, why

176
00:09:52,040 --> 00:09:55,119
Speaker 1: are you what are you doing differently? This is alarming.

177
00:09:55,200 --> 00:09:57,400
Speaker 1: There was just none of that from anybody. It really

178
00:09:57,480 --> 00:09:59,240
Speaker 1: hit me when I just rewad your book over the

179
00:09:59,240 --> 00:10:03,160
Speaker 1: weekend and they hit me again that story that because

180
00:10:03,760 --> 00:10:05,600
Speaker 1: it was tied to love, it was tied to you

181
00:10:05,640 --> 00:10:08,920
Speaker 1: get to date one of my sons if you become acceptable.

182
00:10:09,240 --> 00:10:11,040
Speaker 1: And then it reminded me of another story in your

183
00:10:11,040 --> 00:10:12,959
Speaker 1: book when you I think you were meant alluded to

184
00:10:13,040 --> 00:10:15,840
Speaker 1: earlier when you were five years old and you noticed

185
00:10:15,880 --> 00:10:18,080
Speaker 1: that this boy was looking up all the girl's skirts,

186
00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:20,520
Speaker 1: but he wasn't looking up your skirts. And I believe

187
00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:22,480
Speaker 1: in the book he was one of the first people

188
00:10:22,480 --> 00:10:26,240
Speaker 1: who called you fat if I recall correctly, yes, totally,

189
00:10:26,440 --> 00:10:28,960
Speaker 1: And I write about this in the book that even

190
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:34,120
Speaker 1: then I felt a connection between understanding that it was

191
00:10:34,200 --> 00:10:37,199
Speaker 1: no coincidence that the boy who looked up girls skirts

192
00:10:37,280 --> 00:10:39,600
Speaker 1: was the first boy who called me fat, Like I

193
00:10:39,640 --> 00:10:45,960
Speaker 1: completely understood the connection between gender desirability, misogyny, rape culture,

194
00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:49,560
Speaker 1: and fat phobia, like intuitively as a child, and it

195
00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:51,360
Speaker 1: kept coming up from me over and over again, this

196
00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:54,719
Speaker 1: desire for love and how it and we all want

197
00:10:54,720 --> 00:10:58,960
Speaker 1: to be loved, right and the relationship between that diet

198
00:10:58,960 --> 00:11:01,880
Speaker 1: culture and fat You can you just define for us, though,

199
00:11:02,240 --> 00:11:04,840
Speaker 1: what is fat phobia and what is diet culture so

200
00:11:04,880 --> 00:11:07,319
Speaker 1: people have a real understanding, because that is the piece

201
00:11:07,360 --> 00:11:12,720
Speaker 1: that really hit me hard when I read that excerpt. Yeah, yeah,

202
00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,760
Speaker 1: fat phobia is a form of bigotry and discrimination that

203
00:11:16,920 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 1: essentially says that fat people are morally, intellectually and physically

204
00:11:21,440 --> 00:11:24,440
Speaker 1: inferior in our culture. Right now, we don't see it

205
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:26,720
Speaker 1: as a form of discrimination. We see it as an

206
00:11:26,760 --> 00:11:30,800
Speaker 1: attitude that emerges out of health concerns, and there's this

207
00:11:30,880 --> 00:11:35,520
Speaker 1: false belief that if we stigmatize and abuse fat people

208
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:38,840
Speaker 1: enough that they will fall into line and become like

209
00:11:38,880 --> 00:11:42,319
Speaker 1: the right kind of person um. In terms of diet culture,

210
00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:45,079
Speaker 1: what makes something a culture is once and when it's

211
00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:48,400
Speaker 1: ubiquitous and you can't escape it. So it's like the

212
00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:52,480
Speaker 1: general messaging that's all around us every single day that

213
00:11:52,600 --> 00:11:56,560
Speaker 1: weight loss at any cost is positive, that no matter what,

214
00:11:56,679 --> 00:11:58,920
Speaker 1: things will be better if you are a thinner person,

215
00:11:59,480 --> 00:12:01,920
Speaker 1: and that essentially the worst thing that you could be

216
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:04,800
Speaker 1: is a fat person, and anything that you can do

217
00:12:04,880 --> 00:12:07,080
Speaker 1: to not be that you should undertake it. And the

218
00:12:07,120 --> 00:12:10,800
Speaker 1: diet industry has a very robust, multimillion dollar industry that

219
00:12:10,920 --> 00:12:16,040
Speaker 1: is proportionately predates upon women. So that's how I would

220
00:12:16,040 --> 00:12:19,520
Speaker 1: define those things. Wow. The section in your book that

221
00:12:19,600 --> 00:12:23,120
Speaker 1: got me was that basically when you say that we

222
00:12:23,240 --> 00:12:25,320
Speaker 1: either let me just read it and let girl let

223
00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:30,040
Speaker 1: me just read it to you, you write, you write

224
00:12:30,440 --> 00:12:34,320
Speaker 1: fat phobia targets and scapegoes fat people, but it ends

225
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,360
Speaker 1: up harming all people. Everyone ends up in one of

226
00:12:37,440 --> 00:12:39,439
Speaker 1: two camps. Is the piece they got me. They are

227
00:12:39,480 --> 00:12:43,360
Speaker 1: either living the pointed reality of fat phobic bigotry or

228
00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:47,199
Speaker 1: they are living in fear of becoming subject to it.

229
00:12:47,480 --> 00:12:50,000
Speaker 1: And when I read that, I was like, I just

230
00:12:50,040 --> 00:12:53,640
Speaker 1: I stopped breathing. I was like, because it was the fear.

231
00:12:53,679 --> 00:12:56,959
Speaker 1: I was like, this fear is so real, especially for

232
00:12:57,080 --> 00:13:00,199
Speaker 1: me as I've gotten older. Um in my mental is

233
00:13:00,240 --> 00:13:02,080
Speaker 1: a mis slowed down and like, I ate whatever I

234
00:13:02,080 --> 00:13:04,560
Speaker 1: wanted to when I was younger, and being in the

235
00:13:04,600 --> 00:13:09,840
Speaker 1: public eye and having people comment on your body just

236
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:11,959
Speaker 1: hit me. And I feel like that is the piece

237
00:13:11,960 --> 00:13:14,360
Speaker 1: that I would love people to understand and take away

238
00:13:14,360 --> 00:13:17,480
Speaker 1: from this conversation. That we are all implicated. And I

239
00:13:17,480 --> 00:13:19,520
Speaker 1: am a little critical of the idea of a binary,

240
00:13:19,559 --> 00:13:22,160
Speaker 1: but I think in the context of fat phobia and

241
00:13:22,320 --> 00:13:25,200
Speaker 1: fat phobic culture, maybe that binary stands right. We're either

242
00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:27,880
Speaker 1: experiencing the bigotry of fat phobia or we're in constant

243
00:13:27,920 --> 00:13:31,160
Speaker 1: fear of it, and it like polices our bodies. That

244
00:13:31,320 --> 00:13:35,120
Speaker 1: fear that mentality constantly has us policing our bodies. Other

245
00:13:35,160 --> 00:13:38,920
Speaker 1: people are policing our bodies. Medical professionals are policing our bodies.

