Fat Friday: Thoughts from an Irritating Overweight Woman

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

As my fan club of -666 readers knows, I review books for a living, such as it is.

I was presented with a book to possibly review, and was, initially, excited. It was a collection of short stories about a group of female friends.

The short story is an undervalued art and female friendships are an undervalued treasure. I was interested in reading this until I saw one of the characters described by another reviewer as "an irritating overweight woman."

The comment about the "irritating overweight woman" gave me pause. Why is her weight such a determining factor in her characterization? Many authors tend to write large people in a negative light. As a person who fights with my abusive partner ED (Eating Disorder) constantly, I don't really need to read works that vilify people who look like me. It's a shame because a good short story collection about female friendship sounded like just the ticket.

I decided to give the book a hard pass.

Authors (like society as a whole) love to scapegoat, stereotype, and vilify large people. I have enough problems wrestling with ED on a daily basis. I don't really need to read fiction putting down people who look like me yet again. ED does that quite often enough.

Fat and Ornery

Image copyright Open Clipart Vectors

Sly and Snarky

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Sly's Tackle It Tuesday Holiday Edition + Inner Champion Workbook: Chapter 9: Find Strength in Adversity

Disclosure: If readers purchase a copy of the book through the above link, I earn a small commission from Amazon.

Today's post is written by my social activist alter-ego, Sly Fawkes.

Lessons I’ve learned from challenging experiences:

When it comes to people who are hateful towards me, I've learned that it really isn't me, it's them. Note that this does not prevent the things they say from hurting or stop me from going into a downward spiral of self-loathing in every case. However, these days I am more likely to consider the source. 

If you feel the need to say crappy things about another person, it says more about you than it says about that person. I am not talking about criticisms of bad behavior, I am talking about ad hominem attacks and negative stereotypes. 

dumb blonde

lazy welfare recipient

lazy fatty

lazy (insert race here)

slut

they could just try harder

at least I'm not...

like a girl

maybe if they laid off the cheeseburgers

it's for their own good

users are losers

just get a job

if they just tried they could (insert oversimplified action here)

if they just didn't look so gay people wouldn't pick on them

godless (person who doesn't worship as I do)

disgusting bum

looks too healthy to be sick

probably faking their illness to get out of things

needs to just be more positive

was probably asking for it

Have you ever said any of these things?

Then your New Year's resolution should be to stop being judgmental and hateful. You don't know what anyone else is going through or what conditions or circumstances led them to be where they are now.

Even "if I can do it anyone can" is no excuse for being horrible to someone else. No, not "anyone can." Everyone's circumstances are different. 

Five ways I can positively channel negative energy in my life:

1. You think I'm bad at the things I do? Fine, you are welcome to think that. I'm going to do them anyway.

2. Try to educate through action. I hate the fact that damn near everything I read has to have its Moment of Size-Shaming, which immediately lowers my opinion of the work and its author. It doesn't make me popular, but I call this out wherever I see it. I also try to put my money where my mouth is. I try to have at least one large character in every story who makes a positive contribution. Actions rather than appearances are what makes a person good or bad. Fat is not synonymous with slovenly or lazy. Small is not synonymous with weak. Old is not synonymous with incapable. 

3. Realize that seeking approval from others doesn't work. Anyone who needs me to be perfect or they will ostracize me is not someone I want to keep company with.

4. Tell my story so that others who are being bullied and ostracized realize that they aren't alone.

5. Engage in activism. Try to encourage change in the way people like me are treated. Call out the use of words like "obese," which are used to stigmatize, shame, and silence larger people. 

Obese is a word used to excuse poor treatment of larger patients, to shame them into silence, and to practice lazy medicine, attributing any malady the patient reports to their adipose tissue. This attitude results in dead patients, and I'm not being hyperbolic when I say that.

Ellen Maud Bennett was a 64-year-old Canadian woman. She had been feeling ill for years, but every time she went to a doctor to try and find out what was wrong, they told her that if she just lost weight, she would feel better. When a doctor finally took her seriously, it was discovered that she had stage 4 ovarian cancer. She died a short time later.

Ovarian cancer is extremely treatable in the early stages. If doctors had listened to Ellen instead of dismissing her because of her physique, she would probably still be alive.

