The Fat Lip

Elizabeth Terry was a big kid who started attending Weight Watchers meetings with her mom before she even hit puberty. She learned body shame before she learned algebra, and she carried that shame with her throughout middle and high school. In her first email to me, her opening line was “I have had the wonderful experience of falling in love with my body while I fell in love with my wife.”

In today’s episode Elizabeth tells us how finding love–in her wife and in herself–has made her who she is and inspired her–along with some other amazing women–to create a company and clothing community that produces quality activewear in an inclusive range of sizes.

Find out more about SassyPants and follow them on social media here!

http://wearesassypants.com

Blog: http://wearesassypants.com/blog

Twitter: https://twitter.com/WeAreSassyPants

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearesassypants/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wearesassypants/

The music in this episode was provided by Starcrusher. Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com.

Please consider supporting TheFatLip on Patreon at patreon.com/thefatlip.

So This American Life is rerunning their “Tell Me I’m Fat” episode from last summer this week, and I keep seeing people discover this episode on NPR’s facebook page and talk about how life-changing it was for them. But if you’ve heard Episode 4 of The Fat Lip, you know that I didn’t think it was as fat-positive as it claims to be. So I decided to rerun my response this week as well for those of you who haven’t heard it or for anyone who’d like to revisit it.

Back again in two weeks with a new one!

Original show notes:

Last week This American Life, possibly the most popular podcast there is, ran an episode called “Tell Me I’m Fat.” Leading up to the episode’s release I read and listened to some teasers and learned that the show would feature Lindy West and her book, Shrill, so I was really excited. I love Lindy and loved Shrill and I’ve been a huge fan of This American Life’s thoughtful, nuanced reporting for years. I thought that someone was finally going to get the subject of fat right.

When I actually listened to the episode, though, I was really disappointed. Lindy was fantastic and hilarious and everything I hoped she’d be. But there were so many other elements of the episode that were really flawed. I listened to it over and over again hoping I was just hearing the most offensive parts wrong. The more I listened, though, the more disappointed and angry I became. And the hits kept coming. I shouldn’t be surprised, though–no mainstream media outlet has ever learned how to talk about fat respectfully. But this has gotten really old now. So today I’m doing something about it. This is my big fat response to This American Life’s “Tell Me I’m Fat”.

The music in today’s show is by our friend, the very talented young DJ Citizen Starcrusher. His new album, Goodbye Halcyon Days is now available at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com.

Please consider sponsoring the show on Patreon! You can pledge as little as $1 per episode (or $2 per month,) and Patreon support is what makes the show possible. Go to patreon.com/thefatlip to learn more.

And don’t forget to follow on social media! All links can be found at thefatlip.com right up at the top. Why not start with Facebook? Go to facebook.com/fatlippodcast now!

A transcript of this episode can be found here.

The fat positive community was shaken up last week when Ashley Nell Tipton, one of our few fat representatives in mainstream entertainment, announced that she had weight loss surgery last month. But the community’s shock and hurt wasn’t for the reason you think.

Sure it smarts to hear that we’re losing one of our tiny threads of representation, but what hurts more is when a representative who built her brand (with the support of her loyal fat fan and customer base) using fat-positive, self-love language turns that self-love around and wields it as a weapon against people who choose to remain fat. This is fat shaming at its most damaging, and we shouldn’t stand for it.

Please consider supporting the show on Patreon! You can help with as little as $1 an episode (or $2 a month.) Learn more at patreon.com/thefatlip.

The music on today’s show is by Starcrusher. Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com.

A transcript of this episode can be found here!

If you’re a fat person (particularly a fat woman,) you are no stranger to the “I like big women” comment. It’s awkward, and it often feels like the speaker feels entitled to special privileges or access based on this admission. For fat people this can be a wholly unwelcome message. We want to date people who want to know us as people, not just as soft bodies. We deserve to have that.

Because of interactions like this, though, a lot of fat people have developed a distrust for anyone who exhibits a preference for fat partners. The “fetishist” is reviled in a lot of fat spaces. But are all people who prefer fat partners fat fetishists? And what does that mean for fat people?

Music in this episode is by Starcrusher. Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com.

Read the transcript of this episode here. 

Cheryl Fuller is a Jungian psychotherapist and a fat woman, and throughout her career she has confronted the common approaches to working with fat people in therapy. Her new book, The Fat Lady Sings: A Psychological Exploration of the Cultural Fat Complex and Its Effects, explores the trauma of fat stigma and the troubling practice of recommending significant weight loss–an effort that will probably fail from the start and is overwhelmingly proven to be unsustainable in the long-term–to fat patients of therapy. In this week’s episode I talk to Cheryl about how she came to this work and how acknowledging biases is essential for patients and therapists.

Purchase The Fat Lady Sings here.

Read Cheryl’s The Fat Lady Sings blog for further discussion.

The music in the episode is provided by Starcrusher. Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com

Become a Patreon patron! Go to patreon.com/thefatlip to learn how.