246
00:13:38,960 --> 00:13:40,840
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the health stuff, but I

247
00:13:40,880 --> 00:13:44,319
Speaker 1: think the pain of it for me is what hits

248
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:46,240
Speaker 1: me when I read your work and when I think

249
00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:52,480
Speaker 1: about my own journey around weight, body image, all that stuff. Yeah,

250
00:13:52,520 --> 00:13:55,520
Speaker 1: I think to your point, we live in a culture

251
00:13:55,559 --> 00:13:59,440
Speaker 1: that forces everything into a binary, and that is a

252
00:13:59,520 --> 00:14:04,960
Speaker 1: method of control. And we see the inescapability of how

253
00:14:05,120 --> 00:14:08,440
Speaker 1: these binaries really impact us when it comes to fat

254
00:14:08,440 --> 00:14:12,680
Speaker 1: phobia or really anything, every single person, not just the

255
00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:15,160
Speaker 1: group that is the target of the stigma or the

256
00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:19,960
Speaker 1: abuse of the oppression. We are all impacted and touched

257
00:14:20,040 --> 00:14:23,400
Speaker 1: as human beings by the experience. If we're on the

258
00:14:23,440 --> 00:14:27,600
Speaker 1: receiving end, obviously we're experiencing a very extreme version of

259
00:14:27,640 --> 00:14:31,240
Speaker 1: that impact. But the people who are witnessing and colluding,

260
00:14:31,320 --> 00:14:34,240
Speaker 1: who are forced to collude by virtue of the way

261
00:14:34,280 --> 00:14:37,920
Speaker 1: the system is constructed, how can their experience also not

262
00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:42,600
Speaker 1: be eroded? How can they also not be impacted? And

263
00:14:42,640 --> 00:14:45,640
Speaker 1: I think, and first of all, right, it hurts our

264
00:14:45,720 --> 00:14:49,400
Speaker 1: spirits and our hearts and are collective whatever, like our

265
00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:54,520
Speaker 1: collective unconscious if you will to be enlisted in that process.

266
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:57,240
Speaker 1: And then I think the fear peace really is like

267
00:14:57,680 --> 00:15:00,720
Speaker 1: even if you are not somebody who's on the receiving

268
00:15:00,880 --> 00:15:04,800
Speaker 1: end of that today, you could be on the receiving

269
00:15:04,920 --> 00:15:08,360
Speaker 1: end of that tomorrow. And the body in particular is

270
00:15:08,400 --> 00:15:11,840
Speaker 1: something that does change, right, Like it changes every day.

271
00:15:11,960 --> 00:15:14,720
Speaker 1: This idea that you could become a victim of it,

272
00:15:14,720 --> 00:15:16,920
Speaker 1: it's like the whip, you know what I mean? Because

273
00:15:16,960 --> 00:15:19,240
Speaker 1: I think there's like the carrot side of that phobian

274
00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:21,800
Speaker 1: diet culture, which is like, these are the social benefits

275
00:15:21,800 --> 00:15:24,560
Speaker 1: you get if you comply, and this is what your

276
00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:27,800
Speaker 1: life could look like if you don't. Yeah, And I

277
00:15:27,840 --> 00:15:31,800
Speaker 1: think what's really crucial about your work is how clear

278
00:15:32,320 --> 00:15:34,480
Speaker 1: it is that this is something that is systemic, right,

279
00:15:34,760 --> 00:15:37,640
Speaker 1: This is something that is structural, that is enforced by

280
00:15:37,680 --> 00:15:41,280
Speaker 1: so many different systems. On this podcast and in my life,

281
00:15:41,320 --> 00:15:43,440
Speaker 1: I always like to think about things in terms of

282
00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:47,280
Speaker 1: structural issues and and and systemic issues. But then also

283
00:15:47,400 --> 00:15:49,000
Speaker 1: where's my part in it? Where is my sort of

284
00:15:49,040 --> 00:15:52,320
Speaker 1: personal responsibility in relationship to it? I eat the potential

285
00:15:52,320 --> 00:15:55,000
Speaker 1: for resistance, So where is the resistance piece? And where

286
00:15:55,080 --> 00:15:57,960
Speaker 1: is my personal responsibility? But I think like just making

287
00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:02,360
Speaker 1: something personal responsibility doesn't acknowledge how something is systemic. And

288
00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: I think thinking about it in relationship to systemic racism,

289
00:16:05,040 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 1: which people have been having a lot more conversations about lately,

290
00:16:07,920 --> 00:16:09,760
Speaker 1: it's it's a great way to begin to think about

291
00:16:09,880 --> 00:16:13,040
Speaker 1: fat phobia and diet culture as something that we're all

292
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:16,479
Speaker 1: implicated in, whether we want to be or not. Yeah. Absolutely,

293
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:18,120
Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that I think

294
00:16:18,120 --> 00:16:20,800
Speaker 1: about even in my own work as someone who really

295
00:16:20,840 --> 00:16:23,840
Speaker 1: does try to teach people tools on how to navigate

296
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:27,160
Speaker 1: these systems. One of the things that's really complicated is

297
00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:32,320
Speaker 1: like these tools rely on resiliency, which I mean, resiliency

298
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:35,880
Speaker 1: is beautiful, but resiliency is not going to end systemic oppression, right,

299
00:16:35,920 --> 00:16:38,640
Speaker 1: Like there's over reliance upon the people who are experiencing

300
00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,800
Speaker 1: the oppression to work their way through it and somehow

301
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:44,520
Speaker 1: make it work and make it cute. Fundamentally, Like, I

302
00:16:44,520 --> 00:16:46,760
Speaker 1: don't know what else we could do, Like, surviving is

303
00:16:47,080 --> 00:16:50,280
Speaker 1: the only option we have, but it's not fair to

304
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:52,320
Speaker 1: put that burden on the people who are experiencing the

305
00:16:52,320 --> 00:16:57,080
Speaker 1: oppression to also end the oppression. Hopefully we can begin

306
00:16:57,160 --> 00:17:00,440
Speaker 1: to raise awareness and raise consciousness so that once we

307
00:17:00,480 --> 00:17:02,960
Speaker 1: have the information and we know better and hopefully we'll

308
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:08,080
Speaker 1: do better. Time for a quick break. When we come back,

309
00:17:08,359 --> 00:17:11,359
Speaker 1: Virgine and I talk about how people's concern for the

310
00:17:11,440 --> 00:17:24,920
Speaker 1: health of fat people is just an excuse to stigmatize. Alrighty,

311
00:17:24,960 --> 00:17:29,440
Speaker 1: then let's just dive right back in. Most people say,

312
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:32,159
Speaker 1: is what about health concerns? Right that, Like, what does

313
00:17:32,200 --> 00:17:35,159
Speaker 1: it mean to be healthy? That fat is unhealthy? That

314
00:17:35,359 --> 00:17:39,439
Speaker 1: is the immediate thing that people go to when they

315
00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,600
Speaker 1: address your work and people who are in a space

316
00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:46,080
Speaker 1: of body positivity that this is unhealthy. What do you

317
00:17:46,359 --> 00:17:51,119
Speaker 1: say to those people, Darling, Yes, I mean, on the

318
00:17:51,160 --> 00:17:55,600
Speaker 1: one hand, right, I do find that the health argument

319
00:17:55,840 --> 00:18:00,040
Speaker 1: is mostly a decoy, and I think for me, I

320
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:03,240
Speaker 1: talking about human rights. I've always been talking about human rights.

321
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:07,040
Speaker 1: Like if you're somebody who can look at the reality

322
00:18:07,080 --> 00:18:10,040
Speaker 1: of the fact that like plus size women make nine

323
00:18:10,119 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 1: thousand dollars less annually than their in their straight sized counterparts,

324
00:18:13,720 --> 00:18:16,200
Speaker 1: when you look at the reality that that people experience

325
00:18:16,320 --> 00:18:20,040
Speaker 1: romantic discrimination, are refused proper medical care, if you can

326
00:18:20,080 --> 00:18:23,840
Speaker 1: kind of look at that scenario, and your primary concern

327
00:18:23,960 --> 00:18:28,880
Speaker 1: coming out of that is are these people cardio metabolically healthy?

