Stacy Bias is an activist, educator and entrepreneur located in the Pacific Northwest. Stacy is a queer activist and a fat activist, though lately she prefers the term "Anti-Shame Advocate."
At the heart of Stacy's activism is the idea that all beings are worthy of love, from self and others, and that shame is a sinister and lucrative tool employed to ensure a steady stream of faithful and desperate consumers.
Stacy believes that fitness and fatness are not mutually exclusive. Further, Stacy believes that fitness is not the sole measure of worth for an individual and that all individuals, regardless of fitness level, are entitled to equal access to medical care and basic human rights.
It is Stacy's ultimate goal to empower individuals of all sizes towards greater self-love, whatever that looks like for them; to explore the seedy underbelly of consumer culture and the holes it digs in our self-esteem each day in efforts to turn us against one another and, ultimately, sell us product; to humanize one another, TO one another, in an effort to bring compassion, a greater understanding for the vast diversity of our human race, and to encourage and support bridge-building over the many intersections of multiple "isms" because racism, sexism, sizeism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia and classism are all related issues. We stand to learn so much from one another if we begin to communicate our stories and release our shame and judgment.
Stacy's current projects include The Fat Experience Project (thefatexperience.com - an oral, visual and written history project which seeks to be a humanizing force in body image activism,) BelliesAreBeautiful.com (a body-positive photo gallery of images of the oft-maligned belly,) FatGirl Speaks (fatgirlspeaks.com - a bi-annual conference and performance in Portland, OR featuring women of size,) DykeTees.Com and RadFatties.Com (t-shirt stores with political and humorous designs) and ChunkyDunk PDX (chunkydunkpdx.com - a fat-positive swim party that takes place regularly in the summer months.) Stacy's day job is manager of HostBaby.Com - web hosting for musicians.
F.A.Q.
Q. So why are you a fat activist?
Because it's necessary. I'm coming to realize that, to a large extent, Fat Activism isn't really so much about FAT. It's about equality; i.e. the equal distribution of the perception of worth from the perspective of society as a whole, and in terms of proper and equitable access to medical care, to employment and to simple things like safe and comfortable travel. It's about putting an end to discrimination based on aesthetics and ability (or perception of ability *based* on aesthetics.)
At this time, save for Michigan and a precious few local ordinances (san francisco, santa cruz and washington DC) - there is nothing in legislation that protects against employment discrimination based on size. This means that if a prospective employer takes issue with your size because he or she *thinks* that you can't perform job duties, or simply because they just don't like the way you look, they can discriminate based on this and refuse to hire you. This also means that if you gain weight during employment and your employer feels that you no longer fit the aesthetic of their establishment, you can be fired. (See airline stewardesses being fired for gaining 5lbs.)
This is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the injustices served to folks of size every day. I could go on for days.
But, beyond all of the political reasons for being a fat activist, my calling to this cause is largely personal. The truth of the matter is, I want people to be happy. I want YOU to be happy. There are so many lies being sold to us each and every day - so many ways that the media and big industry seeks to tell us we are lesser-than, and then to sell us products that promise falsely to make us better than everyone else, or at least better than we are. I'm all for self-betterment, but the truth of the matter is, the ONLY platform for positive self-growth is a healthy self-esteem. And the only way to get a healthy self-esteem is to buy out of the idea that you aren't good enough exactly as you are, in this exact moment - flaws (real or perceived) and all.
Our culture is sending women (and men) on a downward spiral of self-loathing that is ultimately creating a vicious catch-22 in terms of self-esteem, depression, anxiety, incredibly negative body image and hopelessness. We see images in front of us every single day, all day long, of this arbitrary physical ideal. We're confronted with it so often that we forget that it's truly rare for anyone to look the way those women do. Celebrities, models - they live to be thin and beautiful. They have personal chefs, personal trainers and the luxury of time. It's their JOB to be thin and beautiful.
But the rest of us, living in the world outside of wealth and an excess of personal time, we run the gamut, don't we? Real lives, real bodies - real, beautiful, diverse, perfectly imperfect bodies - as gloriously unique as our personalities. The problem is, different has always been scary. And for those of us who are larger than we're told we should be, the world doesn't easily make room for us.
But that doesn't mean we are worthless!
Some of us, as fat folks, are healthy. Some of us aren't. Same for thinner folks - some are healthy, some aren't. I know just as many thin folks who get winded running up a flight of stairs as fat folks. The media tells us that fat makes us unhealthy - truth of the matter is, fat has no direct correlation to health. Fitness and fatness are not mutually exclusive. Some fat folks, when they take up or vary their fitness regimen, will lose weight. Some won't. Some might even gain weight in terms of muscle mass. There is no stereotype that is true of all people inside of it. I meet people every day who defy every stereotype I've ever heard.
But bear in mind, also, that, as activists, sometimes we feel forced to take the extreme stances to counter the extreme stances on the other side. A lot of the fat activist movement I've experienced has been focused on saying "fat is beautiful!" and "there are healthy fat people!" and presenting case-examples of folks who fly in the face of the stereotypes that the 'war on obesity' is promoting. But the truth, my friends, is always somewhere in the middle. And the point I'm trying to make is this:
Healthy or not, fat or not, queer or not, differently abled or not, no matter our race, sexual orientation or class background - we are all EQUAL and deserve equal treatment and respect on all realms.
Whether you can bench-press a Volkswagen, or whether you break a sweat taking out the trash on Sundays - YOU are valuable. Equally valuable. And you are worthy of love, from others and from yourself. Think of how incredible the world would be if we all stopped listening to the bullshit that is spewed at us every single day and learned how to make peace with ourselves? If we stopped yo-yo dieting in shame and silence, and instead made ourselves a nice, healthy dinner because we love our bodies? If we stopped shaming ourselves because we can't climb a mountain like that girl on the fitness magazine and instead just went out for a stroll because it smells good after a rain and we want to see the earthworms? If we stopped villainizing food and enjoyed our milkshake instead of buying it in secret and drinking it alone, only to feel guilty immediately after? If we removed guilt, shame, self-loathing from our own personal dictionaries and treated OURSELVES with the respect that we deserve?
I aim to find out. ;) And that's why I'm a Fat Activist.
Q. Am I "fat enough" to be interviewed?
I leave that to you to decide. I am not seeking to define what a fat person is. I don't care what size your pants are. If you feel like you're having the 'fat experience,' you probably are. Now I don't wish, by this, to belittle the experience that those of us who are genuinely, physically larger than the perceived norm - because there are most certainly degrees of privilege that smaller folks have, and larger folks lose, as we run the gamut on the size spectrum. There are unique challenges presented to folks on the larger end of the spectrum vs. folks on the smaller end. But there are also unique challenges presented to the contrary. We all have our own experience of cultural aesthetic-based oppression. I want to hear all of those stories. So if you feel that you have something to say, I want to hear it.
Q. Are you including Trans women in this book?
Abso-freakin'-lutely. All self-defined women are welcome.