Ellen did not want her death to be in vain. In her obituary, she called out the lazy and bigoted practices which resulted in her untimely demise.

Personally, I think that one Ellen is worth a million sanctimonious medical "professionals" half-assing their way through patient "care." Either treat your patients--all of your patients--with respect or find another profession. 

Sometimes doing the right thing means distancing yourself from people or ideologies who refuse to treat you with respect. I have stopped calling myself a feminist after 46 years of proudly bearing the title. I began identifying as a feminist in 1973 when I was eight years old and sick to death of being told what I couldn't do because I was a girl.

Feminism, however, has changed a lot since then. These days, it seems more and more that feminism is only for women who meet a certain standard of attractiveness, and that certainly doesn't include fat women. In fact, most feminists will tell you that they refute size activism because it "promotes obesity and unhealthy lifestyles." Meanwhile, all fat people, but fat women, in particular, experience great difficulty in obtaining compassionate and competent healthcare. Women's concerns already tend to be dismissed by a sexist healthcare system as "hysterical." Fat women are seen as hysterical, lazy, and stupid.

Our current healthcare system literally kills people due to size bias. This bias, by the way, kills thin people too. A thin person is automatically assumed to be healthy, which leads to health problems being overlooked. Medical "professionals" believe that fat people would all be healthy if they'd just lose weight, thus their real health concerns are overlooked. 

Model and photographer unknown

The fact that fat women are seen by modern feminism as unworthy of activism to improve and in some cases save their lives means that modern feminism is unworthy of my support. This does not mean that I will no longer fight for all women's rights to equal treatment and opportunities. It simply means that I will no longer identify as a feminist while doing so. My actions may be feminist A.F., but until feminism embraces all women, including the round ones and those deemed "unattractive" in other ways, then feminism and I must part ways.

Sly wishes you happy holidays, be you thick or thin, and hopes that one day we can find more reasons to embrace rather than ostracize one another.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Blow Your Stack Saturday: Feminism That Turns Against Our Fat Sisters is Not Feminist

I'm still discouraged by the use of the term "promoting obesity" regarding plus-size Instagram models by a feminist activist whose work I've long respected. Regardless of whether one feels these (generally young) women are exploiting themselves or seeking attention by posing in skimpy outfits, they are not, in fact, "promoting obesity.' 

I've heard the dismaying argument that feminism should not support size activism on numerous occasions. To believe this is to believe that a person's size is "a choice" and that everyone could "easily lose weight" if they'd just "eat less and exercise more." If this grossly oversimplified belief were true, there would be virtually no fat people because everyone who could do it would do it. If this oversimplified belief were true, I would have been a willowy twig during the years that I starved myself and engaged in orthorexia. I never was.

The woman above was Ellen Maud Bennett, a 64-year-old Canadian who died from ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer is highly treatable if detected during the early stages. 

Ellen had complained to doctors of feeling poorly for years. Their response was to tell her that if she lost weight, she'd feel better. When one of them finally decided to take her seriously, it was discovered that she had stage 4 ovarian cancer. She died a short time later.

Ellen did not want her death to be in vain, so she had her family include a letter in her obituary. I hope that everyone will take the time to read it, especially those "feminists" who believe that there is a certain weight at which your sisters should be disowned.

Here is Ellen's obituary.

For evidence-based arguments against current size-shaming medical treatment and societal prejudices against larger people, I recommend these three blogs.

Big Fat Science

Dances With Fat

Heavyweight Heart

Heavyweight Heart, in particular, has discussed the racism that was instrumental in forging our adherence to the hateful and unhealthy belief that a woman can never be too rich or too thin. All of these blogs are rich with scientific evidence against the currently held beliefs that fat is the very worst thing a person can possibly be. 

There are certain conditions that are correlated with a larger body type. Correlation is not causation. Generally speaking, telling a fat patient to lose weight in order to resolve underlying health conditions is like telling a man with male pattern baldness to regrow his thinning hair in order to lessen his chances of developing prostate cancer. There is a correlation between male pattern baldness and an increased likelihood of developing prostate cancer. Thinning hair does not cause prostate cancer. The underlying issue, increased testosterone levels, increases the likelihood of developing prostate cancer.