328
00:18:28,960 --> 00:18:31,439
Speaker 1: I think you've really missed a crucial point, which is

329
00:18:31,480 --> 00:18:36,440
Speaker 1: that when people are being denied basic human rights and dignity,

330
00:18:36,520 --> 00:18:38,840
Speaker 1: that's a very urgent issue. And so I find that,

331
00:18:38,880 --> 00:18:42,280
Speaker 1: like some people actually do have legitimate concerns about you know,

332
00:18:42,320 --> 00:18:45,119
Speaker 1: what are the implications of this politic But I do

333
00:18:45,200 --> 00:18:48,600
Speaker 1: find that a lot of people weaponize the health conversation

334
00:18:49,080 --> 00:18:51,800
Speaker 1: as a way to derail a conversation that's really about

335
00:18:51,800 --> 00:18:55,520
Speaker 1: a systemic problem. And again, with the health issue, going

336
00:18:55,600 --> 00:18:59,600
Speaker 1: back to the individual versus the system. I'm somebody who

337
00:18:59,680 --> 00:19:02,959
Speaker 1: has had to deep dive understanding health a lot more.

338
00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:04,960
Speaker 1: I mean, that's not my area of expertise at all,

339
00:19:05,040 --> 00:19:07,520
Speaker 1: but I've had to equip myself to be able to

340
00:19:07,520 --> 00:19:09,639
Speaker 1: talk about it. And one of the things I often

341
00:19:09,680 --> 00:19:11,600
Speaker 1: point out to people is I'm like, Okay, if you

342
00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:15,680
Speaker 1: look at the CDC guidelines for health, you can easily

343
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:18,679
Speaker 1: and quickly begin to understand that health doesn't happen in

344
00:19:18,720 --> 00:19:21,880
Speaker 1: a vacuum. Health is a collective thing that happens, right.

345
00:19:22,160 --> 00:19:24,240
Speaker 1: Health is something that you have when you have access

346
00:19:24,280 --> 00:19:26,880
Speaker 1: to a doctor, when you have access to transportation, when

347
00:19:26,880 --> 00:19:29,960
Speaker 1: you don't have trauma, when you're not abused, when you

348
00:19:30,000 --> 00:19:32,320
Speaker 1: don't have to live in fear of whether someone's gonna

349
00:19:32,400 --> 00:19:35,400
Speaker 1: hurt you when you leave your house, And that very

350
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:39,880
Speaker 1: individual argument of the individual is responsible for having good

351
00:19:39,920 --> 00:19:43,359
Speaker 1: heart health, living a long, good life, right. And we

352
00:19:43,440 --> 00:19:47,080
Speaker 1: have a system where there's no universal healthcare, there's not

353
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:50,399
Speaker 1: even universal access to clean water, and we're looking at

354
00:19:50,400 --> 00:19:53,920
Speaker 1: a rollback on resources for women's health, you know. So

355
00:19:54,320 --> 00:19:56,480
Speaker 1: for me, I'm like, what does the word health mean

356
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:59,560
Speaker 1: to you? Even the c d C understands that health

357
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:02,399
Speaker 1: is a community based entity. Individuals don't create that on

358
00:20:02,440 --> 00:20:03,960
Speaker 1: their own. And I think the last thing I'm gonna

359
00:20:03,960 --> 00:20:06,119
Speaker 1: say is actually have two more things I want to say, Like,

360
00:20:06,320 --> 00:20:10,359
Speaker 1: one really compelling piece of research that I found was

361
00:20:10,440 --> 00:20:14,760
Speaker 1: that the chances of a woman who is classified as

362
00:20:14,840 --> 00:20:18,760
Speaker 1: overweight becoming a normal weight is less than one percent.

363
00:20:19,320 --> 00:20:21,960
Speaker 1: And that's like looking at all of the studies. And

364
00:20:22,000 --> 00:20:25,160
Speaker 1: then what happens with dieting with food restriction is that

365
00:20:25,640 --> 00:20:28,840
Speaker 1: people don't actually lose weight. They actually cycle through gaining

366
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,520
Speaker 1: and losing, regaining and losing the same amount of weight

367
00:20:32,560 --> 00:20:36,040
Speaker 1: over and over again, with a longitudinal trend upward. Can

368
00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:38,399
Speaker 1: I sell you down there? Because I want you to

369
00:20:38,400 --> 00:20:40,280
Speaker 1: say that one more time because I think that everybody

370
00:20:40,320 --> 00:20:43,520
Speaker 1: knows that's the truth. That is the truth. We know that. Yeah,

371
00:20:43,560 --> 00:20:45,560
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of THEO will call it weight loss,

372
00:20:45,600 --> 00:20:49,080
Speaker 1: but it's actually weight cycling. And what's really hard is

373
00:20:49,240 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 1: this is something that people don't realize. And again, if

374
00:20:51,359 --> 00:20:54,000
Speaker 1: you've been in this cycle, you know it is like

375
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:58,040
Speaker 1: the emotional ups and downs are very damaging. Right, Dieting

376
00:20:58,200 --> 00:21:01,360
Speaker 1: is correlated with anxiety. Depression is not correlated with long

377
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,200
Speaker 1: term weight loss. I think that's what people don't realize.

378
00:21:04,680 --> 00:21:07,719
Speaker 1: And so what happens is like the emotional process of

379
00:21:08,040 --> 00:21:10,879
Speaker 1: you lose the weight, you're so happy, everyone's telling you

380
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:13,440
Speaker 1: how incredible you look. Maybe that person you've been flirting

381
00:21:13,440 --> 00:21:16,120
Speaker 1: with all of a sudden wants to like hang out right,

382
00:21:16,359 --> 00:21:18,480
Speaker 1: And then you gain the weight and you feel like

383
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,119
Speaker 1: a failure and you feel like your world is ending,

384
00:21:21,160 --> 00:21:23,119
Speaker 1: and you feel like something's wrong with you, and you

385
00:21:23,160 --> 00:21:26,080
Speaker 1: begin to evaluate and those compliments go away. And if

386
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:29,480
Speaker 1: you can imagine that over a lifetime, how many times

387
00:21:29,520 --> 00:21:33,640
Speaker 1: that happens. It's very, very debilitating. But I think what's

388
00:21:33,680 --> 00:21:36,840
Speaker 1: interesting is from a social perspective. I mean, it really

389
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,880
Speaker 1: is like bootstrapping and assimilation. It's like that American dream

390
00:21:39,880 --> 00:21:42,440
Speaker 1: of I can make myself anything if I work hard enough.

391
00:21:42,480 --> 00:21:44,639
Speaker 1: And so you're in that cycle over and over again,

392
00:21:44,840 --> 00:21:47,720
Speaker 1: and each time you think this is gonna be the time,

393
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:51,040
Speaker 1: this is gonna be the time that it works. I

394
00:21:51,040 --> 00:21:55,080
Speaker 1: think what's interesting is this process of disappointment success disappointment

395
00:21:55,160 --> 00:21:59,960
Speaker 1: success that keeps us believing that all these other process

396
00:22:00,040 --> 00:22:02,720
Speaker 1: is in our culture that don't fundamentally work because their

397
00:22:02,760 --> 00:22:06,720
Speaker 1: social injustice built into the system, like it normalizes those

398
00:22:06,760 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: processes too. So we do capitalism with our bodies through

399
00:22:11,040 --> 00:22:15,520
Speaker 1: diet culture. We do white supremacy through diet culture. Right.

