Belly of the Beast

A bit more academic than I expected. I feel like I have a lot of homework after! Not a bad thing, tho! Just there's a lot still to read and learn. It's short but doesn't feel short (or too long), references lots of interesting and knowledgeable people and is VERY good at citing sources on a great topic. Not fluff non-fiction, it's here to make a point, but still written in a very digestible way.

Belly of the Beast is a non-fiction book about, as the subtitle says, how the politics of anti-fatness are inherently anti-blackness. (From this white person's perspective), it does a really good thorough job of looking through how anti-fatness in self-love, desirability, "health", police violence, as well as gender (esp trans folks) exacerbates anti-blackness.

It gets into the racist roots of the BMI (and thus how health is something that has been created for black fat people to never have access to) and how this can lead to worse health outcomes especially for fat black people (due to crap doctors believing "obseity" is the thing that needs to be solved). Regarding police violence, I was certainly aware of the shitty and racist views of cops, but it hammered home how much black body size and fat (and therefore "intimidating") comes up repeatedly in cop excuses.

This is my own gender bias speaking, but my favorite part of the book was probably the snippets of personal interviews with trans people about how anti-fatness shows up in their communities and how it's shaped their paths and relationship with their identities.

I found myself highlighting a million quotes out of this book, so here's a few if you want a taste.

This is what is violent about "body positivity"; it is benevolent anti-fatness in that it masqueraded as some sort of semblance of acceptance for fat people when it is, instead, an opportunity for Thinness to reroute, but not give up, its hold on fat people's collective liberation.

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Every specifically 'transmasc' space I've been in has embraced fatphobia, diet culture, and gym culture as the norm. I've found it helpful to be in wider trans spaces (i.e. inclusive of trans women and nonbinary people) rather than specifically transmasc spaces for this reason.

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Attraction is a real thing and I can't get rid of it, but as a fat person, there are very few people that I"m not attracted to. Thin folks have conversations about identity and attraction, and it basically comes down to thinness.

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Self-love, even a radical one, cannot and will not disrupt or bring an end to systemic violence.