It was the fat shaming heard around the world.
I was at a friend’s house, watching the first presidential debate, when it happened. We’d been making remarks all the while, turning a nerve-addled event into a cathartic bonding moment. When the debate turned to data security, we spoke more freely, assuming the conversation would turn to dry, rote talking points, offering us a moment to get another drink or catch up about our day.
It didn’t.
“It could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It also could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, okay?”
My friend and I both froze in disbelief. Her eyes widened and we faced each other, both of us uncharacteristically speechless. Later in the debate, Hillary Clinton revealed that Trump had referred to a former Miss Universe as “Miss Piggy” when she’d gained weight, and as “Miss Housekeeping” for being Latina. My friend and I had long since discussed the pervasiveness of fat shaming and the damage it can cause, but both of us were astonished to hear something so blatant from a leading presidential candidate.
We weren’t alone. Media reactions came fast and furious. The New York Times ran a slew of stories, including an opinion piece referring to Donald Trump as the “Fat-Shamer in Chief.” Comedians were quick to remind us all that Donald Trump is in no position to shame anyone else for being fat — after all, he isn’t slim himself. Senator Claire McCaskill went so far as to jokingly call for “a public daily weigh in.”
The D women Senators have talked & we're concerned about Donald's weight. Campaign stress? We think a public daily weigh-in is called for.
— Claire McCaskill (@clairecmc) September 28, 2016
This isn’t the first time those who oppose Trump’s rhetoric have used his body as fodder against him. This summer, naked statues of the candidate went up in cities across the nation. They emphasized the imperfections in an aging, fat body, and evoked disgust and playground taunting when viewers looked upon the statue’s genitals — a small penis without testicles.
When I first saw the statue, it was in a selfie taken by a passerby. Dozens more followed, replete with gleeful faces, pointing, jeering. Seeing those photos, I was awash in shame. I thought about the first time it had been explained to me that I’d need to lose weight as a child — the uncertainty of what had brought about the conversation, but the knowledge that I was meant to be ashamed. The classmate who asked me out at a campus bar in college, only to return to his sniggering friends with my phone number, the winner of a cruel bet.
My face flushed. My eyes stung. My stomach dropped. His body was being mocked, just like mine had been so many times before. This wasn’t about Trump’s policies, attitudes, remarks, or positions. It didn’t hold him accountable for his ideas or actions. It retaliated by making a mockery of his body.
As a fat person, I have become accustomed to being papered over in politics and culture. In moments like these, there is a party happening, a gleeful celebration of the takedown of a bully. It’s a place where fat is a mean thing to say, but never a real body to have.
At that party, I am not only an unwelcome guest — I am uninvited and unanticipated, invisible in my seat as fat jokes and derisive comments fly all around me. Some are house flies, distractingly buzzing during their short, harried lives. Others are wasps that leave their venom and live on to find more prey. I am stung and stung and stung.
IBut when Donald Trump makes a derisive remark about a fat person, the responses overwhelmingly take aim at his body. He’s one to talk. Has he seen himself? The conversation that follows isn’t one about his callousness, thoughtlessness or outright cruelty, it is a conversation about his body. We revile his rhetoric, then take aim at his shape.
That is fat shaming. And fat shaming always hurts fat people.
Even when it feels justified.
Even when it feels cathartic.
Fat shaming is never okay, no matter who it’s targeted at. Because fat people — like me — are always the collateral damage. When we respond by pointing out the weight of a fat shamer, it implies that their conduct would be acceptable if only they were thin. Turnabout is fair play, we tell ourselves. It’s time to flip the script. Flipping the script feels vindicating, but it leaves the script intact.
And overwhelmingly, we only call out fat shaming when it’s targeted at thin people, like former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. We cheer on thin women who put rude dates in their place. We rally behind an anti-obesity First Lady who’s inaccurately called fat. The crowd goes wild when a supermodel responds to fat shaming by telling the media to “kiss my fat ass.”
Calling a thin person fat is unthinkably cruel, cause for uproar, but we stand by when fat people are targeted. We stay silent when fat people are escorted from airplanes. Some of us even relish complaining about sharing an airplane or an elevator with a fat person. When we only call out the fat shaming of thin people, we imply that shaming is okay when directed at fat people. The implication is subtle and present: there is a size at which a person loses value. It is the same point at which fat shaming becomes tough love, a deserved consequence of the shape of our skin.
The problem isn’t the weight of the shamer or the shamed. When we focus on the weight of the parties involved, we send the message — often inadvertently — that fat shaming is only unacceptable if neither the subjects nor the perpetrators are fat. And when we do that, we devalue fat people all over again.
Fat shaming isn’t a problem because it’s mean, or because it’s inaccurately targeted at thin people. Fat shaming is a problem because it sends the message that what you say will only be heard if you are thin enough. That your worth, your accomplishments, your character, your intellect, and your work ethic will all be measured against the size of your body. That is, after all, the one measure that matters.
The pervasiveness of fat shaming is what leads us to unchecked bias against fat patients. It’s what created the British National Health Service’s newest policy: no routine surgical care for fat people. And it’s what allows American employers to pay fat women nearly $19,000 less than “average weight” women. Those of us who bear the brunt of fat shaming aren’t insulted. We’re materially harmed. And focusing on fat shaming that targets thin people papers over the harsh realities of the lives of fat people, all the while reinforcing the logic behind weight discrimination.
Calling someone fat for calling someone fat isn’t effective. And it isn’t who we strive to be. It perpetuates the very schoolyard tactics we find horrifying in brazen fat shamers like Trump.
When someone shames another person for their weight, they tell us something important about their thinking and their ethics. Our responses to them illuminate our own values, too. We have a choice ahead of us in dealing with such overt cruelty. We can lower ourselves to the tactics we despise, retaliating endlessly, steering into the skid of aggression. Or we can rise to meet our values, model the discourse we want to see, and embody the characteristics we most admire.
When faced with bullying and cruelty, don’t think of the bully. Think of the target of all that bullying, the expansiveness of their hurt, and the person you want to be for them.
Start there.
Editor’s Note: This piece was originally published on the author’s own Medium page and has been republished on ThinkProgress with permission.