The Minnesota Starvation Experiment reveals what happens to the body and mind when a person engages in restrictive dieting behaviors. Diets do not work long-term in more than five percent of people who engage in dieting. Most people gain the weight they lost back and then some. After many years of weight loss attempts, the possibility of dieting bringing about significant weight loss sharply decreases.

I for one do not enjoy having every waking moment of my day focused on food because I am starving. I went through thirty-three years of yo-yo dieting, and all it brought me was "failure" and weight gain. Combining dieting behaviors with multiple endocrine conditions was a sure-fire recipe for a large body type. But neither I nor anyone else should be having to defend our right to exist and be treated with common decency in the bodies we have. 

If the majority of my sisters have decided to disown me and other women like me because we are fat, or to give lip service to supporting women of all sizes but then tearing down fat women as being lazy and "glorifying obesity" for not hiding our disgusting fat selves away from the view of decent people, then feminism has let me and my fat sisters down.

I will continue fighting for what's right, but I may no longer be able to identify as a feminist while doing so. I consider this a great loss. I first began identifying as a feminist in 1973 when I was eight years old and already tired as fuck of being told that I couldn't do anything interesting with my life because I was "just a girl."

Now I'm hearing "girls can do anything guys can do, but not if they're fat."

Fuck right off with that shit.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Sly's Fat Friday: There Is No "Promoting Obesity"

Apparently, the singer Lizzo went to a Lakers game wearing a mini-dress with the butt cut out. Feminist Current correctly pointed out that this was one of those "WTF" things to do, which I agree with. However, the post then used the term "promoting obesity," and that is where they and I parted ways. The following is my response to the post. The comments are, predictably, a shit storm.

While I agree with pretty much everything you say here, I am disappointed to see the term "promoting obesity" used. In fact, I am disappointed to see the term "obesity" used at all. Obesity is a term used to shame, silence, and deny care to patients with larger bodies. There is no "promoting obesity." Further, that you would say such a thing implies that you feel that larger people are all gluttons who revel in their physique. Nothing could be further from the truth. The reality is, when you are looking at an "obese" person, you are probably looking at someone who is well-acquainted with restrictive dieting. You are most certainly looking at someone who is well-acquainted with self-loathing.

A person's physique does not indicate what or how much they eat as much as you think it does. DNA is the primary factor in determining the physique. Medical conditions and medications also play a factor. There is a high correlation between a heavy body type and poverty.

It is distressing to see the "feminism is for women, but not if they're too fat" ideal in play.

I am one of those horrible fat fatties, and I have always appreciated the fact that Feminist Current didn't seem to buy into this awful idea that women only deserve respect if they are thin enough.

I am also discouraged to see the number of commenters dragging this woman's body type into the conversation. It isn't necessary to mention her body type at all, even to say "nobody of any size should have worn such an asinine outfit." You wouldn't say that if a thin woman had done this. Why say it in this case?

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Real Cie Reviews + FOAD Thursday: Harassment is Sexy and Fat People Aren't Even Human

Rating: Since there ain't no zeros, I'll give you a one

Nora Roberts' Nightshade is a trope-laden mess. Initially, I enjoyed the "hard-boiled detective narrative from a female perspective," but, fairly quickly, the cracks began to show.

I became tired of the male protagonist disrespecting the female protagonist's comfort zones and this being written as sexy rather than as harassment. She was not only supposed to endure it, but she was also supposed to enjoy it. Because nothing is hotter than a guy who won't take no for an answer.

The icing on the unpalatable cake was the "disgusting fat cat lady" who "had two chins and was working on a third," and the hero could see "at least two hundred pounds of bulk under her dress." This woman proceeds to "rub one of her chins."

I thought that Eleanor the cat lady was the most interesting character in the whole mess. I would have enjoyed reading Eleanor the Cat Lady's story. I would like a whole series of Eleanor the Cat Lady stories, where Eleanor is written as an interesting, eccentric, large human being, not a revolting, sub-human stereotype.

How hard would it have been to say that a large, elderly woman answered the door, and the hero could see several cats lying in the windows and on the furniture? The personable lady smiled and invited the hero in for cake and coffee. She was wearing a loudly colorful tunic which she may have made herself.

How easy it would have been to make the character both large and eccentric without being hateful.

