Do you know how hard it is to walk into a building devoted to not becoming you when you are you!? It’s the worst! I’m me literally every day! “Fat=bad/thin=good” is so seamlessly built into our culture that people I consider close friends don’t hesitate to lament their weight “problems” to me—not stopping to consider that what they’re saying, to my face, is “becoming you is my worst nightmare, and not becoming you is my top priority.”
And that’s why it is politically transgressive to simply be fat and happy in public. It is against all the rules.
Lindy West, “Hello, Fellow Gym-Goers, Look At My Fat Butt”
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It’s something I also think about when I’m at the gym. All the advertisements feature already thin/fit people. All the instruction signs feature already thin/fit people. All the decorative posters feature already thin/fit people. It certainly creates a lot of pressure – and basically erases non-thin people who work out. It often ruins my work-out/crushes my mood. And I’m a cis-dude – the pressure on women* certainly is greater. But I feel it, too.
Thoughts?