400
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 1: I love that. What I want to emphasize about what

401
00:22:18,119 --> 00:22:21,199
Speaker 1: you just said, the aha that I just had, is

402
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:24,840
Speaker 1: that whether or not someone is healthy is actually none

403
00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:27,600
Speaker 1: of our business. If we're lucky enough to have a doctor,

404
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: that's between us and our doctor. Dealing with someone else's

405
00:22:31,000 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: health should not be my concern. All the people out

406
00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,280
Speaker 1: there who want to sort of police people's bodies and

407
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:39,000
Speaker 1: say they're unhealthy, and then because they're unhealthy, we should

408
00:22:39,000 --> 00:22:41,679
Speaker 1: shame them, we should stigmatize them. That is what we

409
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:44,159
Speaker 1: need to let go of. Yeah, And I think another

410
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,080
Speaker 1: thing when you were talking, I was thinking about this

411
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:49,480
Speaker 1: finding from a U c l A professor named Janet

412
00:22:49,480 --> 00:22:52,560
Speaker 1: Toma Yama. She did this meta study, which is essentially

413
00:22:52,560 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: like looking at all the studies that are in that

414
00:22:54,359 --> 00:22:57,560
Speaker 1: area of findings, and she found that there were over

415
00:22:57,760 --> 00:23:05,080
Speaker 1: seventy million Americans who were either fat and were misdiagnosis unhealthy,

416
00:23:05,240 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 1: or sin and misdiagnosed as healthy. And this has like

417
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: these incredible implications, right because right now, both socially and medically,

418
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:17,639
Speaker 1: the biggest way that doctors understand health is by visually

419
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:20,680
Speaker 1: checking are you thin or are you fat? That's literally

420
00:23:20,760 --> 00:23:23,480
Speaker 1: like the most important factor in whether or not a

421
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 1: doctor is going to ask how are you eating? How

422
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,359
Speaker 1: are you feeling? Do any tests around your blood sugar?

423
00:23:29,440 --> 00:23:31,959
Speaker 1: Do any tests around whether you have high blood pressure?

424
00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 1: They just look at a thin person and think, oh,

425
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:35,560
Speaker 1: that person doesn't have high blood pressure, and they look

426
00:23:35,600 --> 00:23:37,960
Speaker 1: at fat person and say, oh, that person probably does.

427
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:40,600
Speaker 1: I think, really what has become clear to me is

428
00:23:40,640 --> 00:23:44,800
Speaker 1: that this approach is both bigoted and it's anti scientific. Right,

429
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 1: It's not like there's it's not winning on any front.

430
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:50,560
Speaker 1: You know. Wow, It just makes me think about so

431
00:23:50,600 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: many issues with our healthcare system and how that's another conversation. Wow, virgin,

432
00:23:56,320 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: So you alluded to white supremacy, and I love the

433
00:24:01,320 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: ways in which you talk about the relationships between sexism, patriarchy,

434
00:24:05,320 --> 00:24:09,959
Speaker 1: fat phobia, white supremacy, classism. Can you break down some

435
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,680
Speaker 1: of those intersections. Yeah. I think for a long time

436
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 1: I thought diet culture and fat phobia were really about

437
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:20,119
Speaker 1: beauty ideals, because that's still the dominant idea that somebody

438
00:24:20,119 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 1: who is fat or thin. It's about whether they're beautiful

439
00:24:22,480 --> 00:24:25,399
Speaker 1: or they're not beautiful, But like when you really unpack it,

440
00:24:25,880 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: you begin to see that it is totally attached to

441
00:24:30,080 --> 00:24:34,480
Speaker 1: all of these very very ingrained systems and ideologies that

442
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:37,439
Speaker 1: make up like the West and the United States in particular.

443
00:24:38,000 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: And I think for me, one really big breakthrough was

444
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:45,719
Speaker 1: around understanding that dieting was away that people of color

445
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:50,439
Speaker 1: could express a desire to be in line with an

446
00:24:50,480 --> 00:24:53,760
Speaker 1: ideology that white people really promoted, and that Americans in

447
00:24:53,800 --> 00:24:57,960
Speaker 1: particular promoted, And just seeing that even in my own family,

448
00:24:58,080 --> 00:24:59,760
Speaker 1: Like you know, I grew up in an immigrant family

449
00:24:59,800 --> 00:25:04,399
Speaker 1: from Mexico, and I saw that dieting was a way

450
00:25:04,400 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: that they could perform American nous, and I saw that

451
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,640
Speaker 1: they undertook it as a way to be socially legible.

452
00:25:11,520 --> 00:25:13,679
Speaker 1: They had internalized the idea that weight loss was a

453
00:25:13,720 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 1: positive thing, but more than that, it was a way

454
00:25:17,920 --> 00:25:21,080
Speaker 1: of fitting in. And I think this actually leads really

455
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:25,000
Speaker 1: well into gender right, Like dieting is a way that

456
00:25:25,080 --> 00:25:30,280
Speaker 1: women have been socialized to create intimacy, like our body dissatisfaction,

457
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,320
Speaker 1: that moment in front of the mirror, that moment when

458
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,479
Speaker 1: we're going to the bakery and we're like having that

459
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:37,200
Speaker 1: experience of, Oh, my god, should I shouldn't I? That's

460
00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:39,600
Speaker 1: so evil? Right? Am I going to be good? Am

461
00:25:39,600 --> 00:25:42,439
Speaker 1: I going to be bad? That is a way that

462
00:25:42,520 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: women have been taught to create friendship. And I think

463
00:25:45,600 --> 00:25:50,480
Speaker 1: what a distorted, disgusting like shaming and being anxious about

464
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:54,000
Speaker 1: food should not be a thing that people are expected

465
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 1: to bond over. But that's kind of the reality that

466
00:25:56,640 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: we have going on. Like I mean, like my academic

467
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:01,520
Speaker 1: background is actually in sexuality studies, and as I was

468
00:26:01,560 --> 00:26:03,919
Speaker 1: doing the work, I was being introduced to all these

469
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: historical figures, right, and like two of these really incredible

470
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,840
Speaker 1: historical figures, interesting I should say historical figures were these

471
00:26:11,920 --> 00:26:15,639
Speaker 1: really intense anti masturbation advocates who, like in the eighteen

472
00:26:15,720 --> 00:26:19,280
Speaker 1: hundreds were just obsessed with everybody not masturbating and and

473
00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: they were like legit like haten pleasure. The stuff that

474
00:26:22,800 --> 00:26:25,400
Speaker 1: they were proposing was like really intense. But the whole

475
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:29,040
Speaker 1: idea was, you know, you shouldn't masturbate. Respectable white men

476
00:26:29,240 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 1: had to have control over their sexuality. Okay. Then I

477
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,560
Speaker 1: become like interested in studying fatness and food and all

478
00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:39,160
Speaker 1: these kinds of cultures around dieting and stuff, and these

479
00:26:39,200 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: same dudes resurface. They're also clean eating advocates. These anti

480
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 1: masturbation dudes who hate sex are the same people who

481
00:26:47,840 --> 00:26:50,800
Speaker 1: are promoting clean eating. And all of a sudden, I

482
00:26:50,840 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: was like, hau, what's that about. That's weird, that's an

483
00:26:53,080 --> 00:26:55,960
Speaker 1: interesting connection. But it all came together in my head.

484
00:26:56,000 --> 00:26:58,680
Speaker 1: I'm like, right, you gotta control how you eat, you

485
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,920
Speaker 1: gotta control pleasure. All forms of pleasure have to be controlled.

486
00:27:03,240 --> 00:27:07,640
Speaker 1: Why because you had to be distinguishable from the savages

487
00:27:08,320 --> 00:27:13,360
Speaker 1: who you were enslaving and murdering. Right, So it's like, okay, yes.

488
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,720
Speaker 1: So this idea was like, these Europeans come and they

489
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:22,960
Speaker 1: meet indigenous populations, and these Europeans have these extremely Christian

490
00:27:23,320 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: puritanical views, and these native folks have a much more spiritual,

491
00:27:28,920 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: much more integrated, holistic They don't believe in private ownership

492
00:27:31,920 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: like in general, and there's not taboos around sex. And

493
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: the way that Europeans begin to rationalize they're essentially what

494
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:43,080
Speaker 1: will become a genocide is to say these people are

495
00:27:43,119 --> 00:27:45,359
Speaker 1: subhuman and how do we know? Because we have this

496
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:49,040
Speaker 1: discipline relationship to our animal selves and these people do

497
00:27:49,080 --> 00:27:53,720
Speaker 1: not the same as true slavery, colonialism, slavery genocide. Right,

498
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,320
Speaker 1: This kind of like trifecta behaviors really relied upon a

499
00:27:57,440 --> 00:28:02,199
Speaker 1: rationalizing ideology that said, some people are subhuman and we

500
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:04,240
Speaker 1: can take everything from them, and we can kill them

501
00:28:04,240 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 1: with impunity. And some people are superior and they get

502
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,119
Speaker 1: to not only rule the world, but they get to

503
00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: rule the future. And I kind of think like this

504
00:28:12,920 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 1: is like what manifest destiny is really about. I think

505
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:18,960
Speaker 1: what's interesting about that connection between like white people owning

506
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: the future is sold. You can kind of see it.