Fuck Nora Roberts, and fuck every author who can't write a large character without insulting and dehumanizing them.

So done with this shit.

Cie does not recommend this book and she is unwilling to even share a link to this book even though she needs every cent she can get her broke-ass hands on.

Fat Friday: How to Interpret Fat Liberation Completely Wrong

Cie takes a step back and leaves today's Fat Friday post to her politically incorrect alter-ego, Sly Fawkes.

I recently read a rant by a young (thin) woman proclaiming that fat liberation shouldn't intersect with feminism because fat liberation is all about desperate fat women wanting to force men to think they are beautiful.

First, no.

Second, what the fuck?

This young lady has confused Ashley Graham curvysexalicious (yes, Ashley actually referred to herself that way) Fun Empowered Free the Nipple Liberal Feminism For Plus Size Babes with real fat liberation or fat acceptance. Sadly, I thought she had something on the ball before she wrote this steaming, hateful pile of nonsense.

Real fat acceptance has fuck all to do with wanting to force men to think fat women are beautiful.

Most of us fat women give this many fucks about having some contingent of pea-brained douchebros think we're beautiful.

Here is what fat acceptance is actually concerned with, and I think these issues are very much feminist concerns. While fat men suffer too in a thin-centric society, there is additional pressure placed on fat women for not conforming to misogynistic and unrealistic standards of hotness. Racism and classism also come into play in the thinness equates with beauty while fatness equates with slovenliness, commonness, and undesirability screed. The Slender White Woman is held up as the ideal by women's magazines. Men's magazines also hold up the Slender White Woman as the ideal, while insisting that she also have impossibly large yet perky breasts.

Fat acceptance is concerned with the fact that fat people tend to not receive adequate medical care. Doctors prescribe weight loss for every problem imaginable while not listening to the patient's actual concerns. Since women's concerns tend to be dismissed as it is, this goes doubly for fat women. The case of Ellen Maud Bennett may seem extreme but is sadly far more common than people realize. 

Ellen was a 64-year-old Canadian woman who died from ovarian cancer, which could have been treatable if it had been addressed in its early stages. She had been feeling ill for years, but doctors never did anything beyond telling her to lose weight. Shame on all of them. They should all be held accountable for her death.

In my own case, I did not have a pelvic exam for close to thirty years, in part due to past sexual trauma, in part due to fear that I would be shamed for my body. I only went to an OB/GYN within the past two years because of post-menopausal bleeding, which turned out to be due to simple endometrial hyperplasia with normal cells. As this only raises the risk of endometrial cancer to 1.6 percent greater than the risk for someone who has no hyperplasia, I have opted against a hysterectomy (the recommended procedure) at this time. If I had presented with complex hyperplasia or abnormal cells, which raise the risk of endometrial cancer to 36% greater than a woman with no hyperplasia, I would have had the hysterectomy.

The appalling treatment of larger people, particularly larger women, by the current size-shaming medical system should definitely be a feminist concern. I give no fucks if some dumb dudebro finds me attractive. I want my health concerns to be taken seriously when I seek medical treatment. I do not want medical professionals to dismiss me as either "hysterical" because I am a woman or a pariah because I am fat.

Fat people tend to be passed over for promotions, that is if they are hired at all. Discrimination against fat applicants means that fat people are more likely to live in poverty. Given that women already have strikes against us when seeking employment, fat women face even greater discrimination. I would say that is very definitely a feminist concern.

Just because a small number of plus-size models describe themselves using dumb terms like "curvysexalicious" and a few (understandably) angry big women make the regrettable error of posting "real women have curves" or "only dogs want bones" types of memes does not erase the real goals and real concerns of the fat acceptance/fat liberation movement. By the way, don't post those memes. They're ignorant. Nobody should be shamed for their body type. And you can refer to yourself as "curvysexalicious" if you want, but I'm gonna give you the side-eye if you do.

All fat people face stigmatization and discrimination. Fat women get an extra helping of discrimination for not adhering to arbitrary and unrealistic standards of beauty. These are absolutely issues which should be addressed by the feminist movement. Unless feminism is only for thin women, which is what some "feminists" seem to be implying.

Also, the assertion that fat liberation only concerns itself with forcing men to think fat women are beautiful makes me wonder if the individual making that (inane) statement is unaware that there are fat women of the non-straight persuasion. 

