The most important epidemic

"Cholera and typhoid," [South African Sanitation Minister Ronnie Kasrils] tells me, "kill so many million kids a year, which amounts to two jumbo jets full of children crashing every four hours."

As long as this is going on in the world, we need to stop spending even a single public cent worrying about fat people, and work on making these kids safe.

I'm also thinking that, if these were white kids, it wouldn't be happening.

Bad Benches

I'm looking at these benches...

And I have to say, the slanted one? Pisses me off. The Nike "wet paint" ones are also dickish, but at least they're usable.

For those who don't want to click the link, basically a gym company advertised by putting these benches in public places. The benches were designed so that the seat was tilted so far forward that no one could actually sit on them, the implication being that you shouldn't be sitting down, you should be omg exercising.

The Nike benches had fake wet paint stickers on them to "promote running"...basically to remind us all that we shouldn't be wasting precious exercise time sitting down and relaxing.

Another advertiser placed decals of bathroom scales so that when someone sat on the bench, their feet would be right on the scale. The decals said, "Burn Calories" and were advertising a gym in India. Oh, and the scale's dial registered a horrifyingly OMGFAAAAAAAAAAAAT weight of 95 pounds. You know, if I'm tired and need to sit down for a moment? I don't need eating disorder triggers shoved up my ass for the horrible crime of sitting down.

The latter two suck, but the first one is a kick in the teeth to those of us who have disabilities. If I'm out walking somewhere, and I have a real, sudden need to sit down for a little bit (often my back will be spasming, which is excruciating), encountering one of these useless, mean-spirited benches would probably make me dissolve into tears of pain and frustration. And then I'd probably have to sit down on the ground...which may be muddy or wet, and is not as easy to get up from as a working bench.

I am so damn tired of the neverending "Burn more calories" propaganda. We are cajoled and coerced into engaging in more and more strenuous physical activity, and guilt tripped if we do not. The gym companies barely even need to do their work in this anymore, because they've now got plenty of exercise zealots who LOVE showing off how morally superior they are to people who choose to spend their free time doing other things, or to those of us whose bodies are not able to engage in strenuous exercise.

The marketing weenie responsible for the slanted bench? I'd love to see that jerk get a badly sprained ankle, or come down with mono, and then be forced to replace all his furniture with slanted crap so he can't sit down or even sleep in his bed.

Fat Positive book

A friend of mine has edited a fat-positive anthology of stories about fat men. You can order it here. It is available either as a download or as a paper copy.

A brief conversation

My friend: Why is it that ANY time an actress/celebrity gains a tiny bit of weight everyone thinks she's pregnant?

Me: Because that's the only socially acceptable excuse for gaining weight.

My friend: Oy.

Guest Post: Sizing in Stitchery

This piece is reproduced with permission of the author, who has been a good friend of mine for years. Please note that I know NOTHING about sewing, so I'm taking her word for all of this :)

Most of you know that I frequent estate sales fairly regularly. I do know that some people get depressed at the thought; I figure the things they're leaving behind were things that these people loved, and would have preferred to see them loved by another generation, rather than ending up in the local land-fill.

I don't collect Hummels. I don't collect depression glass, or milk glass, or cigarette lighters. (It's hard enough to walk past a smoke house, much less if I had a couple of hundred old lighters begging to be used...) I collect pre-1900 sewing machines, fountain pens, antique medicine tins, and free-range wads of cat fuzz. I have yet to find the latter at any estate sales, but my collections of the previous three are growing.

Inadvertently, I am gathering a fairly substantial collection of old sewing patterns.

Now I don't know what rock y'all have been hiding under, but in case you were unaware, over the last ten years at least there has been a great deal of complaint over the Sudden Expansion Of Waist Lines. "Sizes haven't changed! People are getting fatter! It's an epidemic! Pandemic! OMG!FATTEEZ are taking over!"

I do not have the Current-Accepted Build. I am finding that as I attempt to find period-correct costuming for the mid- to late Victorian period, or the range between 1850 and 1890. For that period, while I am considerably taller than the accepted norm, my proportionate sizing is not at all unusual. (Well, it wouldn't be if I hadn't gained about fifty pounds.)

In looking for a pattern for a Berlinischer woolwerk handbag, or specifically the instructions for assembling said handbag, I came across a bag of patterns I had picked up for a dime apiece at the same sale I got the parlour-cabinet White.

The White was in the possession of a very elderly woman who had gotten the 1924 machine as a present new and continued to use it until less than a week before her death, though she had a newer one. (Her grandchildren got it for her. She took it out when they were visiting, sewed a couple of buttonholes with it, then put it right back in the closet when they left.)

In addition to that machine, she had patterns that dated from the late 20s up to the 80s. All of them had been used to make a muslin; most of those were included in the individual envelopes.

And, for those of you who do not sew, on the backs of those envelopes were the approximate expected measurements of the wearer.

One of the most common things I see listed on current pattern sites is "I wear an 8! How come I wear a 12 in your pattern?" with the response Sewing patterns are sized smaller than off-the-rack clothing.

The rack-stores, anything from Sears up to Neiman Marcus, say The old sizes were too small for modern women, prompting a complete re-vamp of size numbers to today's current sizing. These are more natural to the size of the modern woman, and should serve her well.

Oh, yeah?

Head yourself out to one of those stores. Take a tape measure with you, and start grabbing Size 8s off the rack. Take down the waist measurement of each, noting the manufacture of each. There is consistency within the individual manufacturer, but not across the manufacturers themselves. The waist size can be anything from 24 inches to 28, keeping in mind that the so-called waist is actually three or four inches below where your natural waist actually is.

Don't believe me? Take a strip of 1/4 inch elastic, and tie it around your middle. Stand up, sit down, dance around the room. The elastic will end up not two inches above your hips, but right about where the short-ribs are. That, ladies and gentlemen (and d0nn13), is your natural waist. What the modern sizing is actually measuring is almost onto the hips.

Then go to your local fabric and crafts store. JoAnns, Hobby Lobby, Wal*Mart, or whatever your equivalent is, and start pulling out patterns. You should be able to get a hold of McCalls, Butterick, Simplicity, and perhaps Vogue or Burda. Note the New And Improved Waist Sizing here? Here is a pointer to Simplicity's version of Standard Sizes By Inches.

