Immutability as a Gateway to Dignity? Comparing the Case of Fat Rights and Gay Rights
I remember being still in grad school when a fellow student, the wonderful Anni Kirkland, wrote the dissertation that led to her book Fat Rights. It was the first time I was exposed to the context of litigation in particular, and rights discourse in general, regarding weight, and I found the ideas provocative and fascinating. The area of fat studies was still in its early days--a far cry from today's assortment of political, fashion, culinary, socio-cultural blogs devoted to fat pride and combating discrimination and disparagement of fat people.
In most milieus, weight loss is still promoted as an ideal, and fat people are treated in shameful ways in doctors' offices, in the street, and even at gyms and yoga studios (I'm proud to teach and exercise at two places that welcome everyone at every size, but that is unfortunately not the norm.) That said, because of the progressive milieu I spend much of my time with, I read and hear a lot from the Health At Every Size (HAES) folks.
The HAES community pledge is based on the following tenets, summarized from Linda Bacon's book:
But in conversing with HAES enthusiasts, I note that much of their advocacy is aimed to counter the widespread notion that people should aspire to improve their health by losing weight. They search high and low for studies showing no correlation between weight and health, claiming that fat people can be as healthy, or healthier, than thin ones. And they find many such studies--but there are also many studies who state the opposite.
Which leads me to think that HAES rhetoric goes, at the same time, too far and not far enough. Too far in the sense that I think their zeal to disconnect weight from health is misplaced and the facts are not entirely on their side. And not far enough, in the sense that they seem to imply that if one can't help one's weight, and if one can be a healthy subject of the State with the weight on, then one is deserving of dignity.
The first part of this argument draws me into thousands of scientific articles, many of which find a correlation between weight loss and improved health, particularly cardiovascular health, healthy joints, and protection from various forms of diabetes and other conditions. It is true, of course, that within the two groups--thin people and fat people--there is great variation in health. But statistical inferences compare the variations between and within groups, and while there are, clearly, many healthy fat people and many unhealthy thin ones, there are some statistically significant differences between groups in terms of health--especially in the diseases that kill most Americans.
The reason this bothers me has more to do with the second argument. By placing so much emphasis negating the nexus between weight and health, HAES advocates reinforce the idea that we all have a duty to be healthy. This is a reaffirmation that productive citizens of the state, who carry their own weight (pun intended) and are not a burden on public resources, are the ones deserving dignity, consideration, and compassion. Essentially, a real effort toward a healthy lifestyle (at any size) is the gateway to being considered full fledged members of the citizenry--otherwise, one is a slacker and a drain on the state. The HAES advocates I know think of themselves as progressive revolutionaries--and speak the language of progressive identity politics--but this move, reaffirming health as a condition for dignity, is actually incredibly reactive and self defeating.
There is one more idea that ties to this: the idea of immutability. HAES advocates aggressively resist all rhetoric (or scientific research) that suggest that obesity is caused by personal choice. Instead, they highlight the role of genetics and socioeconomic opportunities in generating obesity. They are partly right: of course not all weight gain in the world is the product of faulty choices, and good choices are not equally available to all (which makes obesity, importantly, also a marker of lower classes.) But here, again, HAES advocates go too far and not far enough. Some weight gain is a function of factors beyond the individual's control and some is not. HAES advocates like repeating the discouraging statistics about diets. But as Yoni Freedhoff argues, relying on the National Weight Control Registry, a lot of these discouraging statistics are merely a reflection of unrealistic expectations. Setting realistic weight loss goals and following through has helped thousands lose weight and keep it off. It's a question of making that success available to others. Will we all become slim? Of course not - obesity is complicated and involves lots of factors. But empowering people to control at least part of their destiny does not need to be a discouraging factor.
So how does HAES go not far enough? The argument that fat is an immutable characteristic--a function of biology and circumstances that cannot be altered--ties in with the argument that fat people can be healthy. Which is to say: if fat people deserve dignity, it is not merely because of their humanity: it is because they can't help their size and are working hard to be productive citizens nonetheless.
This strikes me as an incredibly reactionary and narrow definition of entitlement and of people as subjects of rights. Shouldn't the argument be that all people deserve dignity, respect, and equal opportunities, whether or not their size was within or outside their control, and whether or not they are healthy or unhealthy?
Why does this bother me so much? Since 2004, I have been conducting empirical research, on and off, on the polyamorous community and their quest for legal recognition of their relationships. The question of polyamory as a sexual identity, and whether it is immutable, is of immense interest and importance to the community members, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the role that immutability and the whole choice/circumstance issue played into the gay rights struggle. In my recent paper with Gwendolyn Leachman, we compare activist goals and strategies between the gay rights activists of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with those of the polyamorous community now. We find that some of the ways in which the LGBT community has distanced itself from the polyamorous community was by relying specifically on this idea of orientation vs. lifestyle - going back to questions of immutability. Granted, as we say in the article, immutability has become less important legally for antidiscrimination claims. But its historical role in guaranteeing rights has influenced the debate.
