Revolutions Need Bodies/A Pride Guide for Everyone!!!

This post has been sitting in my drafts for the past few months, because I thought it would be super important to talk about the embodied practice of revolution.

What better time to do so than pride month?

I’ve been reflecting a lot on what I know about embodiment lately, and I feel like this perfectly goes with the idea of pride month and everything I feel about celebrating Pride as we do.

Micah Banzant

A little queer history: On June 28, 1969, Marsha P. Johnson threw a brick at a NYPD police officer at a bar that was frequented by many gay, lesbian, bi and trans folks. The Stonewall Inn was one of the only places in NYC where LGBTQ+ people were left alone to be themselves, as homosexuality was against the law in New York City at the time.

Mafia families controlled bars and paid police to stay away so that they could make a profit. They sold their bottom shelf liquor at top shelf prices, knowing that queer folks had nowhere else to go to socialize.

On June 28th, the NYPD raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.

The Stonewall Riots gave us NYC (and other nationwide celebrations) of “Pride”. 

But so many people forget this history.

 

 

The revolution that is PRIDE was built on the bodies of trans women of color, cis gay men, black lesbians, and continues to be built on fat peoples’ bodies, queer peoples’ bodies, and trans bodies, too. Some of these bodies share multiple marginalization. But the true shifts from tolerance to acceptance, from marginal to normalization, would not exist without them. Without us. 

It is because of Marsha and Silvia Rivera and so many other important and beautiful people that we have entered a new era of civil rights. And this revolution continues to build. As Marilyn Wann says in the foreword to the Fat Studies Reader: “If we cannot feel at home in our own skins, where else are we supposed to go?”

 

@transtastic (DeviantArt)

 

I experience it on a daily basis, in my relationship with my partner, and incidentally, in my relationship with myself and my body. To be queer is to act outside of normative structure. To be fat is to act outside of normative structure.

It’s worth acknowledging that with my marginalization, comes also my privilege. I am white, able bodied, a citizen, middle-class by birth, and these are things that not every queer or fat person shares with me.

We must not forget, during a month that is about equality, that there still are ways in which we are not all equal. 

 

Starting with Pride celebrations themselves.

As I stated in my history lesson earlier, Pride was born out of a mass resistance by LGBTQ people to no longer be policed and to resist the idea of only being able to socialize through active drug and alcohol culture.

Yet today, Pride itself often serves as a space for queer folks and their straight ally friends to get buzzed on the LIRR and go to Cubbyhole or Phoenix after the parade ends. This closes out the festivities to a lot of people in the LGBTQQIPPA+ community, those in recovery from substance abuse in particular.

It goes without saying, many people in the queer community become addicts in the first place because of homophobia, stigma, shame and self-hate; things that nobody deserves to feel, or should have to bury in an addiction.

Another reason I’ve come to reconsider pride as an “inclusive” space is the corporatization of the parade itself in the past couple of years. It’s become a space for banks and companies to give away rainbow stuff with their logo on it and pledge their support for one day of the year, while either implicitly or explicitly also reinforcing discriminatory hiring practices against queer and trans bodies.

Corporations made up 36% of San Diego Pride in 2016, while actual LGBTQ+ people only made up 26%. Many of the companies at pride festivals also exist in states where it’s legal to fire someone because of their orientation or gender identity. In other words, they’re proud to take your money, gay people, just don’t come out at work. 

The protest space itself is not disability accessible; for so many reasons. For folks with anxiety or autism, it can be extremely loud and overstimulating. For physically disabled folks, crowds aren’t known for being wheelchair friendly or generally accessible. Especially when the crowds are upwards of a few thousand people per city block.

And on an election year, expect candidates to be canvassing and shamelessly self-promoting.

And if you’re going to go to pride as a straight person, please be respectful of us. We are not your token gay friends, this day isn’t about how great an ally you are. Like, at all. 

IMPORTANT!!!! make sure you keep your hands to yourself. There is nothing more obnoxious than touching marchers or parade attendees without their consent, commodifying their identity. Don’t be Perez Hilton and go all “I can objectify women and harass them because *haha* I’m not attracted to them!”…just because you wouldn’t sleep with someone doesn’t make it funny that you’re potentially making them uncomfortable.