Note anything interesting? About, say, how a woman's 18 is virtually the same size as a Plump Girl's? And a size 8? Why, it's the same size as a girl's 14.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I wore a girl's 14 when I was in junior high school. No boobs, no waist, no hips; all the curvature of a yard of pump-water. When I was at Arizona State, I wore an 8 everywhere but the bust. I was a lot taller, and had defined curves.

Apparently, the New And Improved sizing means that once you have hit the age of ten, you are supposed to stay the same size as that ten year old.

This is "healthy"?

Now we drift back toward those patterns. Here, I know. We'll grab one. It's a business-suit type pattern, what would later become known as a Power Suit. The copyright date on it is 1967, and along the back envelope flap, we have the ubiquitous Range Of Sizes.

This pattern is a Misses 16. A larger-than-normal but not grossly obese size.

The measurements for a 16 are 44-1/2" bust, 39" waist, 46" hips.

Not a size twenty-six, but a size sixteen.

My God. If I add about ten inches to the bust, I could fit into a size sixteen!

Okay, let's slide that one back into the box, and pull out another one. This one's for a nice formal dress. It's dated from 1952, and it's a Vogue pattern. Now keeping in mind that Vogue ideally mirrored the haute couture of the day, the pattern in question is definitely fitted. The instructions, in fact, suggest that you try on your muslin wearing the appropriate foundation garments, meaning that it was designed to be worn with a corset. Oh, not one of those ungodly pigeon-breasted S-form jobbies from 1910, but something that would provide firm support from beneath.

Again, we are looking at a size sixteen.

And again, we have measurements of 44" bust, a 36" waist, and 46" hips. Vogue makes it a bit harder to find their sizing, but here, again, is a link.

Neat, huh? Admittedly the Today's Fit is a bit closer to their original, but their Vintage Vogue patterns are all sized with the New And Improved sizing.

Butterick? Same thing, if not a bit worse; their patterns used to run small in the original.

Well, thinks I, sliding that one back in, too. Interesting, hey?

The oldest pattern I have is from 1946. The sizes are still consistent. But never fear! There are sites on the 'web that have original patterns! And I went to look at them.

Sizes - such as we find above - are not widely used until the mid- to late 40s. Prior to that? Waist and/or bust sizes, depending on the garment. Skirt patterns from 1890 - yes, I found some, and no, I'm not buying 'em (at least not yet) - are grouped by size. The smallest I found in a woman's size was a 24 - that was the finished waist band size, which meant that the prudent woman would be corsetted in to a 20" - and went all the way up to a 52.

Fifty-two.

That's inches, lads, lasses, and d0nn13.

And no, not those are not Maternity Measurements. Maternity was a completely different department - the waist was not bound at all; you wore a Maternity Corset (which was sized according to your hips, and tied almost up by the shoulders, so the baby was held up by the thing) and your gowns were basically prettily printed sacks; the skirt hung from straps over the shoulder, and the blouse hung loosely over it. That was, of course, when you weren't simply in a "Maternity Wrapper", which had an interior lacing, so that even if you were overwrought by your condition, your modesty was still preserved.

Imagine that. They had fat women - and presumeably men, though their shirts were constructed very differently, buying fabric strictly by width and sewing selvage to selvage and gathering at the neckline - during the Civil War! And afterwards!

Okay, let's go back to the patterns. Now we'll start leafing forward. Here, we'll stop in the 1970s (oh my God, please tell me I never wore my hair like that).

Pattern sizes in 1972 are roughly the same as 1967.

My collection is not complete; there is not another pattern until 1979. Here, there is a drastic difference.

On the McCall's pouch, there isn't even a size that permits anybody to have a bust measurement bigger than 40 inches...and that is a dreadfully unfashionable Size twenty.

Waists are six inches smaller than bust, and the hip measurement is five inches larger than the waist. This, then, would be when the style officially dropped waists from the natural waistline down onto the hips. Anybody but me remember the Empire Drop-Waist? Here it is, gals, guys, and d0nn13!

1983 had a resurgance of the high-necked blouses of the 1880s, including the tight waist, modified Gigot sleeve, and ruffles to emphasize the gazongas. Probably the only point in current fashion that I could actually buy something off the rack, though mostly I filled the thing out the way they weren't supposed to be. (And I sure as hell did not need the ruffles.)

Still, though...a 22 inch waist was a four. And a forty-four inch bust was an embarrassment, only to be seen on porn stars.

In the mid-90s, Neiman Marcus had an Italian plus-sized model bring her line of clothes into the Newport store. "Real clothes," she said proudly, "for real women." The garments were beautiful. They were well-made, they were well-designed, and they took into account that not everybody can, or indeed wants to, spend four hours a day on a treadmill and eat a half a cup of vinegar-soaked raisins before every meal.

The complaints were overwhelming. "You're saying that all women are fat," was the most popular whinge. "Real women don't look like that! Real women are proud of how they look! Nobody wants to spend their money on clothes for fat people, we want to look beautiful!" Neiman Marcus stopped carrying her clothes after six months. The line was picked up by Saks, and may well still be there. Including some absolutely delectable wedding and black-tie formal attire.

Neiman Marcus, meanwhile, doesn't even carry anything larger than a 48, and that's for men. And you'd better believe they're slim-fit, too.

Because, after all, in order to have money, you must be anorexic, or damn' near to it.

To use a horribly over-played phrase, "Fascinating."

---

...the short short version...
The current, common scream seems to be naught but "People are getting fat now! Clothing sizes prove it! You're all too disgusting to be seen, and you can't even buy patterns big enough to cover you!"

Research and factual evidence seems to prove to the contrary.

I'm almost masochistic enough to try and find out how the protesters would change their stories were the physical evidence placed before them?

Copyright sDr 2008
Do not reproduce
without express
permission of
the author

It's about being civil

Even IF it is true that fat is unhealthy... (and it isn't)

Even IF lifestyle is the sole cause of being fat... (and it isn't)

Those are STILL not acceptable reasons for the things people say about and do to fat people.

Christopher Reeves' horse riding lifestyle choices resulted in him becoming a quadriplegic, yet it would have been socially unacceptable to scream insults at him about horses or paralysis. That's because it's asinine to do so. Well, it's also asinine to be nasty to fat people, regardless of their health or lifestyle.