And this is the crux of what I'm arguing here: American antidiscrimination law has relied, for a long time, on the idea that, in order to prevail in a discrimination argument one has to belong to a "suspect class", and one of the chief defining factors of a "suspect class" has historically been immutability - namely, that you cannot change what you are. To this day, I find that friends of mine--even bisexual friends--are unwilling to even entertain the possibility that their sexual preferences could be an issue of choice. For heaven's sake, every time a study about gay fruit flies comes out it becomes a weapon of politics. I often ask my LGBT friends, "but if it were your choice to fall in love with someone of the same gender, wouldn't it make sense for the government to honor that choice?" Typically, whoever I speak with becomes exceedingly angry and says, "but it's not a choice."
The truth is that even that is not entirely determined. There is some evidence, for example, that male gay orientation is more hard wired than female lesbian orientation. We know that people's orientations and sexual experiences vary with the environments and opportunities they are exposed to. It should not matter at all whether someone chooses to love someone of the same gender or is compelled by their biology to do so. Everyone deserves human dignity, respect, and opportunities, not just as a function of pity because they "can't help themselves", but as a function of being alive in the world.
To take this one step further, I think the argument of rights-as-a-function-of-immutability, even though it's inspired by the history of the legal doctrine on antidiscrimination, disempowers those who use it and renders them objects of pity, rather than subjects of rights. "Please, give me rights," the argument seems to go, "I would be straight if I could, but I cannot help myself." I don't think LGBT people--or poly people, or fat people--should be begging for rights because they can't help who they are. I think whether or not they can help it should be entirely immaterial to the question of rights. And it is much more empowering to simply argue that any disrespect, humiliation, or reduction to a level of second-class citizenship--regardless of the role choice and biology play in the matter--is wrong merely because we are all humans (we'll discuss nonhuman animals some other time.)
HAES activists, therefore, do not go far enough. Their arguments imply a tacit approval of the capitalist, pseudo-meritocratic system that requires the "other" to show that their "otherness" is immutable and nonetheless they are making efforts to be productive citizens. I understand why they think this is a practical path forward; it is difficult enough to persuade people that there are healthy people or that fat is not entirely a matter of choice. But this narrow vision obscures a much broader vision of humanity and of human-ness, which treats all of us--regardless of our biology, our environment, OR our choices--as equally deserving members of the human race.
________
Many thanks to Karen Throsby, whose post on FB inspired me to write things I've been thinking about for quite some time.
In most milieus, weight loss is still promoted as an ideal, and fat people are treated in shameful ways in doctors' offices, in the street, and even at gyms and yoga studios (I'm proud to teach and exercise at two places that welcome everyone at every size, but that is unfortunately not the norm.) That said, because of the progressive milieu I spend much of my time with, I read and hear a lot from the Health At Every Size (HAES) folks.
The HAES community pledge is based on the following tenets, summarized from Linda Bacon's book:
- Respect
- Celebrates body diversity;
- Honors differences in size, age, race, ethnicity, gender, dis/ability, sexual orientation, religion, class, and other human attributes.
- Critical Awareness
- Challenges scientific and cultural assumptions;
- Values body knowledge and people’s lived experiences.
- Compassionate Self-care
- Finding the joy in moving one’s body and being physically active;
- Eating in a flexible and attuned manner that values pleasure and honors internal cues of hunger, satiety, and appetite, while respecting the social conditions that frame eating options.
But in conversing with HAES enthusiasts, I note that much of their advocacy is aimed to counter the widespread notion that people should aspire to improve their health by losing weight. They search high and low for studies showing no correlation between weight and health, claiming that fat people can be as healthy, or healthier, than thin ones. And they find many such studies--but there are also many studies who state the opposite.
Which leads me to think that HAES rhetoric goes, at the same time, too far and not far enough. Too far in the sense that I think their zeal to disconnect weight from health is misplaced and the facts are not entirely on their side. And not far enough, in the sense that they seem to imply that if one can't help one's weight, and if one can be a healthy subject of the State with the weight on, then one is deserving of dignity.
The first part of this argument draws me into thousands of scientific articles, many of which find a correlation between weight loss and improved health, particularly cardiovascular health, healthy joints, and protection from various forms of diabetes and other conditions. It is true, of course, that within the two groups--thin people and fat people--there is great variation in health. But statistical inferences compare the variations between and within groups, and while there are, clearly, many healthy fat people and many unhealthy thin ones, there are some statistically significant differences between groups in terms of health--especially in the diseases that kill most Americans.
The reason this bothers me has more to do with the second argument. By placing so much emphasis negating the nexus between weight and health, HAES advocates reinforce the idea that we all have a duty to be healthy. This is a reaffirmation that productive citizens of the state, who carry their own weight (pun intended) and are not a burden on public resources, are the ones deserving dignity, consideration, and compassion. Essentially, a real effort toward a healthy lifestyle (at any size) is the gateway to being considered full fledged members of the citizenry--otherwise, one is a slacker and a drain on the state. The HAES advocates I know think of themselves as progressive revolutionaries--and speak the language of progressive identity politics--but this move, reaffirming health as a condition for dignity, is actually incredibly reactive and self defeating.