507
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:24,719
Speaker 1: It's ripples in diet culture all over the place, but

508
00:28:24,800 --> 00:28:29,280
Speaker 1: like one of them is the preoccupation with the future self, right,

509
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:32,160
Speaker 1: the idea that someday, I'll be able to wear that skirt, Someday,

510
00:28:32,200 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 1: I'll be able to wear that elliptic Sunday, I'll be

511
00:28:34,119 --> 00:28:37,199
Speaker 1: able to smile in photographs or do that thing I

512
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:39,560
Speaker 1: really want to do in the future. And I think

513
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:42,920
Speaker 1: that preoccupation with the future has a real connection with

514
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,959
Speaker 1: that manifest destiny kind of ideation of maintaining a future

515
00:28:47,360 --> 00:28:50,840
Speaker 1: that is white, that is slender, that is athletic, that

516
00:28:50,880 --> 00:28:55,520
Speaker 1: has all these sort of characteristics. Girl, you have just

517
00:28:55,560 --> 00:28:58,239
Speaker 1: said a mouthful, and like my mind is sort of

518
00:28:58,360 --> 00:29:02,320
Speaker 1: racing this whole of in the future. When I'm thin enough, right,

519
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:03,920
Speaker 1: then I can begin my life. In the last half,

520
00:29:04,040 --> 00:29:05,600
Speaker 1: you have a book you talk about freedom, and you

521
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,400
Speaker 1: talk about what freedom is, and that you thought at

522
00:29:08,560 --> 00:29:12,400
Speaker 1: that dieting and thinness were freedom, and you learned that

523
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: they're quite the opposite. And I kept thinking about those

524
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: what Renee Brown calls the prerequisites to worthiness, and Renee Brown,

525
00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: it's a shame research or who I have referenced all

526
00:29:21,520 --> 00:29:24,320
Speaker 1: the time, and she defines shame is the intensely painful

527
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:26,640
Speaker 1: belief that we have about ourselves that we're unworthy of

528
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,840
Speaker 1: connection and belonging. She says that guilty is I'm sorry

529
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,120
Speaker 1: I made a mistake, and shame is I'm sorry I

530
00:29:32,160 --> 00:29:34,480
Speaker 1: am a mistake. So as I was reading your book,

531
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:36,120
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh my god, this is shame.

532
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:39,120
Speaker 1: This is just like one two threes of shame. And

533
00:29:39,160 --> 00:29:41,960
Speaker 1: she said, the way with that we bill shame resilience

534
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:44,720
Speaker 1: is to understand when we're in shame. And so knowing

535
00:29:44,960 --> 00:29:49,120
Speaker 1: the prerequisites to worthiness is our way of knowing our

536
00:29:49,120 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: shame triggers right. The prerequisites to worthiness, I e. I

537
00:29:52,600 --> 00:29:54,920
Speaker 1: will be worthy when I lose twenty pounds. I'll be

538
00:29:54,960 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: worthy when I change my hair or get this degree

539
00:29:57,760 --> 00:30:00,719
Speaker 1: or whatever. And the beautiful thing she says in her

540
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: work is that worthiness has no prerequisites, that worthiness is

541
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: a birthright, that we are worthy because we were born.

542
00:30:09,600 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: And so building shame resilience is about letting go of

543
00:30:12,880 --> 00:30:16,160
Speaker 1: all those prerequisites and diet culture and thinness. For me,

544
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,720
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly been one of my big prerequisites to worthiness.

545
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:22,960
Speaker 1: I will be ready when and having to consciously let

546
00:30:23,000 --> 00:30:25,720
Speaker 1: go of that on a daily basis. Some days I

547
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: do better than others. Yeah, absolutely, I think that that

548
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 1: preoccupation with a future self. I remember reading a study

549
00:30:35,560 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 1: that actually Dove did around the percentage of women who

550
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,880
Speaker 1: opted out of important life events because they didn't feel

551
00:30:42,960 --> 00:30:45,479
Speaker 1: like they were satisfied with their bodies, right, Like, what

552
00:30:45,520 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: do you call that? Just even saying that just brings chills.

553
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,960
Speaker 1: That is dehumanization completely, And I think going back to

554
00:30:53,600 --> 00:30:57,160
Speaker 1: a colonial concept of ghosting, right, the idea that like

555
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,719
Speaker 1: these people are still here, which you're pretending they're dead. Um, Like,

556
00:31:00,800 --> 00:31:03,040
Speaker 1: can we talk about indigenous people as if they don't

557
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,880
Speaker 1: exist anymore? And I think a lot about how diet

558
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: culture is ghosting us. We're not here. The bodies that

559
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,959
Speaker 1: we have right now are imperfect and therefore they shouldn't exist.

560
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,040
Speaker 1: And how do I know, because this body doesn't even

561
00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:17,760
Speaker 1: be deserved to be documented, like this idea that you

562
00:31:17,760 --> 00:31:19,560
Speaker 1: don want to even be photographed, like you don't want

563
00:31:19,560 --> 00:31:21,360
Speaker 1: to have you don't want to get married, you don't

564
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:23,520
Speaker 1: want to go to the prom, you don't like, you

565
00:31:23,560 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: don't want to do these things that are important markers

566
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: not only of societal participation, but that have really important

567
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 1: meaning for people. You don't want to participate in them

568
00:31:32,600 --> 00:31:34,760
Speaker 1: as a fat person, as the person that you are

569
00:31:34,840 --> 00:31:37,600
Speaker 1: right now, means that you don't want to be like

570
00:31:37,800 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: documented in history. And I just think there's something so

571
00:31:41,960 --> 00:31:45,000
Speaker 1: intense about that realization and that kind of like that

572
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: process of just waiting around for you to be the

573
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,600
Speaker 1: kind of person who is worthy enough to be documented,

574
00:31:51,640 --> 00:31:54,720
Speaker 1: to have joy and all of those things. You know,

575
00:31:55,120 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 1: it's so sad, it's so sad. Is their way out?

576
00:31:58,000 --> 00:32:00,400
Speaker 1: What is our resistance? What is the thing that we

577
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: can do as individuals to begin to free ourselves, to

578
00:32:03,080 --> 00:32:05,400
Speaker 1: do colonize ourselves, if you will, from a culture of

579
00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:08,960
Speaker 1: fat phobia Yeah, I think that there's so many things

580
00:32:09,120 --> 00:32:10,880
Speaker 1: I want to start with sort of like the highest

581
00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:14,479
Speaker 1: order thing, which is that we can imagine something different.

582
00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: Like one of the most powerful things that people can

583
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 1: do is actually envision what would And there's this thought

584
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 1: exercise in the book where I'm like, imagine a world

585
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:31,320
Speaker 1: where you don't feel like there are any conditions to

586
00:32:31,680 --> 00:32:34,600
Speaker 1: enjoying food, to wearing the clothes that you want, to

587
00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:38,480
Speaker 1: going after the relationship that you desire, to expecting more

588
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:41,760
Speaker 1: from the people around you. What if there were no conditions? Right?