My Fatifesto

I strive toward a world in which:

- People are treated respectfully, regardless of their body shape or size,

- Medical personnel treat a person's actual medical problems and behave as professionals who set aside personal aesthetics when treating and diagnosing a patient,

- The answer to every problem does not involve weight loss,

- A person's body size or shape does not reflect their morality,

- Fat people are not scapegoated for all the world's ills,

- Fat is not an epithet,

- My body's shape or size is regarded as my business and no one else's,

- The life-giving act of eating is not regarded as shameful, weak, or dangerous,

- A fat person can be in public without fearing they will be abused in some way,

- The abuse--physical, verbal, emotional, psychological, or other--of fat people is regarded as morally wrong, with no exceptions or excuses,

- It is acknowledged that no one needs to "do something" about their body's shape or size,

- It is acknowledged that most fat people cannot significantly change their body size or shape, even if it were beneficial to do so,

- Fat people are not subjected to hard-sell, dishonest marketing tactics that shame and scare them into purchasing products and services they do not need, and which do not work,

- A food's merits are based on its nourishing qualities and good flavor, not on how few calories it has,

- Fat people are not discriminated against in the job market.

Mart Cart, Revisited

There is SO much vitriol directed toward "Mart Carts" (motorized scooters in stores) and their users, especially if those users happen to be fat. I wrote about it here, back in April 2007, but I wanted to revisit the subject, especially now that I have more experience with them, and because I have seen more and more nasty things being said on that topic.

The usual hate-speak is to complain that if the person would "get off their ass and walk", they wouldn't be so fat. That, and referring to the carts as "fat carts", accompanied by outrage at the very existence of those carts. Many of these people seem to think that the carts are an accommodation just for fat people, and complain that fat people are being mollycoddled because stores have them.

First of all, those carts aren't for "fat people", they are for disabled people. And while complainers frequently whine that they "only see fat people" using them, I have to wonder how they got their marvelous psychic skills to determine that those people aren't disabled. Yes, it IS possible for a fat person to be disabled. A fat disabled person can be (and usually is) disabled by conditions that are not caused by their fat--and, in fact, the reduced activity levels caused by the condition may result in weight gain.

Disabled people DO need accommodation, if we are going to allow them some dignity and independence. When they are accommodated, they are able to go out in public and do some things, such as shopping, that they would never be able to do otherwise. This makes those people more visible in the public eye, of course, when they would otherwise be stuck at home doing nothing. Most of our public non-work activities include shopping and dining, so yes, you're going to see a fat disabled person using a cart in a store to do those activities.

Now, the major point I want to make here is that, even though the carts are a benefit to disabled people, and they DO offer a greater level of freedom for disabled people, no one who's used them more than a couple of times would, in their right mind, choose those damn things over walking with a regular shopping cart anyway. They aren't a fun toy; they are a pain in the neck. Those who use them are doing so because, while it is not an ideal way to shop for an abled person, it may be the best available option for a disabled person.

The carts are slow and bulky. When using them, a person's reach is VERY limited--it's hard to get stuff off of top and bottom shelves, it's hard to open freezer cases, and it's hard to put things on the belt at the checkout stand--and god forbid the person should stand up for a second to do ANY of those things, because that's the moment where people will say, "LOOK! She can stand up, she has NO right to use a cart!" The carts are also often dirty and/or smelly, they run out of electricity, and they don't hold very much compared to a regular cart.

Additionally, they can be a challenge to maneuver if the user isn't feeling great. Those are the days when, if the disabled person has a partner to help, a wheelchair can be really helpful. Unfortunately, most store wheelchairs seem to be in disrepair, they're uncomfortable, and they're usually filthy as well.

So if you think that someone is using the cart because they are lazy, I challenge you to give the cart a try yourself. Go through the store without an assistant. Remember that you are NOT permitted to stand up for any reason. You want something off a top shelf? Too bad; you have to ask a store employee for help, or a fellow customer (and hope that neither of those folks sneer at you or makes a snide remark). You aren't allowed to stand up to get something out of a freezer, no matter how damned frustrating it is to have to reach and maneuver the cart so you can open the door, then try to get the door to stay open while you maneuver close enough to get the item you want. If the cart smells, too bad; use it anyway, because it might be the last one left for someone who doesn't have a choice. Give it a try, and then get back to me on how much "fun" it is, how much "easier" it is. We aren't using them because it is easier, we are using them because our bodies don't work right. If you have a problem with that, why don't you get over yourselves and be glad that you have the ability to shop normally, in a store that is clearly designed for able people?

Edited to add: This is not the place for you to post hate-speech, especially personal attacks on people in the FA movement. Also, just because someone can go into a store under their own power does not mean that they can comfortably do all of their shopping that way; the fact is, you don't know ANYTHING about that person's situation, and it's none of your business. If they feel that they are better able to do their business using a mobility aid, then that is entirely their decision. Using a cane, wheelchair, or motorized scooter is not some "fun" thing people do because they are lazy.

Dealing with fatophobe trolls is like this

I have come up with the following to demonstrate what it is often like for me when people "challenge" the things I say in my blog.

Me: I have discovered that 2+2=4

Them: Wow, you're ignorant. Everybody knows that 3+8=11.

Me: I'm not denying that 3+8=11, but that does not have anything to do with 2+2=4.

Them: Oh my god, you are SO stupid for saying that 6+1=12!

Me: I never said that! All I said was 2+2=4!

Them: There you go again, trying to say that 7+6=147.39!

Me: What the hell are you talking about?! All I said was 2+2=4!

Them: Don't try and change the subject--why don't you just admit that you were wrong when you said that Hawaii was in France?

Me: What?! Are you on crack?!

Them: Oh there you go with ad hominem attacks, the last resort of an ignorant fool who thinks that horses are reptiles!

Me: OMGWTF?!?!?!

Them: Why are you getting so emotional? Maybe if you calmed down, you could think more clearly, and then you'd see that I'm right.

Me: Why don't you fuck off and die so I can have some peace?

Them: What are you doing? Help! This woman is crazy and should be locked up, she's trying to kill me for no reason!

Later, Them: You know, you should have been more polite and tried to educate me about 2+2=4 instead of flying off the handle. You win more flies with honey than vinegar.

Me: *banging head against wall until it mercifully explodes*

Them, smugly: See, she was obviously unstable. I knew it from the beginning.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Five: Ovarian cysts

When I went to university just after high school, I met a very nice young woman who had a very rounded abdomen that looked like a near-term pregnancy. I lost touch for a while, but a couple years later, I saw her, and her belly was nearly flat. Still young, and not yet introduced to FA, I asked her about her weight loss. She told me that a volleyball-sized ovarian cyst had been removed from her body.