Facebook: facebook.com/thefatlippodcast

Twitter: @fatlippodcast

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I recently got an email from a listener asking for my thoughts on My 600Lb Life, a TLC show about very fat people, most of whom are pursuing weight loss surgery. I have been thinking about this show for a while, but my problem with shows like these have nothing to do with the fat people profiled or their pursuit of surgical weight loss. As I’ve said before, I believe in unconditional body autonomy–even when the decisions people make for themselves are contrary to the work that I do on this podcast.

The problems that I do have with the show, though, are on the production side. The show’s recruitment tactics are pretty creepy. But I also believe that if the fat positive community did a better job of including people in this size range (or really made any effort at all to do so,) fewer very fat people would turn to shows like My 600lb Life.  Often the people profiled on the show feel hopeless and isolated, and they need the support that the fat pos community offers to its smaller fat peers. We are not acknowledging these people, not giving them voices, and not advocating for them. That makes the fat pos and fat activist community part of the problem.

The music in today’s episode is by Starcrusher. Find more of his music at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com!

Become a Patreon patron! Go to patreon.com/thefatlip to learn how.

Facebook: facebook.com/thefatlippodcast

Twitter: @fatlippodcast

Instagram: fatlippodcast

Tumblr: http://thefatlip.tumblr.com

 

Alison covered superfat air travel extensively in her blog post (Read it here!) but we wanted to take an episode to go over some of the most important things to keep in mind when you’re traveling by air. In this episode we talk about how to prepare for your flight, how to get through security, and who to talk to to make your boarding process as  easy as possible. We also talk extensively about what fat people face when going through TSA security screenings and how we can move towards protecting the privacy of everyone (not just fat people) at the airport.

If you have had a TSA pat-down experience that you feel has infringed upon your privacy, please tell your story to the ACLU here: https://action.aclu.org/secure/think-your-rights-have-been-violated-while-traveling-internationally

The music in this episode is by Starcrusher! Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com

 

And if you’d like to learn more about becoming a patreon patron, go to patreon.com/thefatlip

Facebook: facebook.com/thefatlippodcast

Twitter: @fatlippodcast

Instagram: fatlippodcast

Tumblr: http://thefatlip.tumblr.com

In the last couple of weeks especially, we’ve seen millions upon millions of people around the world protesting the actions of the new US president. Immediately following the election, Ann Coulter tweeted in response to protests that “without fat girls, there would be no protests.” And for once I think she’s absolutely right! But some of us, though we support the resistance movement, are unable to march or to stand in protest. But we can still participate! In this episode I run down ways you can voice your opposition to government actions without marching.

Also, from February 1 to February 14, the Fats of the Resistance shirt will be available on Teespring with 100% of proceeds going directly to the ACLU. If we sell 50 shirts, that’s over $500 that the ACLU will receive, and they will need it. We will be relying heavily on the ACLU in the next four years. Check teespring.com/thefatlip starting on February 1 to get one and to prove to Ann Coulter that yes, fat people are essential to this resistance!

Organizations discussed in the episode that are providing easy ways to contact your representatives:

thesixtyfive.org

dailyaction.org

5calls.org

democracy.io

tweetcongress.org

Also, there’s an app that I forgot to mention in the episode! Go to https://www.countable.us/ to download it.

As always, thank you to Starcrusher for the music you heard in today’s show. Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com

And if you’d like to learn more about becoming a patreon patron, go to patreon.com/thefatlip

 

 

This year is already pretty intense, so it’s been hard to figure out how to talk about fat positivity lately—it just feels like there are so many other things of critical importance right now. But making fat peoples’ lives better matters and it’s a worthy cause, so we have to keep going. In today’s episode we’re talking about little shifts in attitude and low-effort changes that can move the fat acceptance cause forward during the upcoming year.

On Wednesday, January 25 I was a guest on WPKN radio in Connecticut speaking with Harry Minot about fat positivity and The Fat Lip! If you are interested in listening to the show, there’s a recording available here: http://archives.wpkn.org/bookmarks/listen/172416/harry-minot-fill-in-for-wednesday-night-fish-fry-with-rod-ross-

The music you heard on today’s show is by Starcrusher! Hear more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com

Please consider becoming a Patreon patron! The support of patrons is what keeps this show going, and we are so thankful for it. Go to patreon.com/thefatlip to learn more.

The holidays can be a real shitshow when you’re fat. Travel is terrible, family dinners are a minefield, and sometimes you just have to find a place to hide and cry.  Or read a book on your cat, apparently? In today’s episode Alison and I are talking about strategies to get through the holidays, no matter how you celebrate.

The music in this episode is by Starcrusher! Find more at cstarcrusher.bandcamp.com.

Please consider supporting the show on Patreon. Learn how at patreon.com/thefatlip.

Follow the show on all of the social media! Find us on twitter at twitter.com/fatlippodcast, on Instagram at instagram.com/fatlipash, and on Facebook at facebook.com/thefatlippodcast.

Happy Holidays!