589
00:32:41,760 --> 00:32:44,840
Speaker 1: And I think what's powerful we when we imagine we

590
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:48,880
Speaker 1: create space, and the collective unconscious we create space in

591
00:32:48,880 --> 00:32:51,440
Speaker 1: the universe. I do believe that there's that sort of

592
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: metaphysical power, and so I think that's like a labor

593
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: that we can all easily do that's so joyful and

594
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,600
Speaker 1: beautiful and fun. And I think what's hard that when

595
00:33:00,600 --> 00:33:03,600
Speaker 1: we live in a culture that is so steeped and oppression,

596
00:33:04,080 --> 00:33:07,040
Speaker 1: one of the most heartbreaking parts of that is that,

597
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:10,760
Speaker 1: like diet culture, it kills our spirits, It kills our

598
00:33:10,800 --> 00:33:14,280
Speaker 1: ability to imagine a world that could look different. And

599
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:17,240
Speaker 1: when we resist that and we say, like I'm an imaginative,

600
00:33:17,320 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 1: creative human being who can literally imagine like different structures,

601
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,520
Speaker 1: a totally different way that society functions, a totally different

602
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:27,000
Speaker 1: way to engage with the world, a totally different way.

603
00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:29,120
Speaker 1: To date, we have that power. I just want to

604
00:33:29,120 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 1: pause you there because I love the idea of that,

605
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: and I love the idea of doing it collectively, right,

606
00:33:33,560 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 1: and then we can maybe begin to change this distance

607
00:33:35,600 --> 00:33:37,480
Speaker 1: because we have to visualize at first, we have to

608
00:33:37,520 --> 00:33:39,880
Speaker 1: be able to see it, and then we can create it.

609
00:33:39,880 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: So I just wanted to pause on that, because I

610
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: think that's really powerful. Go on, Virgie, I think that

611
00:33:44,800 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: actually dovetails perfectly. You know what I was just going

612
00:33:47,480 --> 00:33:50,440
Speaker 1: to say, which is like, when we imagine, we create

613
00:33:50,480 --> 00:33:52,760
Speaker 1: the tools to build it, right. I mean, I can

614
00:33:52,760 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 1: give you tactical tools right now, and I want to

615
00:33:54,920 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 1: give tactical tools, like some basic ones that help us

616
00:33:57,960 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 1: navigate the culture as it exists right now. But what's

617
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:04,480
Speaker 1: so incredible is that the tools that we need to

618
00:34:04,560 --> 00:34:08,600
Speaker 1: build that gorgeous future, they maybe haven't been built yet,

619
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 1: Like maybe that somebody listening is going to build those tools.

620
00:34:11,440 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: I don't know, And I think that's what's so rad

621
00:34:13,719 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: is that there's innovation on that other side, But like tactically,

622
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:24,040
Speaker 1: I think it starts with really beginning to ask yourself,

623
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:27,360
Speaker 1: what are the things in my life that I feel

624
00:34:27,600 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: I have to do and do they bring me joy?

625
00:34:31,160 --> 00:34:33,960
Speaker 1: What do they give me? Almost like that Marie Condo

626
00:34:34,160 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 1: sort of ideology, where it's like, if you want to

627
00:34:36,440 --> 00:34:39,440
Speaker 1: have room for new stuff, you've got to make the room.

628
00:34:39,520 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 1: So it's like, what are you going to let go

629
00:34:41,200 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 1: of in order to create that other thing? And I

630
00:34:44,320 --> 00:34:47,400
Speaker 1: think in terms of like diet culture and actually engaging

631
00:34:47,440 --> 00:34:49,920
Speaker 1: with like food, for instance, I think it's important to

632
00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: begin to really stop engaging in moralizing like this food

633
00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:57,160
Speaker 1: is good, this food is bad, this food is evil,

634
00:34:57,239 --> 00:34:59,640
Speaker 1: like all these kinds of things, like these things actually

635
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,600
Speaker 1: have age or impacts not only on our psychology but

636
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: the people around us. Right. One of the most astonishing

637
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,160
Speaker 1: things that I found when I started working with women

638
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 1: was when I asked them, I was like, where do

639
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:14,799
Speaker 1: you experience the most triggers? I was shocked that they

640
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:18,759
Speaker 1: set the workplace. It was just this constant sense that

641
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,520
Speaker 1: they couldn't eat their lunch without somebody watching or saying

642
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:24,880
Speaker 1: something or commenting. They couldn't have a birthday cake for

643
00:35:24,960 --> 00:35:28,200
Speaker 1: their coworkers that everybody like losing their minds. What I

644
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: want what they brought up for me is a moment

645
00:35:29,960 --> 00:35:31,360
Speaker 1: in your book when you I think you were at

646
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:35,760
Speaker 1: a conference and how how culturally sanctioned it is to shame,

647
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 1: culturally acceptable to shame fat people. So our fear of

648
00:35:41,640 --> 00:35:44,359
Speaker 1: being on the other side of that derision. I think

649
00:35:44,440 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 1: often for those of us who may have found ourselves,

650
00:35:47,400 --> 00:35:51,399
Speaker 1: you know, shaming or dehumanizing someone who's fat, that comes

651
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,680
Speaker 1: up our own fear and trauma around being on the

652
00:35:53,719 --> 00:35:56,680
Speaker 1: other side of that. Yes, yeah, it's it's a really

653
00:35:56,800 --> 00:36:00,359
Speaker 1: shitty way that we create a sense of belonging, right,

654
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:03,480
Speaker 1: like we're in this group and you're not, and like

655
00:36:03,600 --> 00:36:06,839
Speaker 1: survival is tied up in that mechanism. Like if we're

656
00:36:06,840 --> 00:36:09,400
Speaker 1: not on the other side of that, we actually are

657
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,400
Speaker 1: feeling the sense of relief. And it's it's just really

658
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: intense right to think about it that way. And I

659
00:36:14,680 --> 00:36:17,440
Speaker 1: think really, like when you're thinking about fat shaving or

660
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: transphobia or homophobia, the ubiquitous kind of punchline groups, you

661
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:27,200
Speaker 1: really can tell. I can tell people don't even hear

662
00:36:27,280 --> 00:36:30,280
Speaker 1: what they're saying. They have been taught this is completely

663
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:34,600
Speaker 1: acceptable and it's completely harmless. And I think that taking

664
00:36:34,640 --> 00:36:38,279
Speaker 1: that moment to sort of interrogate, to sort of have

665
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:41,560
Speaker 1: that reflective moment and being aware that you do have

666
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:43,880
Speaker 1: power and what are you going to do with that power?

667
00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:52,399
Speaker 1: I love it. It's that time again. Coming up after

668
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:55,160
Speaker 1: the break, Virgie and I get into the social effects

669
00:36:55,200 --> 00:37:07,240
Speaker 1: of fat representation on runways and social media. Okay, we're back,

670
00:37:07,440 --> 00:37:10,960
Speaker 1: Let's keep the conversation going. Do you think there's been

671
00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: progress in terms of representation and when we see models

672
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,120
Speaker 1: like Ashley Graham and test Holiday? I mean, do you

673
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:20,359
Speaker 1: think visibility is helping? Visibility is you know, an interesting trap.

674
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:22,920
Speaker 1: I think for trans people we've been very critical of that.

675
00:37:23,200 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 1: Do you think things are getting better? Yeah? I really do.

676
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:29,439
Speaker 1: I'm a very hopeful person. I'm somebody who thinks that

677
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,800
Speaker 1: fat shaming could be a thing of the past in

678
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,919
Speaker 1: my lifetime. I really do so. Yeah. Absolutely, I think that,

679
00:37:37,200 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 1: like the representation piece is really important, and I think

680
00:37:40,640 --> 00:37:43,279
Speaker 1: that it's, like you were mentioning, it's got like a

681
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 1: shadow side for sure, because what it does is it

682
00:37:46,800 --> 00:37:50,520
Speaker 1: creates another beauty ideal sometimes which could be its own trap.