I was absolutely stunned. It was the first I'd heard of such a thing, and it horrified me to know that her cyst had gone undetected for so long--that she had spent so much time and effort trying to lose weight, when it wasn't weight that could be lost without surgical intervention.

Of course, not to be spared any of life's most wonderful experiences, four years ago, my own body decided to produce several cysts, one of them quite large, necessitating the removal of an entire ovary, the fallopian tube next to it, and a chunk of uterus, all of which had been engulfed in the cysts and could not be salvaged. It was an emergency surgery, due to the cysts being previously undiagnosed, and growing to a point where they suddenly caused acute, unceasing abdominal pain that landed me in the ER.

Ovarian cysts often go undetected because the women who have them are blown off as lazy overeaters. Instructed by doctors to "diet and exercise", patients can become frustrated and stop bothering to get medical care. The cysts continue to inflate--they fill with fluid, and can reach some mind-boggling proportions. A Texas woman had a 156-lb cyst removed in 1994. That pales in comparison to the world record, a 328-lb cyst removed from yet another Texas woman (what's in the water there?!) in the early 1900s, but a 156-lb cyst, as well as a 93-pounder and 66-pounder, are still problematic.

A woman carrying around a large ovarian cyst may experience disabling pain, and she may have her activity levels severely curtailed. With a reduction in activity, her metabolism may slow down, causing her to gain weight on top of having the weight of the cyst. By the time she finds a doctor willing to treat her actual problem (instead of berating her for being fat), she may have developed additional health problems related to being sedentary.

No amount of diet and exercise is going to make the cyst disappear. The rest of the body may lose mass, but the cyst will not shrink. There are generally only a couple of options for treatment; one is surgical removal of the cysts, and the other is hormone treatment in the form of birth control pills. Generally, most cysts will go away on their own once a woman starts taking birth control pills. Of course, weight gain is also a symptom of taking oral contraceptives; it would be great if fatophobes would understand that sometimes gaining weight on a medication is better than not having the therapeutic effects of the medication.

So the next time you see a woman that you think is OMGFAT, and you think it's somehow your business to get upset about that, consider the fact that the above is just one of many medical conditions that can make a person appear to be fat, and it is often one that goes untreated far too long because too much attention is paid to making people thin instead of making them healthy. You might also consider that she is on a medication that is keeping her healthy, and being fat is a side effect of that medication. Asking a woman about the status of her reproductive system, though a favorite hobby of aunts and mothers-in-law, is generally considered to be a gauche thing to do, so the best thing to do is assume that her health and reproductive system are private matters between her, her physician, and possibly her significant other, no matter how badly your screwed-up, bigoted aesthetic sense is upset by the sight of her.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Four: Drug side effects

Many pharmaceuticals have weight gain as a well-documented side effect. The weight gain can be due to a variety of factors, including, but not limited to, lowering metabolic rates, causing hyperinsulimia (especially in anticonvulsants like neurontin and depakote), and many other biochemical effects that are not easy to put into layman's terms. To put it simply, these drugs work because they have a specific chemical effect, but they often react with other biochemical processes in ways that are either not anticipated, or are considered to be less important than the intended therapeutic effect.

To put it simply, a living animal is not a laboratory calorimeter, where calories in and calories out are a simple function. We are infinitely complex, and adding a molecule to the living system can help some problems, but modern medical science is not yet fine-tuned enough to successfully target one tiny process. Our SSRIs and other antidepressants are often like taking a blunderbuss to a rifle range--you will probably hit the target, but you'll hit a lot of other stuff too.

That's what progress is all about, though. A hundred years ago, you probably would have died if you had an acute gallbladder, while today a doctor plucks the quivering organ from our innards with a watchmaker's precision, making a cholecystectomy a very simple and survivable surgery, with smaller and smaller scars as tools and techniques sharpen. When I was a teen, I waited anxiously at a hospital in Milwaukee, five hours from home, for my grandfather's quadruple bypass to be completed. Today, he probably would have had stents neatly slipped into his blocked arteries, with only a pinprick on the surface of his skin to show for it.

Before we had antidepressants and other mental health drugs, we had some of the most inexcusably abusive quackery inflicted upon the mentally ill. Historically, mentally ill people were often just dumped in prisons and jails (and guess what--we're still doing it; ask any social worker). Some were treated to cruel, sometimes deadly exorcisms. Women were presumed "hysterical" and went to doctors for vaginal "massage" to induce orgasm as a treatment. Lobotomies became all the rage in the late 1940s, with frontal lobes scrambled with an ice pick through the eye socket. Asylums were often notorious for their squalid, cruel conditions, with many exposed by family members who were horrified at their relatives' treatment.

In the 1950s, the advent of psychotropic drugs was the first ray of hope for mentally ill people. I feel that we're finally seeing the tail end of the birthing pains of psychopharmaceuticals, with more solid research and standards being applied. The system is obviously not yet perfect, but important lessons have been learned, with our ancestors' brave--albeit not always informed--foray into citizenry as research subjects.

So, today, instead of a schizophrenic being shackled into a cold cell, at the mercy of potentially abusive captors, that person may be able to function normally with the help of a drug such as Risperdal. They may be able to work, have a family, and enjoy their lives. If the drug that enables them to function also causes them to gain weight, I question those who wring their hands over the weight gain. Surely the fact that they can live their lives independently is a pretty good trade-off for the potential stigma associated with the weight gain? And, if it is indeed the stigma the hand-wringers are concerned about, what is preventing them from working toward a better world, one where a fat person is not subjected to social stigma? Is their aesthetic sense so deeply rooted that they can't stand to see a happy person who happens to have a body shape that is not attractive to them?

Some of the best-selling drugs today are antidepressants, especially the SSRIs. They have helped millions of people become reacquainted with life, to poke their heads out of the steep-walled pit that is depression. Anxiety, another condition treated by SSRI, can be so disabling that its sufferers sometimes cannot even leave their homes. I think it is absolutely ridiculous that anyone would be so upset over the associated weight gain, when the drugs often make a person feel as if his or her life is worth living again. I'm tired of hearing the fatophobes shrieking about it, trying their damnedest to drag down those who have finally been able to stand up again, just because their bodies are different.

