There is NO good or bad

The whole idea of "good" or "bad" fat people that's going around right now feeds right into the culture of fat hatred. That is the culture which defines good or bad and that is what we need to confront, instead of trying to reduce our message to fit into their standards.

In our fat hating society, ALL fatties are bad. Not only bad, but far worse than the most "bad" fatty you'll ever find. Our self-inflicted notions of what makes a "bad" fatty are still miles away from the prejudiced assumptions made about all of us. We made label ourselves "bad" if we don't excersise daily or eat more than 2,000 calories, but that's not the "bad" we're dealing with. We are dealing with a culture which is convinced that our bodies are proof that we eat thousands of calories a sitting, that we are virtually housebound by our sedentary lifestyles. They really do think we are sitting on our couches all day shoveling candy into gaping maws. That we sometimes watch TV and that we allow ourselves to eat isn't the "bad" they are talking about.

We can't play under their rules. The so-called "good" fatties aren't the end, but rather a means to an end. Its not about showing that we can be good by their rules. Remember, THEIR rules don't allow us to be good at all. That we can eat little, excercise plenty, and still be fat shows that THEIR rules are complete garbage. It shows that the way they define good and bad is dangerously misguided. It shows that their definition of health is a farce. "Healthy by their rules" fat people don't defend these rules. They tear them down completely.

That is where FA must step in to provide an alternative. Not an alternative which retains the restrictive dictates of health, but one which is properly expansive and inclusive. We tear down their system, and then call for a new one which is not simply a slightly adapted version of what exists now, but which is better for all people.

We need to stop seeing things the way a fat hating culture wants us to. We must stop labeling ourselves "bad" because we don't follow their rules. We must not reduce fat acceptance so as to not disturb their rules of what is good and bad. What we must demand is change. Genuine and radical change. "Good" fatties are part of that in that they show that the emperor of fat hatred has no clothes, but that doesn't force us to accept that their definitions of bad are bad. It doesn't force us to preserve their prejudices and exclusions. We're not talking about tweaking fat hatred, we're talking about overthrowing it.

In that fight, we cannot afford to give up our most powerful weapons against fat bigotry. We will not change a culture of fat hatred by saying "So what if all the reasons you hate us are right?" They already think they are right and they've concluded that this culture of fat hatred is a just response. We cannot change it by saying, "So what if we choose to be fat," because they already believe we have a choice and that this is the proper reaction to that choice. Those are not arguments for change, and they aren't arguments we need to make.

So you are a "bad" fatty. What makes you think that has any impact on your size? There are "bad" thin people out there. Why should you think your body is the result a "choice" when they made the same choices and have a different body? So you have diabetes. Does that mean you aren't healthy? No less so than anyone with diseases commonly associated with thinness. There have been diabetic fat activists for decades. There have been fat activists with PCOS for decades. There has never been any contradiction there, because that's not what fat acceptance is advocating. Its never said that only some fat people should be accepted. Its shown why all the reasons we are not accepted are false, unreliable, and unproductive.

Should it matter if being fat is a choice? No. But it does matter to the culture of fat hatred, and playing "but it shouldn't" won't change a thing. It shouldn't matter if being gay is genetic to advance gay rights, but gay activists recognized the ways homophobia perpetuates itself. Sure, there are some who will hate gay people anyway, but by educating people on how there is no choice for most gay people, they've torn down the intolerance. And when someone becomes accepting on these grounds, it doesn't matter if a gay person choose to be gay or not. Once you tear down the intolerance, those issues really don't matter anymore. I don't doubt that we'll be offered conditional acceptance, but we have no obligation to take that. We have no obligation to say, "good enough". We can reject it for the false compromise that it is and keep pressing our case to undo fat hatred's notions of good and bad.

We shouldn't be identifying ourselves as "bad" fatties. That's playing by "their" rules. We're going beyond that. That's the destination of fat acceptance. That is where "fat is not unhealthy" and "fat is not a choice" is taking us. We'll never get anywhere if we try to reason within a fat-hating system. We need to confront THEIR standards for hating us and show them to be false. We need to take this fight head-on.