683
00:37:51,400 --> 00:37:53,680
Speaker 1: But when you think about Test Holiday, you think about

684
00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:58,080
Speaker 1: Ashley Graham. These are people who emerge through a groundswell

685
00:37:58,160 --> 00:38:00,759
Speaker 1: demand that we really began to see that had a

686
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,920
Speaker 1: platform finally on social media because for the first time,

687
00:38:03,960 --> 00:38:08,239
Speaker 1: fat people were like, actually I have a PhD. Actually,

688
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:11,520
Speaker 1: this is me looking super cute. Actually I've got fourteen

689
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: booze actually right, Like you know, it's like if you

690
00:38:14,480 --> 00:38:17,439
Speaker 1: can see it, you can be it. And I love

691
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: that saying because I think, at the end of the day,

692
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:24,000
Speaker 1: right before all this happened, the only possible image of

693
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 1: a fat person was somebody who you did not want

694
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:29,959
Speaker 1: to be at all. And I think that like when

695
00:38:29,960 --> 00:38:33,360
Speaker 1: we create these Ashtagram or test Holiday or any number

696
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: of the people who are really popular, like it really

697
00:38:37,120 --> 00:38:44,800
Speaker 1: matters because they're creating a space in which dignity, beauty, autonomy,

698
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:47,960
Speaker 1: and style are possible for fat people. And that, I

699
00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 1: mean literally, that is revolutionary in a culture that has

700
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,040
Speaker 1: only ever really seen and represented fat people as abject

701
00:38:56,120 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: and pathetic and ugly and evil dignity and being beautifully human.

702
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh. So okay, one other thing I wanted

703
00:39:06,719 --> 00:39:08,680
Speaker 1: to bring up because I was thinking about the intersections

704
00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:13,560
Speaker 1: again of colorism and racism and sexism and then men

705
00:39:13,600 --> 00:39:15,960
Speaker 1: because my friend Matt McGorry I mentioned earlier is the

706
00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,560
Speaker 1: reason I write your book, and he's done such beautiful

707
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:23,719
Speaker 1: work around talking about masculinity and fat phobia and expectations

708
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: around what men's body should be as well. That this

709
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,960
Speaker 1: isn't something that just affects women, it's something that affects

710
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: all of us, which we've said here. But can you

711
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about I guess that men and

712
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,480
Speaker 1: then um, colorism. Yeah. I think it's interesting because my

713
00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:42,840
Speaker 1: work is definitely focused on like women and feminine people.

714
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: But what I have found when I've done research, like

715
00:39:47,080 --> 00:39:50,960
Speaker 1: the first people who were pathologized around weight weren't women.

716
00:39:51,000 --> 00:39:54,000
Speaker 1: They were men, and they were specifically Jewish men. It

717
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 1: was considered like a Jewish disease among men. So yeah,

718
00:39:57,640 --> 00:40:01,040
Speaker 1: so the anxiety really rested in the sort of masculinity

719
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: to begin with, and then I really think that as

720
00:40:04,360 --> 00:40:09,320
Speaker 1: the twentieth century in particular unfolded, it became an issue

721
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:13,120
Speaker 1: that was more a feminine issue. Um. But yeah, one

722
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:15,359
Speaker 1: of the things that I noticed when I was researching

723
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:19,560
Speaker 1: how fat phobia intersected with masculinity and with men for

724
00:40:19,680 --> 00:40:23,319
Speaker 1: the book was. I was really compelled by the fact

725
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: that fat men were also experiencing misogyny and sexism, because

726
00:40:28,480 --> 00:40:31,279
Speaker 1: one of the biggest concerns that people seem to have

727
00:40:31,480 --> 00:40:35,760
Speaker 1: with that men is not about necessarily health or beauty.

728
00:40:35,800 --> 00:40:39,200
Speaker 1: It's about feminization. It's about the fact that, like a

729
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: fat man's body is a soft body. And I think

730
00:40:42,600 --> 00:40:44,880
Speaker 1: it goes back to the gender binary, right, like this

731
00:40:44,960 --> 00:40:47,360
Speaker 1: idea that I have to be able to tell exactly

732
00:40:47,400 --> 00:40:51,640
Speaker 1: if you are masculine if you're feminine instantaneously. And I

733
00:40:51,680 --> 00:40:53,840
Speaker 1: do think that fat men and fat women to be

734
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,120
Speaker 1: fairly blur that line a little bit, right, because like

735
00:40:57,200 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 1: fat women are in the domain quote unquote in the

736
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 1: dome to masculinity through our largeness, and fat men are

737
00:41:04,160 --> 00:41:07,640
Speaker 1: in the domain of femininity due to softness. But like

738
00:41:07,719 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: the memes that I kept seeing as I was doing

739
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:13,520
Speaker 1: the research were three that that really like really astonishing

740
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,719
Speaker 1: in some ways. Like one was like the meme of

741
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:20,640
Speaker 1: fat men having breasts, which again it's about gender anxiety.

742
00:41:20,880 --> 00:41:24,640
Speaker 1: The second most common one was around the invisible penis,

743
00:41:24,680 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: the way that the stomach covers the penis, and again

744
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 1: it's about feminization. And then the third one, which was

745
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:35,440
Speaker 1: really bizarrow finding was that there was this study that

746
00:41:35,600 --> 00:41:38,000
Speaker 1: I would argue it is very poorly done, but it

747
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: was about like this idea that fat men lasted longer

748
00:41:42,040 --> 00:41:47,239
Speaker 1: during intercourse because they had more estrogen than thin men.

749
00:41:47,600 --> 00:41:51,120
Speaker 1: And so again estrogen, which is like this totally misunderstood

750
00:41:51,120 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: hormone right, Like it's connected to women in femininity and

751
00:41:54,440 --> 00:41:56,960
Speaker 1: our culture, and this idea that like fat men have

752
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:00,960
Speaker 1: more of it and all of it just pointed to really,

753
00:42:01,040 --> 00:42:06,560
Speaker 1: fat men are experiencing both fat phobia and also misogyny. Um.

754
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: And so it was fascinating to realize that intersection was

755
00:42:09,160 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: so clear. And in terms of colorism, there's an incredible

756
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: scholar named Sabrina Strings, and she wrote a book called

757
00:42:15,040 --> 00:42:18,040
Speaker 1: Fearing the Black Body, and it's all about how fat

758
00:42:18,080 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: phobia and anti blackness are essentially the same thing, I

759
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:25,600
Speaker 1: mean the same thing. Yeah. So she talks about how

760
00:42:26,600 --> 00:42:31,000
Speaker 1: when Europeans landed on the shores of Africa to essentially

761
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 1: enslave people, that they saw these big bodies and they

762
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:39,640
Speaker 1: made the connection between the big bodies, their blackness, and

763
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:45,120
Speaker 1: this untamable animalistic nature that couldn't be disciplined out of

764
00:42:45,160 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: a person. Um and I have to name check another

765
00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:53,319
Speaker 1: really incredible scholar, day Shawn Harrison, who is writing a

766
00:42:53,360 --> 00:42:57,120
Speaker 1: new book called Belly of the Beast. They write about

767
00:42:57,680 --> 00:43:01,480
Speaker 1: the fact that there's a really explicit connection between fat

768
00:43:01,520 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: phobia and police violence and murder of black men because

769
00:43:05,520 --> 00:43:07,840
Speaker 1: a lot of the black men who have been murdered

770
00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: by police, and some of them been boys, were fat,

771
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,120
Speaker 1: or they were bigger people. And I think there's this

772
00:43:13,239 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 1: really intense moment, for instance, give me a second, give

773
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 1: me a second, give me a second. Yeah, I have

774
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:21,200
Speaker 1: to read that one in I just go on. I'm sorry.