Guess there have never been any fat bisexual or lesbian feminists. Nope, can't think of a single one.

Radass Badass Andrea Dworkin (26 September 1946 - 9 April 2005)

Apparently a figment of fevered feminist imagination.

As Andrea Dworkin once said, "if an ignoramus you are, speak you should not."

Oh, wait. That was Yoda.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

Pushing Surgery on Vulnerable People

Artist Unknown

I’m a person with two X chromosomes, aka, a woman. After menopause, I was still experiencing bleeding once a year. It was discovered that I had simple endometrial hyperplasia with normal cells and a uterus full of little fibroids and polyps. This means that I have a 1.5% greater chance than a woman with no endometrial hyperplasia of developing endometrial cancer. 

My OB/GYN was pushing me to have a hysterectomy. My GP was pushing me to have a hysterectomy. The doctor who would be performing the surgery was pushing me to have a hysterectomy.

In the end, I decided that for a very small increase in the possibility of developing endometrial cancer, the risks of hysterectomy were not worth it. If I had abnormal cells and/or complex hyperplasia, I would have had the hysterectomy because the increase in the chance of developing endometrial cancer at that point is 36% greater than for a woman with no hyperplasia.

Further, I feel like there continues to be a pervasive attitude that a post-menopausal woman is no longer able to function as a baby factory, so why should she keep her uterus?

If for no other reason than not wanting to spend two months recovering from major surgery, I tend to be very conservative about having major surgery. I always believe in trying less invasive and catastrophic methods prior to having permanent alterations made to my body.

The Trans Cult convinces vulnerable people that having life-altering surgery performed is THE only way to deal with feelings of dysphoria.

I also have a degree of body dysmorphic disorder and am a large person who tried to hate myself thin over the course of 33 years. It didn’t work.

Instead of having gastric bypass surgery, which would have permanently altered my ability to eat normally (as it happens, I inadvertently end up restricting my food intake because I am food insecure) I did a lot of exploring and discovered the concepts of size acceptance and health at every size. I ended up instead of having a healthy organ (my stomach) amputated telling the diet industry and hateful attitudes towards fat people to go fuck themselves.

I don’t see myself as beautiful and I never will. But I use techniques to cope with my low self-esteem rather than permanently altering my body.

Being a girl in this society is rough. I’m honestly glad that encouraging kids to transition wasn’t a thing when I was young, or I might have ended up believing that I was “actually a boy” because I hated the way girls were treated. Honestly, with the way girls are treated in this society, who would want to be a girl?

Call me crazy, but isn’t it better to fight back against the sexism and homophobia which make people think that they “should” be the opposite sex rather than having procedures to turn you into a permanent medical patient. Shouldn’t you at least give the least invasive option a try first?

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright juliahenze @123rf.com

The Party: A Modern Tale of Prejudice and Revenge

Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau was my inspiration for Aunt Mila

Gabourey Sidibe as Queenie was my inspiration for Maria

The Party

Genre: Supernatural/Horror

Words: 1000

Content Warnings:

Body shaming, sexual assault, profanity, sexism

Rating: PG-13 

Note:

This story was originally published on my flash fiction blog for a Halloween  2018 short stories contest. Pretty much to a person, everyone who commented missed the point about the attitudes of sexism and sizeism and the intersection thereof, which led to the abuse of the protagonist. Readers instead fixated on my modernized take on the magical gender-swap revenge exacted on the protagonists. I was admonished that I should not refer to transgenderism in anything but the most glowing light.

I felt that my reference to gender reassignment was neutral and was only done to put the story in the twenty-first century rather than the nineteenth century. In modern times, gender reassignment surgery is a reality and people are more likely to believe that their relative who has been transformed into the opposite sex underwent gender reassignment surgery than that they were switched to being the opposite sex by magic.

Perhaps I could have done a better job of imparting this idea, but the story was not about gender reassignment. I was rather appalled that a neutral mention of gender reassignment surgery entirely overshadowed the actual point of the story, which was the way society objectifies women, despises and abuses larger women, and excuses the abuse and objectification of women.

There was absolutely no intention of belittling the struggles of transgender people when I wrote this story. I simply wished to modernize the setting rather than going with the old "it's magic, I don't need to explain shit" tactic.