 

Elias Ericson

 

Let fat people be fat! I adore and love and cherish fat queer bodies. They belong there in that space as much as thin privileged folks do, and y’all best make room for them–no objectification, grumbling, rudeness, side eye, or marginalization or heckling allowed. Fat people exist and they are loved and they are welcome. And they’re not in queer relationships because they “couldn’t get a man/woman/other implied heteronormative relationship situation to love them”. Fatness isn’t a condition. But queer fat love is an act of liberation, and that’s what this entire month (and for some of us, every day life) is about.

In her essay “Fattening Queer History”, Elena Levy-Navarro defines her definition of “queer” outside of the spectrum of human sexuality and love, and into the realm of “other.” She discusses a queerness that “is ore expressly inclusive of all who challenge normatively, including fat people.” She argues the point that while the LGBTQ+ community struggles to be integrated and accepted in society, they may also perpetuate fatphobia in their communal spaces, which are supposed to be about love and justice. While researching pride flags for people to be aware of for this month, I came across a ‘fat fetish’ flag and I was appalled because this is exactly the problem. Fat bodies are squished into convenient narrative boxes, selectively assigned sexuality (based largely on “acceptable fatness” and the “pretty face” pejorative). But to the rest of the world, fat people, particularly fat queer people, are of otherwise no use, no worth, and no value in and across social contexts. And the LGBTQ+ community cannot continue to prop up this kind of commodification rhetoric–we must get rid of the in-house “othering” of bodies in our community as a whole.

Navarro argues for a “historical turn” in queer history, such that we reflect back on the past to look at the bodies of people involved in LGBTQ+ Liberation movements and honor them for their size, shape, assigned sex at birth, expression, gender identity, and the work that those bodies did to get us here.

Fat people experience the same kind of ignorance-based discrimination from the health care system, and are seen as “undesirables” lacking in reproductive ability (as many people view LGBTQ folks), thus rendered unimportant to the medical community. Western medicine hyper focuses on creating a “before” and “after” picture of a fat body, as if there is something assimilationist that is required to be accepted as a fat person, as is the case as a queer person.

This is, after all, the month when we hear slogans like “love is love” and the heterohistorical contextualizers of our society give a lot of effort and lip service to orienting queer people into a space that is heteronormative, using heteronormativity as the reference point. These attitudes and behaviors are the same ones that ask the question, “So which one of you is the _____?” (insert binary gender here), which completely misses the point that queer relationships are intentionally made up of differently gendered individuals. 

These revolutions need ALL bodies to be there. LGBTQQIPPA people are worthy of respect and if you aren’t a member of our community, remember that we are inviting you into our home, and trying to mitigate the injustice that has been done unto our bodies. 

 

 

Marriage equality and pride parades are great but they are still such small steps. Basic dignity, representation, and a movement away from only the “acceptable” queer relationships being visible (i.e. trans relationships, trans representation, fat queer/trans relationships), comprehensive inclusive healthcare, job security, and legal personhood recognition are only just some of the things we still need.

Right now, the basic essence of what it is to be trans is still listed as a disorder in the DSM, the same way that fat phobia is still seen as best practice in medicine. If we want to be liberated, we have to recognize all of these things simultaneously, and combat them simultaneously–and it takes more than a parade and a month of recognition to do just that.

For some of us, pride month is still inaccessible because it’s not safe to be out to our families or our work spaces. This prevents people from living congruent lives, being the same person in all spaces and at all times, and thus, from living with complete integrity. When we are forced to live a dishonest life, one mired in shame, our bodies break down. And these revolutions in social, societal and global change desperately need our bodies to be there, to show up, and to represent everyone.

Nobody should be expected to live from the neck up; only acknowledging their thoughts as a function of what makes them different. Our bodies are the center of how we live, what we do, who we are, and they deserve to be given space and acknowledged and loved. Our bodies should be seen, celebrated, and acknowledged for how they are gloriously, beautifully different!

Happy pride!

PS watch this music video it is everything 

Rising Strong as a Recovery Practice

This week’s post:

• Rising Strong by Brene Brown
• Standing up to shame
• Everybody is doing the best they can
• My last week of summer

ALL images and quotes come directly from Brene Brown’s 2015 book, Rising Strong. Proper citation included at the bottom. 

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On my vacation, I finally finished the book I had been reading. And let me tell you something–you NEED this book. Everyone everywhere needs this book. I liked it so much that I ordered it on Amazon after reading a library copy for three days. There is so much in here that I learned from and now try my best to live by and give other people.