775
00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear everything you're saying, but I just

776
00:43:23,440 --> 00:43:26,680
Speaker 1: thought about Eric Garner, and yeah, I mean I think

777
00:43:26,719 --> 00:43:29,720
Speaker 1: like I've been in the weeds with um doing research

778
00:43:29,800 --> 00:43:33,600
Speaker 1: around this, and I've been going through that cycle to

779
00:43:34,360 --> 00:43:38,279
Speaker 1: uh to speak about Eric Garner. So one of the

780
00:43:38,320 --> 00:43:41,320
Speaker 1: reasons that the police officer who murdered Eric Garner was

781
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:48,719
Speaker 1: exonerated was because the NYPD union lawyer argued that he

782
00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:53,759
Speaker 1: died of obesity related cardiac arrest and that if he

783
00:43:53,840 --> 00:43:57,319
Speaker 1: had been a healthy man, that he would have survived

784
00:43:57,400 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: a choking maneuver, which is just like so vile, and

785
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: so I mean just so disgusting. Um. But like you know,

786
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:12,880
Speaker 1: when you're talking about anti blackness, any kind of largeness

787
00:44:12,920 --> 00:44:17,840
Speaker 1: exacerbates anti blackness because blackness is considered a threat in

788
00:44:17,880 --> 00:44:23,160
Speaker 1: our culture. Anything that adds any component of largeness, whether

789
00:44:23,200 --> 00:44:25,520
Speaker 1: it be body fat or height or any number or

790
00:44:25,560 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 1: even like even volume, right, like even like sound, like

791
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:30,880
Speaker 1: the sound of my voice, the sound of my laughter,

792
00:44:30,960 --> 00:44:35,120
Speaker 1: or largest is not just about physicality, it's metaphorical. And

793
00:44:35,160 --> 00:44:39,759
Speaker 1: so any kind of largeness is going to be experienced

794
00:44:39,760 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: in our white supremacist culture as a further threat. I mean,

795
00:44:44,000 --> 00:44:47,919
Speaker 1: excessive force is not exclusively for larger, fat black men,

796
00:44:48,080 --> 00:44:51,360
Speaker 1: but like that element creates a sense that like you

797
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:55,239
Speaker 1: get to be extra extra aggressive and violent and murderous.

798
00:44:55,320 --> 00:44:58,800
Speaker 1: And I think that maps onto the reality that fat

799
00:44:58,840 --> 00:45:03,759
Speaker 1: people are already always seen as capable of handling more

800
00:45:04,080 --> 00:45:08,319
Speaker 1: emotionally physically, right, and and the same is true black people.

801
00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:11,920
Speaker 1: It's essentially a form of dehumanization. Um. And I think

802
00:45:11,920 --> 00:45:13,359
Speaker 1: the last thing I want to say on that is

803
00:45:13,640 --> 00:45:17,560
Speaker 1: when you think about the literal ways in which dark

804
00:45:17,560 --> 00:45:22,680
Speaker 1: skinned boys, um have been targeted by police, there's also

805
00:45:22,760 --> 00:45:26,040
Speaker 1: this component of that is shared between anti blackness, and

806
00:45:26,040 --> 00:45:30,759
Speaker 1: that phobia, which is the phenomenon of adultification, right like,

807
00:45:30,920 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: essentially the projection of an adult like level of understanding,

808
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:40,840
Speaker 1: level of you know, responsibility, control, and potentially malice. And

809
00:45:40,960 --> 00:45:45,400
Speaker 1: you see how that combination becomes deadly in certain cases.

810
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,560
Speaker 1: That was so deep and so necessary to hear. I'm

811
00:45:50,600 --> 00:45:52,200
Speaker 1: so glad to ask you about that. Thank you for

812
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 1: that research, Thank you for sharing that. I like to

813
00:45:57,880 --> 00:46:01,160
Speaker 1: end the podcast with the quest, and then the question

814
00:46:01,200 --> 00:46:03,960
Speaker 1: is what else is true? And this question comes from

815
00:46:04,640 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: the idea of both and that yes, there are things

816
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,280
Speaker 1: that are challenging in the world, but what else is true?

817
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: And this comes out of my somatic therapy of resetting

818
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:15,839
Speaker 1: my nervous system, and specifically it's a kam out of

819
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:17,680
Speaker 1: what else is true in my body? Right that if

820
00:46:17,719 --> 00:46:19,880
Speaker 1: I might have anxiety, and I might feel that anxiety

821
00:46:19,880 --> 00:46:21,880
Speaker 1: in the pit of my stomach, where in my body

822
00:46:21,920 --> 00:46:24,200
Speaker 1: is a neutral or positive And if I can focus

823
00:46:24,239 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 1: on what's neutral and positive, I can reset my nervous system.

824
00:46:27,400 --> 00:46:30,320
Speaker 1: I can reregulate. Right, So I like to ask people

825
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:33,080
Speaker 1: what else is true? So virgery right now for you?

826
00:46:33,160 --> 00:46:37,680
Speaker 1: What else is true? I think? Right now I'm thinking

827
00:46:37,719 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: about the relationship that I have with my cactus is

828
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:50,920
Speaker 1: I feel um, I started with one cactus named Lumpy,

829
00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:53,080
Speaker 1: and I feel like we have this like I feel

830
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: like they teach me the grounded nous and like the

831
00:46:57,800 --> 00:47:01,759
Speaker 1: joy of being round and prickly. So that's gonna be

832
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:05,279
Speaker 1: my what else. That's what else is gonna be. That's

833
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,600
Speaker 1: that's what my what else is true. I love that

834
00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: your relationship with your cactuses that help you embrace being

835
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:17,600
Speaker 1: round and prickly. That is absolutely brilliant. That is absolutely brilliant.

836
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: I love it, and I love you, Virgie, and I'm

837
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:23,640
Speaker 1: so utterly excited we got to have this conversation that

838
00:47:23,800 --> 00:47:26,719
Speaker 1: was so brilliant. I love you. Um. Can you tell

839
00:47:27,080 --> 00:47:30,480
Speaker 1: the folks where they can find you? What else you

840
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 1: got going on? Yes? Um, so I'm pretty active on

841
00:47:34,239 --> 00:47:37,719
Speaker 1: Instagram at Virgie tovar v I R g I E

842
00:47:37,840 --> 00:47:40,920
Speaker 1: t O V as in Victor A R. And I

843
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:44,480
Speaker 1: also have a podcast called Rebel Eaters Club and you

844
00:47:44,520 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: can check out my books. You have The Right Term

845
00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: in Fat, which is an audio book and a digital

846
00:47:49,960 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 1: book and a physical book, and also The Self Love Revolution,

847
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:59,160
Speaker 1: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color. YEA, thank you

848
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:09,000
Speaker 1: so much for thank you have a beautiful rest of day. Bye.

849
00:48:14,000 --> 00:48:18,360
Speaker 1: I love Virgie Tovar, and I love this idea that

850
00:48:18,440 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: Virgie spoke about around imagining something different, that perhaps one

851
00:48:23,600 --> 00:48:26,879
Speaker 1: of you listening out there will have the idea the

852
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:30,840
Speaker 1: innovation to move us closer to a world without fat phobia,

853
00:48:31,200 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: without discrimination and stigma. If we can imagine it, we

854
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:40,080
Speaker 1: can create it, we can manifest it. Here's to a

855
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: world where worthiness has no prerequisites. Thank you for listening

856
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:54,319
Speaker 1: to The Laverne Cox Show. Be sure to subscribe and

857
00:48:54,440 --> 00:48:56,960
Speaker 1: rate us. You can also follow me on social media

858
00:48:57,000 --> 00:49:00,760
Speaker 1: at Laverne Cox on Instagram and Twitter and Laverne Cox

859
00:49:00,800 --> 00:49:04,719
Speaker 1: for Real on Facebook. Join me next week as we

860
00:49:04,800 --> 00:49:09,720
Speaker 1: talk about moving beyond the gender bineering with internationally known poet, writer,

861
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 1: and performance artist a local Baide Minute. Until next time,

862
00:49:15,200 --> 00:49:19,800
Speaker 1: stay in the love. The Laverne Cox Show is the

863
00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:23,720
Speaker 1: production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I Heart Radio.

864
00:49:23,800 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the I Heart

865
00:49:27,040 --> 00:49:30,400
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your

866
00:49:30,440 --> 00:49:31,160
Speaker 1: favorite shows.