Fear of Innovating Bodies (Fat, Trans, Intersex, Impaired)
April 22, 2005 – 9:15 amThe more true or right or authentic people are in their bodies, the more marginalized and medicalized are said bodies.
I’ve been reading some fabulous posts on Alas (a blog) about a NY Times article on the CDC exaggerating fat deaths by a whopping 1400%.
Increasingly people are speaking truth to power. What’s killing fat people isn’t fat, it is the diet industry. Paul Campos’ 2003 New Republic article (Download newsletter2003-3.pdf) on What the Diet Industry Won’t Tell You does a fantastic job describing what fat activists have been stating for decades: fear of fat drives a multi-billion dollar industry that ultimately kills.
The medical industry defines my life, the lives of my fat friends, the lives of my intersex friends and the lives of my friends living with disabilities. But these models are slowly being eroded.
Fat, trans and disability activists have fought, and are still fighting, for different medical standards. Fat activists argue that cholesterol levels are better indicators of overall health; trans activists are beginning to gather evidence that suggests fetal hormonal changes may bring about transsexuals; intersex activists are one by one dismantling the butchering standards whereby doctors invade a newborn’s body and surgically alter it to fit the doctor’s gender standards; and disability activists are shouting about the politicized nature of the right to die with “dignity.”
Fat, trans, intersex and people with disabilities show the world, through our bodies, the farcical nature of a fixed, natural, normal body.
We are leading the edge of human innovation.
3 Responses to “Fear of Innovating Bodies (Fat, Trans, Intersex, Impaired)”
Too right, Jay, too right! In my Critical Race Theory class we had a scholar on disability studies come in to speak to us and we had a very similar discussion. The medical community seems completely invested in maintaining their authority over our bodies and our lives.
By Denise on Apr 23, 2005
Indeed - where would big business be if they didn’t have us to demonize, to characterize as sick and unhealthy and therefore deficient and in need of medical intervention?
I’ll tell you where - filing revised profit expectation statements with the SEC!
It’s ALL about the profits: societal pressures make us ashamed of our bodies, and then big business sweeps in and reaps billions by offering us sham “fixes” to erase our underlying shame and somehow make us better and more responsible citizens by forcing our compliance with and adherence to an institutional, rigid standard of how bodies “should” be “packaged”.
It’s sickening!
By Jennifer Gee on Apr 27, 2005
I wonder if people think they gain something by dividing bodies up into “good” and “bad” bodies? Such a slippery slope for them, and hell for us!
By Jay Sennett on Apr 27, 2005