Brené Brown, for those of you who aren’t familiar, is a social worker and storytelling researcher in the field of shame and vulnerability. And since I have spent a bulk of my life recovering from shame and grappling with vulnerability, I thought I would give this book a shot. And it changed the way I think, fundamentally.

I read the Goodreads reviews of this book as I went along, and I agreed with some things. First things first–the idea of a rumble and a revolution with every possible point of shame we experience might seem a little dramatic at first. It may cause us to see ourselves as perpetually in shame. But I connected with the idea that we need to get curious about what our shame points are–access and admit to the story we are making up, and which parts of it are true–be vulnerable about the truth–and use truth and vulnerability, instead of shame, to propel ourselves through life. 

The things I got the most out of from this book that apply to my recovery are:

1. Living in my true story is what restores my integrity.

My eating disorder is a filthy, sh*tty liar. It has, in cahoots with body image myths, shame, guilt, diet culture and reinforcement always told me that hiding was the most efficient way to live life.

So I lied about what I ate, when I ate it, who I was with, what I was doing, how I was damaging my body, how I was treating people, and how much I actually liked myself. All these things utterly destroyed my integrity, led me further and deeper into shame spiraling and taught me that I was not okay who and how I existed. I had no integrity. My mom stopped believing me and stopped asking questions. We gave up on our honesty with each other. This is one of the things that honesty and truth-story telling has restored almost entirely in my recovery. Integrity is living in my values even when nobody is watching. 

Now, when I say what I say, I mean it. When I eat, it’s not done behind a door or a wall or shoved in my mouth before someone walks up the stairs. When I need a meeting, I say I’m going to a meeting. When I say yes, I mean yes. When I say no, I mean no. As someone who was taught to believe that they are not okay as they are (which my friend and coach Brandilyn Tebo says is the definition of shame), saying yes when you mean it and no when you mean it are hard work. But sometimes I practice it even when it’s irrelevant, just to prove to myself that I can.

From Rising Strong by Brene Brown

 

2. The death of shame arrives when you take permission back.

This is an especially significant lesson that I am applying to recovering from a chunk of my trauma. I wrote myself a permission slip the other day that read “Permission to SAY NO!!!!!” and signed it. I laughed, because it reminded me of that scene in Parks and Recreation when Ron tries to kill a pig in a public park at a barbecue.

Now, I don’t see myself ever needing to skin a pig, but the things I do need to reclaim require that I reclaim them unapologetically–including existing in my own body, being authentic, getting emotional, saying no to other people taking up my physical space, eating what I want where I want when I want, and living free of justifications and excuses. 

When I grant myself this permission and acknowledge my own right to take up space, the idea that “I am not okay how I am” becomes background noise; if not altogether silent.

3. A lot of suffering comes from the stories I have made up.

To contextualize this, I have an anxiety disorder. My grandmother probably did too. I can point to where I inherited my worry gene and my overthinking behavior. But I would rather spend my time in what Brene Brown calls “conspiracies and confabulations”. These are the stories that we tell ourselves about why another person is doing us a real or perceived injustice, why we aren’t getting our way, why we can’t accept ourselves the way we are right now. And guess what? These stories are made up.

In my life both in and out of recovery, I have had hundreds of these stories surface. The most significant one is that I am a burden, my body doesn’t look okay as it is, I can’t ever be authentically disordered and chaotic and imperfect all at once. 

Yoga taught me that in a room full of 30+ people who are all doing the same pose, it is almost guaranteed that nobody is watching you do yours wrong. Except the instructor Noelle, a good friend of mine (and a total angel), nobody really gave a sh*t whether or not my warrior was straight or hyperextended or I fell completely flat on my ass. And even then, Noelle only cared because she was trained to make sure I didn’t pull something.

Yoga also taught me that any body–ANY!!! BODY!!!!–can do it. There are days that I’m falling over my rolls or feel too heavy to sit all the way down into a pose but I can still find a stretch. I can still access, acknowledge and yield to my body’s limits. But the story I made up is that I couldn’t do it because yoga is only for skinny girls in pony tails who still smell like lavender essential oil and expensive shampoo after 32 vinyasas. This is a conspiracy theory. 

4. Everybody is doing the absolute best they can.

Yes, this means everybody. This means the father I grew up with who was angry and soul-sick and often times abusive, and my former partner who was a narcissist, and the people who assaulted me in college. All the people in the world, even those I resent most heavily, even those who commit crimes against humanity–are doing the best they can. 