The contentious tale follows below.

~Sly~

“Did they force you to their will, my girl?”

Ludmila Lum’s angular face bore a staid expression, but Maria could see the little vein in her aunt’s set jaw pulsing. Aunt Mila’s warm brown eyes had gone black as the sky over an angry sea, the kind of sky that produced storms which sent ships to their graves on the ocean floor.

Mila’s expression softened at the worry in her niece’s eyes. Her bony hand enfolded Maria’s soft, plump one and a gentle smile pulled at the corner of her mouth.

“It’s all right, Mee-Mee. I am not angry with you. Even if you were drunk or high, even if you were flirting with all the boys. Now, you tell your Auntie Mila, did those boys force you to their will?”

“It wasn’t…sex,” Maria said softly, looking down at her feet. “I suppose I am making too much of nothing, as the University President said.”

Maria’s soft, round face, usually so sweet and happy, reflected shame and self-loathing. Ludmila tried not to project anger, lest her sensitive niece believe the ire was directed at her. Maria was a big girl in a world that made no bones about its hatred of soft, pillowy bodies. Ludmila worked hard to teach Maria to love herself as she was, to give her shy, plump niece the confidence that reflected her loving spirit. Ludmila was enraged that awful people had exploited the innocent girl’s attempt at sociability in an unspeakable way.

“They did not put themselves inside me, Auntie,” Maria explained in a quavering voice. “When they first invited me into the party, they were nice enough. It was guys and girls together, just showing off their costumes, just everybody dancing and having fun. The boy who invited me in, I started to think that perhaps he was falling in love with me, as he seemed only to have eyes for me in those first two hours.”

“Does this boy have a name?” Ludmila inquired.

“Omer, Auntie,” Maria revealed quietly.

“Omer Raines? Doctor Raines’ boy? The one you’ve carried the torch for since you were ten years old?” Ludmila demanded.

Maria nodded, her body shuddering as she wept.

“All these years he was my friend,” she sobbed. “In school, he defended me whenever anyone made pig noises at me or called me names. I thought we were destined to be only friends, but at the party, he seemed to echo my feelings. I gave thanks to Erzulie for the gift. ‘His heart echoes my heart,’ I thought, and at that moment, I was so happy.”

“He brought me to the front of the stage where the band was playing, and he told me to dance,” Maria continued. “’Show the world how beautiful you are, Chere,’ he insisted. ‘Dance for us!’”

“So, I danced, and at first, it seemed that all the years of hate and shame for this big body were burned away. Here I was, dressed as the Queen of Hearts, but a kind queen, not one calling for heads to roll. Everyone was clapping and cheering, and I was dancing, Auntie! I was getting down, and everyone was getting down with me, and no-one was laughing at me. But then the fraternity president gave a signal with his hands, the band changed their tune, and so did everyone else.”

“Any special tune they played?” Ludmila inquired, and by the look in her eyes, Maria was sure her aunt knew the tune she meant.

“The stripper song, you know, the one they always play in cartoons and stuff. I thought it was a joke like maybe some of the fellows would drop their trousers and do a moon, all in fun like that. But then one of the boys called out ‘take it off, Fat Girl.’ I flipped him the bird, still laughing because I thought perhaps it was a joke. But then they started pulling at my clothes, boys and girls alike. There was a blonde girl wearing almost no clothes at all who slapped me and said: ‘you don’t belong at a party, you pig, you belong in a barnyard!’”

Maria shuddered as she dropped to the floor and rested her head against her aunt’s lap. Each of her niece’s violent sobs threatened to shatter Ludmila’s heart.

“They tore the front of my dress and exposed my breasts,” Maria revealed. “The boys were grabbing my breasts and slapping my backside. The skinny blonde girl kicked me in the backside and said ‘get your fat, ugly ass away from our party, Petunia Pig! This party is for people only!’”

“Omer followed me from the party,” Maria continued. “He asked where I was going. I said I was going to the police. He tried to stop me, said it was only a joke that got out of hand. I slapped him and told him to never talk to me again. The police just said I should have known better than to go to such a party. I went right to the home of the University president. He told me that he was sorry it happened and that he would talk to the fraternity President, but he asked me to keep things quiet because we would not want to bring shame upon the school. I have always believed in a just and fair world, Auntie, but I see now there is no justice for people like me.”