So tell me, fat-haters, are you really so shallow and juvenile that you would rather see someone institutionalized than fat? Hanging themselves instead of fat? I've really begun to wonder if the fat-hate is not just about fat, but about an excuse to be misanthropic to anyone who is socially vulnerable. After all, the mentally ill you used as a punching bag in ages past have now become functional fat people, so whom are you going to punch in their place? My suggestion to you is to find out why you need a punching bag at all, and then fix it, rather than continuing to delude yourself into thinking your victims deserve your abuse. Maybe you could even try one of the above drugs--it might even be good for you to see what it's like to gain weight without changing your eating or exercise habits.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Three: The 300-lb malnourished woman

All right, before I start talking about fat, I want to talk about a little economic conundrum. So bear with me; it's relevant.

So, there's this island. We'll call it, say, Nes, for the sake of expediency, but its name isn't important. Now, the island's dwellers survive by getting regular shipments of supplies. Because of unknown circumstances, these shipments are always exactly the same--the contents never change, although the frequency can alter according to the islander's needs. Within each shipment, there is a particular necessity that comes in red boxes. No matter what, the shipping company can only send six of these red boxes per shipment. Now, that's okay, because that's all the islanders need in proportion to the other stuff they get, so nobody's got a problem with this.

However, the shipments start arriving with less than six boxes. They have the same amount of everything else, but they show up missing some of those red boxes. They complain to the shipper, who responds by saying that the shipments leave their port with all six boxes. "Okay, but we really need more red boxes," the islanders say. "Then you're going to just have to order another entire shipment to get the boxes in it," the shipper responds. They don't have many options, so the islanders increase the frequency of their shipments. They get half as much of the red-boxed stuff as they need, which means they have twice the amount of other stuff--an amount they cannot use.

Well, what would you expect these islanders to do, exactly? Throw away the extra stuff? Or store it, in case the shipments are short on those items at a later time? So they store it, and store it, until the warehouses are crammed full, and everyone has an attic crammed with it. And then, they have to build docks and floating warehouses to store it all, because they don't want to throw it away.

Along comes a guy, however, who says, "I think I know exactly what your problem is..." He points out that, for the time being, they can slow down their other shipments, and order just the red boxes from another source. However, that's a short term solution--the real problem is that, en route to the island, pirates are attacking the ships and robbing them of the red boxes. They don't take all of them--if they did, then the shipments might stop entirely until the pirates are dealt with--but they take about half. The real solution is to eliminate the pirates so that regular shipments can go through unmolested.

So, that brings me to our malnourished 300-pound woman. We'll call her Myra. Myra is a big woman, and she is very hungry, all the time. She also has skin problems, her hair's falling out, and she feels tired and sick a lot of the time. Lots of doctors have told her to stop being such a fatty mcfatty moo cow. Stop eating so much, exercise more! But the hunger is unbearable, and her fatigue is crushing. Myra gets sick and tired of her doctors having no real help to offer her, so she does her own research and finds some doctors that have compassion and the ability to see and hear patients, due to NOT having their heads rammed up their rectums.

Myra and her medical team finally figure out that she has severe auto-immune problems, including some nasty food allergies. Basically, when she eats gluten, her digestive system becomes so inflamed that it cannot properly absorb many of the nutrients she eats--but does allow the calories to be taken in and stored. Because she is low on vitamins and minerals, her brain sends out FEED ME signals that drown out pretty much any semblance of sanity she has. So she eats more--and the calories get absorbed and stored, while the vitamins and minerals pass right on through her ravaged system.

And, the previous solution to this has been, don't eat so much. For someone who is literally starved--not of calories, but of other nutrients--this is a cruel thing to prescribe.

So Myra, now that she has sorted out her food allergies (and hypothyroidism at the same time; autoimmune stuff is harsh), she takes a megadose of certain vitamins to "catch up" until her body has recovered enough to get enough of those things from the food she eats. She's finally recovering, and, surprisingly to her, the stored calories are now being utilized as her body balances itself and goes down to her natural setpoint--through no effort of calorie restriction at all.

I haven't even gone into the biochemical feedback loop that creates even greater cravings (inflammation -> adrenalin -> hunger), but there is quite a bit going on that most of us don't even realize or think about. It's awfully easy to point fingers at someone for eating "too much" or being too sedentary, but unless you have lived inside that person's body, you have no idea what their situation is like. Mistreating someone for being hungry, fat, or sedentary is arrogant and ignorant--and it doesn't do anyone any good. If you truly want to help people be healthier (not "lose weight", but "be healthier"), you should advocate for better education about things like hypothyroidism, celiac disease, and other things that can create situations like Myra's. If you're not interested, however, then learn to mind your own business regarding other people's health and bodies.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part Two: Hypothyroidism

About five years ago, I started developing severe symptoms consistent with hypothyroidism: crushing fatigue, widespread pain, weight gain, and other issues. I'd had them to some degree for several years before that, but for the first time in my life, the symptoms were interfering with my ability to work.

My doctor at the time, we'll call him Dr. H, did blood tests, and he told me that my thyroid levels were "normal". With every other thing ruled out, and some other things ruled in, he finally concluded that I had fibromyalgia, and got me started on some medications that were supposed to help. These medications helped the pain and depression somewhat, but I was still exhausted most of the time.

A few months later, I asked him to do another thyroid test. He told me that it was a good idea, since the standards for "normal" had been changed, and that my previous test, while "normal" at the time, now was outside of that range. The phlebotomist took a few vials, and I heard back a couple of weeks later that my levels were "normal". Now, at the time, I had not done my homework. I was still not fully aware of the extent to which I had to advocate for myself with doctors. Too trusting and naive, I didn't actually get told what the numerical results of my test were, only that they were fine.

Fast forward to a year ago, when I changed my primary doctor to someone I'd met through work, a very intelligent man who was very knowledgeable about hypothyroidism and fibromyalgia. Dr. D was of the opinion that, even if the test results appear to be normal, when a patient exhibits symptoms of hypothyroidism, it may be beneficial to treat for it anyway. He said that about half of the people in such circumstances show improvement with the thyroid medication.