There is one more idea that ties to this: the idea of immutability. HAES advocates aggressively resist all rhetoric (or scientific research) that suggest that obesity is caused by personal choice. Instead, they highlight the role of genetics and socioeconomic opportunities in generating obesity. They are partly right: of course not all weight gain in the world is the product of faulty choices, and good choices are not equally available to all (which makes obesity, importantly, also a marker of lower classes.) But here, again, HAES advocates go too far and not far enough. Some weight gain is a function of factors beyond the individual's control and some is not. HAES advocates like repeating the discouraging statistics about diets. But as Yoni Freedhoff argues, relying on the National Weight Control Registry, a lot of these discouraging statistics are merely a reflection of unrealistic expectations. Setting realistic weight loss goals and following through has helped thousands lose weight and keep it off. It's a question of making that success available to others. Will we all become slim? Of course not - obesity is complicated and involves lots of factors. But empowering people to control at least part of their destiny does not need to be a discouraging factor.
So how does HAES go not far enough? The argument that fat is an immutable characteristic--a function of biology and circumstances that cannot be altered--ties in with the argument that fat people can be healthy. Which is to say: if fat people deserve dignity, it is not merely because of their humanity: it is because they can't help their size and are working hard to be productive citizens nonetheless.
This strikes me as an incredibly reactionary and narrow definition of entitlement and of people as subjects of rights. Shouldn't the argument be that all people deserve dignity, respect, and equal opportunities, whether or not their size was within or outside their control, and whether or not they are healthy or unhealthy?
Why does this bother me so much? Since 2004, I have been conducting empirical research, on and off, on the polyamorous community and their quest for legal recognition of their relationships. The question of polyamory as a sexual identity, and whether it is immutable, is of immense interest and importance to the community members, and I'm pretty sure it's because of the role that immutability and the whole choice/circumstance issue played into the gay rights struggle. In my recent paper with Gwendolyn Leachman, we compare activist goals and strategies between the gay rights activists of the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with those of the polyamorous community now. We find that some of the ways in which the LGBT community has distanced itself from the polyamorous community was by relying specifically on this idea of orientation vs. lifestyle - going back to questions of immutability. Granted, as we say in the article, immutability has become less important legally for antidiscrimination claims. But its historical role in guaranteeing rights has influenced the debate.
And this is the crux of what I'm arguing here: American antidiscrimination law has relied, for a long time, on the idea that, in order to prevail in a discrimination argument one has to belong to a "suspect class", and one of the chief defining factors of a "suspect class" has historically been immutability - namely, that you cannot change what you are. To this day, I find that friends of mine--even bisexual friends--are unwilling to even entertain the possibility that their sexual preferences could be an issue of choice. For heaven's sake, every time a study about gay fruit flies comes out it becomes a weapon of politics. I often ask my LGBT friends, "but if it were your choice to fall in love with someone of the same gender, wouldn't it make sense for the government to honor that choice?" Typically, whoever I speak with becomes exceedingly angry and says, "but it's not a choice."
The truth is that even that is not entirely determined. There is some evidence, for example, that male gay orientation is more hard wired than female lesbian orientation. We know that people's orientations and sexual experiences vary with the environments and opportunities they are exposed to. It should not matter at all whether someone chooses to love someone of the same gender or is compelled by their biology to do so. Everyone deserves human dignity, respect, and opportunities, not just as a function of pity because they "can't help themselves", but as a function of being alive in the world.
To take this one step further, I think the argument of rights-as-a-function-of-immutability, even though it's inspired by the history of the legal doctrine on antidiscrimination, disempowers those who use it and renders them objects of pity, rather than subjects of rights. "Please, give me rights," the argument seems to go, "I would be straight if I could, but I cannot help myself." I don't think LGBT people--or poly people, or fat people--should be begging for rights because they can't help who they are. I think whether or not they can help it should be entirely immaterial to the question of rights. And it is much more empowering to simply argue that any disrespect, humiliation, or reduction to a level of second-class citizenship--regardless of the role choice and biology play in the matter--is wrong merely because we are all humans (we'll discuss nonhuman animals some other time.)
HAES activists, therefore, do not go far enough. Their arguments imply a tacit approval of the capitalist, pseudo-meritocratic system that requires the "other" to show that their "otherness" is immutable and nonetheless they are making efforts to be productive citizens. I understand why they think this is a practical path forward; it is difficult enough to persuade people that there are healthy people or that fat is not entirely a matter of choice. But this narrow vision obscures a much broader vision of humanity and of human-ness, which treats all of us--regardless of our biology, our environment, OR our choices--as equally deserving members of the human race.
________
Many thanks to Karen Throsby, whose post on FB inspired me to write things I've been thinking about for quite some time.
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