“There will be justice,” Ludmila reassured her niece. “You rest now, my love.”

While Maria slept, Ludmila worked her spell.

“Justice is served,” the Voodoo priestess declared, leaning back in her chair.

A day later, there were multiple articles about the sudden rash of gender reassignment surgeries among students and faculty at Bayou College. The wives of both the University president and the chief of the campus police publicly expressed their shock, and local doctor Henri Raines declared that he’d no inkling that so many students, including his own former son Omer, were seeking gender reassignment surgery.

~The Real Cie~

Sly Speaks: Why I Noped Out of my Hysterectomy

I'm 53 years old and I have a history of sexual trauma and issues with my endocrine system including my reproductive system. I have PCOS. I have a degree of endometriosis, and I have polyps and fibroids in my uterus. The fibroids are small, not some grapefruit-sized thing.

I avoided having pelvic exams for close to 30 years because of past sexual trauma and fear of being shamed for being a larger person. I finally found a doctor I could trust to be honest with about my plumbing problems, so to speak. I see her quarterly because of my endocrine issues. When I told her that I had my "annual period" and was hoping this would be the last year for that mess, she said that wasn't normal and referred me to a gynecologist.

The gynecologist was a very sweet person who made me feel at ease. She never shamed me for my size. She did a D&C, which sucked because I felt like someone had been up in my business with a cheese grater, but I wanted to rule out cancer. The biopsy showed that I have simple endometrial hyperplasia with no cellular atypia. My risk of developing uterine cancer is 1.6% greater than the risk for someone who has no hyperplasia.

Hyperplasia is par for the course in someone with diabetes and PCOS. I produce too much estrogen. My primary care doctor is having me try a bio-identical progesterone, which may reverse some of the issues with my plumbing. One can always hope.

I was scheduled to have a hysterectomy, but I canceled the night before. Let me be clear that I'm not fanatical about women keeping their uterus come hell or high water. My son's best friend's mother had such horrible endometriosis that it had invaded her digestive tract. Some people have fibroids the size of a full-term fetus. There is no reason that these people should be forced to keep an organ that is malfunctioning to that degree. But this is not my case.

I always had miserable periods from hell and was glad when they came to an end. Initially, I was gung-ho to get rid of my reproductive organs, but after doing some research I realized I might be trading one problem for another (i.e. my incontinence could get significantly worse) and the inside of my hoo-hah could turn into the Great Southern Desert for the remainder of my life. In the end, it didn't seem worth it to undergo major surgery for a 1.6% higher risk of possible uterine cancer down the line.

Although two of the doctors involved in the process are women themselves (the person who would have done the surgery is a man) and they were all respectful to me, not a single one of them said a thing about the downside of having a hysterectomy. I think that doctors are taught to have this attitude that post-menopausal women are no longer able to have children, so why not just take the uterus out? But major surgery comes with risks. For me to agree to it, the risks have to outweigh the benefits, and they simply do not in this case.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Image copyright Juliahenze @123rf.com

Right Tyranny vs. Left Paternalism

The "left" is not entirely sweetness and light. They tend to be elitist, patronizing of poor and marginalized people, and very fatphobic. As opposed to the right, who want to smash everyone who isn't up to their standards under their jackboot goose step, the left has a tendency to behave as the Great White Hope, giving those falling into the White Man's Burden category a condescending pat on the head while killing us softly.

~Sly Has Spoken~

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Fat, Old, Ugly, But at Least Not a Sexist Piece of Crap

Kiss my fat ass

Mary says: Feeling really upset just now after seeing that two senators have made mean remarks about the women who were marching. I did march in DC and to see what's in the hearts of our government and the institutionalization of sexism, makes me sick.

Sly says: Fuck them. So what if they find us ugly? So what if they call us fat? I am fat. I'm also old. I'm also pretty sure most people don't find me to be in even the same zip code as pretty. Doesn't matter. My worth isn't tied to how desirable some cretin finds me. Took me a long time to get to this place, but now that I'm here I want to be in the face of so called men like this even more because it pisses them off, and that makes me happy.

~Sly Has Spoken~

Copyright Juliahenze@123rf.com