Additionally, my previous doctor only tested for TSH, the chemical your brain sends to your thyroid to tell it to make the thyroid hormone. Basically, if you aren't making enough thyroid hormone, the pituitary gland keeps pumping out TSH, which reaches a high level because it's the equivalent of the pituitary gland screaming at the thyroid to step up production. So a high level of TSH will show that the thyroid's not responding enough to shut up the pituitary gland. In my opinion, that's a bit like determining if someone is deaf by whether or not their spouse is screaming at them to be heard. Maybe you can draw some conclusions from it, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything if the spouse isn't shouting.

In many people, the TSH test will not show hypothyroidism; people with fibro especially seem to be harder to test because of a biochemical feedback loop (and no, I don't know where my source for this is; I had it in a newsletter or something) that results in a normal-appearing TSH level. So, to see if there's enough thyroid hormone being produced, the most accurate way is (and don't be shocked here) to test for the actual level of thyroid hormone. Now, to me, that seems kind of common-sensical, but I guess it's more expensive to do the full testing.

The long and short of it is that, once Dr. D did the full panel of tests, it showed that I was, in fact, not producing enough thyroid hormone. He had already started me on the medication, however, preferring to begin treatment immediately instead of waiting. It can take a long time to get up to the proper dose, because you start very small and work upward toward the dose that works for you, so he didn't want to make me suffer any longer than necessary.

It has only been in the past couple of months that I've finally been up to the right amount of medication. My energy levels have noticeably increased--I can actually feel that my metabolism has revved up a bit. I feel cheated, though--I could have been feeling like this four years ago if my last doctor had been doing his job and using his brain. I don't know how much the years of hypothyroidism have actually damaged my body, and if I'm going to recover somewhat from that, it could take a very long time.

Left unchecked, hypothyroidism can damage the heart, kidneys, and mental state, and can cause osteoporosis and anemia, among many other problems. Because of the metabolic effects, it causes weight gain, and makes weight loss, even through intense dieting and exercise, nearly impossible. Hypothyroidism is NOT difficult to test for--and is fairly simple and inexpensive to treat. As such, there is NO excuse for anyone with the condition to remain untested and untreated; anyone exhibiting symptoms should be taken seriously by a doctor, instead of being treated like they are not worthy of medical assistance until they lose weight.

Educate yourself on the symptoms, and don't accept no for an answer if a doctor doesn't want to do the tests. Make sure you know what tests are being run, and if they aren't the full panel, ask why--insist that it be done. Don't accept a qualitative answer like "normal"--get numbers, and compare them to the latest medical literature. If your literature shows a result different from your doctor's qualitative answer (outside the normal range, when the doctor's said you're normal), find out why your doctor's opinion is different. If you find that you're not getting straight answers or considerate treatment, get another doctor. Remember, it's YOUR body, YOU have to live in it. It does not belong to your doctor, and you don't have to accept your doctor's word as gospel.

I sincerely hope that my experience can help others get the treatment they need.

Fat is a symptom, not a disease, Part One: Medical Malpractice on a Victorian Scale

One of the most irresponsible things about the "obesity epidemic" is that weight gain and fat tissue is often treated as a disease instead of as a symptom. As such, fat patients are instructed to lose weight, sometimes by way of surgery, without any exploration as to how or why they are fat, and whether they are actually experiencing health problems as a result of it.

In the next few entries, I will discuss some of the conditions that result in weight gain, including my personal experiences with those conditions, and how medical personnel seem to have a blind spot regarding those conditions. I will also explore some hypotheses regarding why those blind spots exist, and what can be done to get past them.

It is my belief that many of the health problems attributed to fat may actually be the result of overlooked and untreated issues--issues which, as they continue to be untreated, can result in even greater weight gain. As the frustrated patient continues to be told "lose weight" in lieu of actual medical treatment, they may lose confidence in the medical establishment, not only refusing to go to the doctor when they really need to, but becoming depressed as a result of being essentially told that they are not worth the trouble of medical care due to their being fat.

This entrenched, dogmatic system of medical malpractice, seemingly based more on "common knowledge" than science, needs to be attacked, denounced, and demolished. It needs to be relegated to the status of quackery, where it belongs on the same shelf as "humours", phrenology, and hysteria--all obsolete ideas that, when in vogue, caused immense suffering and death, and often justified maltreatment of other people. Humour-balancing, often in the form of bloodletting, caused a great deal of physical damage. Hysteria diagnoses allowed men to treat women as fragile children, resulting in "treatments" that would be viewed today as sexual assault and false imprisonment. Phrenology, though less damaging, was still a quackery used to make value judgements based solely on a person's physical characteristics.

Today, the quackery of the obesity epidemic is resulting in the same abusive, damaging treatments that humour-balancing and hysteria treatment did long ago. We're given dubious medications that kill us (Fen-phen), encouraged to undergo inexcusably dangerous surgery, and treated to verbal abuse and shaming for the "crime" of taking up too much space--verbal abuse that is lauded as necessary and even beneficial. We're told that we deserve to be sick and/or dead because we are fat. We're told that we have ourselves to "blame" for any and all health, emotional, or social difficulties we have, regardless of their cause, because we are fat. Most obscene, however, is that we are promised that, if we stop being fat, all of our problems--health, social, emotional, and otherwise--will go away. We're told that, until we stop being fat, we aren't worthy of medical care, common courtesy, or even a single bite of food.

Fat is NOT the cause of all these problems. Often, a fat person's emotional and social problems are the result of unwarranted maltreatment by others. Often, a fat person's health problems are not the RESULT of their fat, but the CAUSE of it. It's a pretty damn big cultural meme we're fighting against here, but when so many people are so abominably ignorant, it doesn't make their misconceptions true by consensus. So that's what I'm here to do: Tell my stories, and hopefully change a few minds.

Next up: Part Two: Hypothyroidism

The nulliparity epidemic

We are currently facing a nulliparity epidemic of previously unseen proportions. More and more women are choosing not to have children, or are having them rather late in life when they do choose to have babies. Now, you'd think that this is nobody's business except the women involved, but let me give you some facts about nulliparity and cancer risk:

* The younger a woman has her first child, the lower her risk of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.
* A woman who has her first child after the age of 35 has approximately twice the risk of developing breast cancer as a woman who has a child before age 20.
* A woman who has her first child around age 30 has approximately the same lifetime risk of developing breast cancer as a woman who has never given birth.
* Having more than one child decreases a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer. In particular, having more than one child at a younger age decreases a woman’s chances of developing breast cancer during her lifetime.
* Although not fully understood, research suggests that pre-eclampsia, a pathologic condition that sometimes develops during pregnancy, is associated with a decrease in breast cancer risk in the offspring, and there is some evidence of a protective effect for the mother.
* After pregnancy, breastfeeding for a long period of time (for example, a year or longer) further reduces breast cancer risk by a small amount.

