Reloaded. Relaunched. Revolution.

I have decided to relaunch this blog since it seems that, despite having a very full and engaged life, body issues remain for me (and I am imagining others) an inescapable personal, political, and cultural priority. The normative remains deeply entrenched and in spite of growing awareness around its damaging discourses, shows no sign of surrendering. Why? Who keeps it alive and to what purpose? How is it maintained? Who does it sustain?

A brief Q & A in the name of transparency:

 - Let's get this out of the way first: I am a transitioning male-to-female transsexual. Now I have never seen a single person remain ambivalent to that;  even those who shrug it off as if to say "No big deal," belie their politics. (Because that you would feel obligated to make that supposedly benign declaration is actually responsive to an ongoing controversy.) Needless to say, body issues take on a special importance. That does not mean that they are any more or less important than someone else's concerns. You may even find some equivalency.
As the name implies, this blog is about bodyism - an internal bias towards a physical normative which tends to reward adherents and punish - punitively, often cruelly - those who question or resist it. If you have issues with transsexuality or transgenderism, this is not that forum. I have no patience for attacks whether it comes from the cisgendered or transgender community. There are other wonderful online battlegrounds to practice scorched-earth politics. This blog will not be one of them.

 - "F**k My Bodyism" was the title of a diary entry I wrote in a college seminar called Gendered Bodies. It dealt with coming across my own bodyism while observing someone - at the time a friend - scrambling about in a tree. I was pretty ashamed, appalled, and agitated at myself when I came across this. But I think all of that uncomfortable cognitive dissonance leads to both Awareness and a continuing Evolution.

 - While this is not a hard-and-fast blog rule of mine, I tend toward more dialectic than a debate. I am not about needing to feel right/righteous by proving you wrong. I think truth is more often than not found in the dialogue.

Hope you join in the discussion,    

EightSixSevenFiveThreeOhNine: Over Scentsitive

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Great piece. Love the truths of vulnerability here...

Fat & Fabulous

One topic we really wrestled with in class was the idea of fat being unhealthy (not necessarily), of being outside the norm (as defined by whom?) and being a source of shame instead of empowerment (which certainly feeds into the discourse of perpetual discontent the diet industry keeps fostering.)

So I will be posting articles and stories that challenge those notions and hopefully shake us loose from those force-fed perceptions that our default position (as opposed to the consumerist mind-set) is skinny.

Fat & Fabulous

Why Fu*k my bodyism?

If I had to dedicate this blog to anyone it would so be Professors Chris Bobel and Molly Geidel, both who ended up teaching my Gendered Bodies class at UMass Boston this semester. The former fiercely advocated a hard examination of gender stereotypes that shape this effed up society we call home while the latter challenged us not to end our activism with the last day of class but to start it outside the classroom. (They are why I so love Women's Studies as a major).

So yeah, this blog is all about calling out body fascism wherever it rules (which, in this culture, is just about everywhere). It's about questioning the "norms" of body and gender we were weaned on, taught and even unconsciously contribute to in everyday Life. It's about waking up from the hegemonic nightmare and re-defining the reality of our own bodies. Because yeah, we're sexy and strong and cute and fierce no matter how we look, and in spite of how we're told to look.

(Why ""F*ck my bodyism"? It comes from a journal entry of mine in which I was confronted by my own bodyism while following a friend up into some trees one day this past Fall. While I'm still debating posting that particular story, its message burned deep into my brain. May I never forget it no matter what tree I find myself in.)