Like Bryan Stevenson says in his book Just Mercy, “Each of us is more than the worst thing we have ever done.”

I sort of transformed this idea and took it and carried it a long way–because it was the most important thing to me. As someone who really invests a lot of time, energy, education and passion into social justice, I think a lot of my politics rests on the idea that everyone is doing the best that they can. 

This idea is what lead me to forgiveness of everyone on my fourth step inventory list that was ultimately authentic and real and freeing.

I presented this idea, read the passage on it from this very book, to a group of people in a rehabilitation center on Long Island where I teach a meditation class. I heard lots of people say how much they thought they weren’t doing their best because they had kids at home who needed their mom or dad to be there for them (which is addressed in Brene’s research). According to them, they weren’t doing the best they could because they were stuck in this rehab either by court mandate or by choice. But I asked them, “What are you doing to be a parent to that child that needs you, from in here?” 

They came to all these realizations about how they had been writing letters to their babies for them to read when they’re older, calling home every chance they got, going to meeting after meeting, and staying sober another day, one day at a time. I reminded them that this was enough; they were enough.

Often, the parents we have and the people we learn from who teach us how to be in the world, often learned that lesson from another equally broken, flawed person who was doing the best they could.

We all do the best we can, until we know better. 

4. Recovering is a privilege.

The undertone of what Brene Brown addresses in her book is that many of us live in a safety net of privilege. My own recovery, I have come to acknowledge, is a privilege. The fact that I could go to the library, pick up Rising Strong, read and comprehend it without struggle, call my therapist, who is covered by my health insurance, talk about it with her, and disseminate this information to friends who also have privilege-accessible recovery is a privilege. The fact that I can receive medication, consultations, treatment and acknowledgement for my eating disorder and other encounters with mental health are privileges that not everybody has based on poverty, stigma, healthcare accessibility, literacy, knowledge of rights, and so much more. 

What’s more, I recently learned that about 90% of mental health professionals are white. This does not represent accurately those experiencing mental illness (including eating disorders) or those in recovery. Addiction and mental illness don’t discriminate, so why does access to treatment and access to treatment by someone who culturally identifies with or ethnically relates to them? 

I am often challenged by non-believers about the idea of privilege. I often hear things like “well, yeah I’m white, but my family works hard for what we have, so how is that a privilege if I earned it?” 

I understand this argument. My parents worked so I could be on their insurance plan and receive health care. I was taught to read at four years old by people who spent time with me and put in the effort to give me an education. I went through trauma and earned my right to take up space in this squishy, stretchy, miraculous body–but the thing is, my privilege lies not in the work it took to fix my problems, but the fact that I don’t have to put much thought in the resources it takes to have access to fixing them in the first place. 

Privilege is not the absence of struggle, but the luxury of being able to “shut off” the struggle at any given time. There are many ways I experience struggle by way of trauma, stigma, and other forms of oppressive measure–but other parts of my identity are allowed to exist without being questioned for their validity, worth or place.

 

The best way I can relate privilege to eating disorders besides the care that some people have access to in treating them is the idea that food is a commodity. In my father’s house, shame was bestowed upon you for not finishing your meal. The old adage “Children somewhere else are starving, finish your food!!!” as if pressuring me to eat past my body’s full signals would somehow make up for poverty in India or other places in the world. My privilege taught me to be ashamed and frustrated at the wrong thing–when really, we should be offended by poverty, insulted by the marginalized allocation of resources to certain countries (which largely contain people of color). My family of origin, probably through no real fault of their own (doing the best they could), taught me to be ashamed of my food tolerance rather than be offended by the way the world was treating people who have less than me.

So instead, I have decided to use these as opportunities to re-educate myself about what recovery, integrity, shame, privilege, body love, and the notion of my own enoughness mean to me.

This past week of summer has been great. I got a call from my job today asking me to take on another better, more consistent role and I couldn’t be more excited. It is becoming easier to read and relax and enjoy my life. It is easier to say no and just lay in bed when I want to, for however long I want to. With this upcoming school year, I’m gonna need it. I’m more direct and more expressive in my gratitude. I’m living BIG. I’m getting into Buddhist scripture again, feeling more at ease with life and I have rising strong as a recovery practice and a new way of life to thank for it. 

 

How are you going to rise strong this week?

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Contact me!!! 

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Twitter @caitsrecovering

Email caitisrecovering@gmail.com

Brown, B. (2015). Rising Strong. Book. New York, NY. Random House LLC.