As you can see, this is everybody's business, because it's cancer. Women who claim they don't want to have babies, or who want to put off having them until later in life, are obviously very misinformed about their risks. They need to know that their irresponsible lack of pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding is dangerous, and it is an unfair burden to taxpayers to shoulder the health insurance needed to treat breast cancer for nulliparous women. Additionally, it's pretty disgusting for these women to think they should be able to enjoy sex without the responsibility and consequences of having babies.

In order to combat this epidemic, I propose that the government step in and do some or all of the following:

1. Make it illegal for nulliparous women to obtain and use contraception. Responsible people (those who are mothers) should still be permitted to obtain and use it, because they've demonstrated that they care enough about their bodies and society to have babies.

2. Force insurers to pay for IVF for socially awkward girls who may not be able to get pregnant the traditional way--and for girls as young as 13, so that they don't get sexually transmitted diseases or pick up the bad habit of enjoying sex. Even though there may be health complications for younger girls having babies, it's more important that they not be excluded from having babies when their peers are doing so as well. It's also necessary to get their cancer risk as low as possible, and since having children and breastfeeding before the age of 20 lowers that risk, starting as young as possible is a smart thing to do.

3. Launch a massive marketing campaign with billboards, magazine ads, tv commercials, and viral ads to really nail it into women's heads that they NEED to have babies, as soon as possible, and that not having them is shameful and makes them a terrorist.

4. Push through as many fertility drugs as possible, even if they aren't known to be completely safe, because time is of the essence--we need women to get knocked up and FAST, before their nulliparity costs the nation billions of dollars in cancer treatment.

5. Set up pregnancy clubs all over the place, where people go to talk about their attempts to become pregnant, get called out by their peers on why they haven't gotten pregnant yet (shaming is a great tool), and where personal trainers can work with women on their techniques for getting pregnant.

6. Force employers to dock employees' pay if they have not yet had a baby or become pregnant. That, and give huge bonuses to those who do.

7. Discreetly encourage verbal and physical abuse of women who continue to defy the moral imperative to have babies.

8. If all else fails, put the bitches in concentration camps and repeatedly inseminate them until they are knocked up. Make sure they are interred long enough to birth and breastfeed the child for the amount of time required to reduce the cancer risk. Yeah, they'll bitch about "freedom", but they would expect the rest of us to pick up their health care tab when the time came, so fuck 'em. That, and it's just plain disgusting to see a woman not sacrificing herself to a life of motherhood; who the hell do these bitches think they are anyway? No one wants to see that shit.

I am a person, not an epidemic.

I am offended.

I am offended by the constant Chicken-Little shrieking in the media about "obesity", and what "is to be done" about it.

If you are one of the people running around, waving their hands in the air, getting all worked up over the "obesity epidemic", I want you to do me a favor: Sit down, and shut up. And listen.

When you talk about "obesity", you are using a word that is cleverly designed to remove the humanity from the equation. If you say "obesity", you don't have to face the reality of living, breathing, feeling people who happen to be fat. I think it's about time you face reality.

So here I am. I am a fat person. I'm right here, right now, and there YOU are, saying you have to "do something about" me. You can no longer hide behind your abstract concept of "obesity". What you are really saying is that you want to "do something" to change my body. MY body. And you know what? I am standing here, and I am telling you, "NO."

You are claiming to do this for my "health", but you aren't even asking me if I want it done. You see my body, and because you don't like what you see, you think that it is okay to shame and coerce me into making my body into your ideal.

This is not about "health", it is about freedom. I am not obligated to look the way anyone else wants me to look, and I am not obligated to work toward an arbitrary "health" goal that may or may not actually benefit my health anyway. But you would deny me the basic human dignity of deciding for myself how I want to live my life. And to that, I say, step off.

Answering the wrong question

An article from BBC News announces that eating breakfast "keeps teenagers lean", quoting one anti-fat proponent as saying this revelation is "ironic". The researchers noted that those who ate breakfast were less likely to be lethargic and inactive, so their higher activity levels resulting from this morning fueling compensated for the calories eaten, and then some, leaving the breakfast crowd thinner than those who avoided eating breakfast.

What bothers me is that they were looking at how thin the subjects were, instead of how healthy they were. The message of "eating breakfast will make you thinner" is less important, in my opinion, than "eating breakfast makes you feel more energized, and lets you do better in school and other activities." The fact that they need to use the carrot of thinness to grab peoples' interest makes me very sad, because I know that, even if the researchers felt that feeling better is more important than being thin (and that's a BIG if), our anti-fat atmosphere really promotes thinness over actual health and well-being. In fact, thinness seems to be regarded as shorthand for health and well-being, even though that isn't really true.

What researchers really need to be looking at is whether or not something makes people feel better and live more fulfilling, productive lives. I can definitely argue that eating breakfast DOES do those things, which is a good reason to eat it. Instead, we're worried about what will make people thinner, and it's a neurotic obsession that drives people to waste their lives weighing food, deliberately going hungry in an atmosphere of plenty, and eat foods they don't actually enjoy. Even when we ask about quality over quantity, those seeking thinness claim that there can be no quality of life without being thin--and I, and all the other FA bloggers, want them to know that it is simply not true.

Believe me, I do understand that discrimination and cruelty affect quality of life--I do! But instead of torturing your body in trying to make it more acceptable, which is usually an exercise in futility, join us in fighting for social change. Know that you've got a whole group of smart, strong, outspoken fat folks who are ready to support you. Know that yours is a shared experience.

So ask this question when a new study comes out: How will this make my life better? Don't worry about whether it will make you thinner.

Scentsible and considerate

Imagine, for a moment, that you live with a semi-deaf roommate. This roommate really enjoys music, but has a hard time hearing it, so he cranks up the volume to a level that is comfortable and enjoyable for him.

You, as a person who is not hard of hearing, have a much lower threshold for what is comfortable and enjoyable. Roommate is rocking out while you are rolling on the floor, clutching your head in agony. The sensory overload is causing you real pain. When you ask if the roommate can turn it down, he looks at you incredulously. "It's not THAT loud, hell, I can barely hear it!" You try to explain that, because his hearing isn't as acute as yours, your volume tolerances are different. He scoffs at this, telling you that you're making it up, and to stop being such a sensitive goddamn pussy, and to stop trying to control him with your stupid hypochondriac bullshit. He then turns it up even louder, flips you the bird, and subsequently refuses to ever turn the stereo off at all, just to spite you.

That, my friends, is what it is like to have a very sensitive sense of smell in a world where everyone and their dog is slathering on several layers of perfumed products.

Maybe you don't smell it quite as acutely. Maybe you think we're making this up. But when someone is trailing their cologne behind them like Princess Diana's bridal train, for some of us with sharp noses, it's the equivalent of someone screaming in your ear at the top of their lungs. The sensory overload hurts. It gives us headaches, just like the aforementioned roommate's music would give most other people headaches. Just because you aren't able to smell things as well as we do, doesn't mean that we are imagining this.

The overload of our olfactory senses causes a reaction--our sinuses fill, our noses run, our eyes water. This is a neurological reaction that is designed to reduce the waves of sensory input entering our noses. In fact, there is a certain nerve, the trigeminal nerve, that, if aggravated, can actually cause the nostril on the afflicted nerve's side of the face to run, the eye to water, and the sinuses--just on that side--to fill (this can be trigeminal neuralgia, or a cluster headache)--just from a nerve going haywire!

So, yes, when we get too much olfactory input, there is a PHYSICAL reaction, just like when your pupils constrict and your eyes hurt if you are in light that is too bright. If we are in a place that we cannot leave, such as our own homes, or a workplace, we are subject to pain and discomfort that cannot be mitigated. This is why many of us are sensitive to perfumes, and why we ask that others be more subtle with their scents. We're not trying to be mean to you, or to control you, we are trying to save ourselves from terrible headaches. Why is that too much to ask?

From Gibson Girls to Photoshopped Perfection

In Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, I was reminded that the feminine ideal of the early 1900s was just as unreal as today's photoshopped magazine covers. The Gibson Girls were drawings of otherwise slender women with large breasts and lush hips and buttocks. Their waists were tightly cinched to form an hourglass figure, and they were tall, with bouffant updos that further increased their statuesque heights. Women did their best to emulate the Gibson Girls, despite the fact that they were drawings--idealized versions of a man's vision of feminine beauty. Kolata also claims that flapper girls were a similar invention of artists, leading to the teenage-proportioned body (small breasts and hips) being the new ideal for that era.

Here we are, a hundred years later, still being mocked with unreal images of beauty that we are expected to emulate. Even women who already conform to the ideal are photoshopped to remove the tiniest details, until their faces resemble porcelain dolls. Not only are blemishes, wrinkles and other "flaws" removed, the very proportions of a woman's body and face are altered--eyes made bigger and moved to a different position on the face, lips plumped, widened, and repositioned, waists whittled down, breasts pumped up and lifted. It's ridiculous.

Manufacturers of beauty products absolutely rely upon women's low self-image to sell their products. While I enjoy putting different colors on my face, as humans have done for millennia, the cosmetics industry goes far beyond that. If we are not panicking over every pimple, freaking out over each wrinkle, and becoming hysterical at the sight of a gray hair, they aren't making money. These "too perfect" magazine covers are absolutely designed to shame us, to make us hate ourselves. There is BIG money to be made on our self-hatred.

We bind ourselves in Spanx, strap ourselves into tight bras, slather eight kinds of goop on our faces, pay for the privilege of having someone tell us how and what to eat (and shame us when we haven't lost weight), run on human sized hamster wheels (big big bucks there), dye our hair so we don't look old (instead of for the fun of, say, having purple hair), and then continue to buy the magazines that make us feel like we HAVE to keep doing these things, because we still don't look like the photoshopped cover girl, even though the magazines never actually say anything new (and trust me folks, Cosmo never has any real new sex tips, no matter what the cover hype says).

Well, screw that. I'm sorry, but I don't have the money to support low self esteem. If I felt like I wasn't good enough to be seen in public without buying all of the stupid crap these companies are selling, I wouldn't be able to afford the "privilege" of leaving my house.

Throw those damn magazines out. Stop buying them--they are preying upon you; they are deliberately designed to make you feel bad. Who needs that nonsense? Unsubscribe, and either find a less damning periodical (Bon Appetit, Cat Fancy, Aquarium Fish), or invest your money in some good books instead. If you're a feminist, or at least have feminist leanings, I can highly recommend the works of Sheri S. Tepper, and many of her books can be found for super-cheap used on Amazon. Or, build up your FA library with Gina Kolata's Rethinking Thin, Paul Campos' The Obesity Myth, Roberta Pollack Seid's Never Too Thin (note: Get this one while you can; it's out of print, and only available used), and Barry Glassner's The Gospel of Food.

Good Fatty/Bad Fatty

Well, y'all, I covered that particular topic over a month ago, but it seems to be all the rage now. So let's do this thing.

Dividing people in acceptable and unacceptable examples of their oppressed demographic is a time-honored tactic by oppressors. If you can get at least part of the group to turn its back on the rest, by way of convincing them that the oppression is somehow their own fault, and that it can be relieved by behaving in a particular way and alienating those who do not, well, doesn't that seem a perfect strategy for not just getting as many of them to behave the way you want them to, but also to assist you in oppressing their own demographic?

This is a well-beaten path, and we need to look to the experiences of those who have gone before us in pursuit of human rights to guide us. Civil rights activists have long known that when oppressed persons engage in behaviors (such as "acting white") to please their oppressors and mitigate their circumstances, the only thing that changes is the form of oppression. You are not truly free if you must behave in particular ways in order to avoid being abused.

We must also not fall into the trap of believing that those who abuse us have our best interests in mind, no matter what they claim. The abuse is easier to accept when we believe we deserve it, and abusers frequently try to convince their victims that the abuse is the victim's fault, and they wouldn't be abused, if only they would have done certain things. The truth is, abusers have no right to abuse, and they do so because it satisfies some desire or need in them--NOT because their victims deserve it. If the victims did not have a certain behavior or quality that the abuser focuses upon, there would be some other behavior or quality that the abuser would use an excuse.

None of us deserves the poor treatment we get for being fat. Every single one of us deserves basic human rights and dignity. What we eat, how much we exercise, our vital stats? Those aren't even a factor. Being a living, feeling being should be enough to warrant dignity. Don't stand for any less.