Body Liberation as Queer Liberation
Hi, I’m Scout. I am writing this blog from the perspective of a transgender and intersex person who has experienced many iterations of my identities and relationships with them. My eating disorder has been bound with most, if not all, of my identities and social locations.
My Story
In 2016, during my second inpatient stay for my eating disorder, I had a therapist who was exploring inner child work with me. I found myself becoming very dysregulated when she used the gendered language of “girl” or “woman” to describe me in the past and then-present. During this time, I had a growing discomfort with my birth-assigned first name. I sought guidance from LGBTQIA+ community about the process of a name change and whether someone could do so if they were not transgender. As someone who is also neurodivergent, I often need to be directly asked a question to think through how a given topic may apply to me. After announcing my current name to my social network, I was asked which pronouns I use. That invitation to further explore my authentic desires around language allowed me to discern that they/them (and, at another time, they/themme) pronouns felt most fitting for me. This was when it clicked that I was transitioning from one gender to another gender; I was able to step into my transgender identity and, ultimately, transgender pride. At the same time, I had been attempting to understand some of my medical history as it related to innate sex traits. After connecting with a wonderful activist and leader in the intersex justice movement, I began to explore how my intersex traits could translate to intersex identity and intersex pride.
Now, seven and a half years later, my gender and sex identities are less central to my sense of self. Yet, I continue to have a deep and unsettling awareness of how transgender and intersex people are marginalized, at times pitted against one another, and at other times victimized from individual to systemic levels. I spend much of my time and energy working towards intersex justice, both locally and federally. I have built a vibrant, relational, joyful, silly, and spacious life. And yet, this past year, I was physically assaulted by two men who followed me home from a nearby bus stop on a day when I was not masking my gender expression or self-stimulatory behaviors. I experienced an increase in post-traumatic symptoms, causing me to feel unsafe in my authenticity when in public settings – or even private settings. For example, I play in a local LGBTQIA+ concert and marching band, and I find myself worried at our practices and events that someone may physically harm us as a group due to our explicit sharing of our identities.
Rainbow Capitalism
Recently, I was at a conference of eating disorder professionals, where “swag” was being distributed by event sponsors. One treatment center that serves primarily LGBTQIA+ patients handed out rainbow drawstring bags. I remember thinking, “Who feels safe enough to wear these?” and noticing that those who did so were primarily people with body privilege. This brings me to the focal point of this blog – rainbow pride, its intertwinement with rainbow capitalism, and a bigger struggle to free ourselves from oppression that has become normalized.
Rainbow capitalism refers to the commercialization of LGBTQIA+ identities and Pride events by corporations that often use LGBTQIA+ symbols (like the rainbow flag) to market their products. This is not to knock this treatment center – I think the bags they were handing out pushed against the grain meaningfully at an academic conference. However, targeted marketing to LGBTQIA+ consumers, without necessarily supporting the community's deeper struggles or contributing to meaningful change, is unhelpful and even harmful.
During this time of year, many corporations will incorporate sanitized and marketable aspects of gender, sexuality, and bodily diversity without foundationally changing their relationships with marginalized communities – in essence, presenting a facade for profit. We see this in a particularly harmful way when corporations posture as if being supportive of LGBTQIA+ communities for profit while simultaneously financially supporting harmful legislation.
Why Body Liberation?
Body liberation and LGBTQIA+ pride are deeply interconnected in their shared goals of challenging and dismantling societal norms that marginalize and oppress individuals based on their bodies, identities, and expressions. At the core, both movements advocate for accepting and celebrating diversity in all its forms. Both movements celebrate authenticity and advocate for dignity, respect, and bodily autonomy, including access to affirming medical care.
Challenging normative standards allows us to push against capitalist structures and legislators bankrolling horrific laws. Rejecting rainbow capitalism is a crucial aspect of this advocacy, as it parallels the rejection of superficial body positivity and appearance ideals, pushing instead for genuine, systemic change. In a collective fight to disentangle ourselves from what we are being sold – specific appearance ideals and goods/services – we lead ourselves to a liberatory future rich with community. When we can decipher the messages sold to us through capitalist structures, we can develop the wisdom to reject these messages and, in the process, perhaps move towards a deeper and more grounded self-acceptance.
Bringing together these two movements is challenging normative ways of being, believing, and doing. Many have heard by now that pride originates from acts of resistance – from The Raid of La Paloma in the 1930s to Compton’s Cafeteria in the 1960s. Fat liberation, too, originates in grassroots organizing such as The Fat Underground and NAAFA.
An Intertwined Struggle – Body Liberation as Queer Liberation
Bodies are, in our society, political. Those of us on the margins, particularly people who are multiply marginalized, can find healing in pushing back against messages that appear on the surface to cater to us but ultimately have other intent. Rainbow capitalism often results in tokenism, where LGBTQIA+ symbols and individuals are used to sell products without any real commitment to the community's rights or welfare. Similarly, superficial body positivity can exploit body diversity for marketing purposes while still perpetuating harmful standards and ideals. Some helpful signs to interpret brand and event messaging that I have found include: Who is this for? Is this effort invested in my freedom? Does this brand or event have an accountable history of working with my communities? Is this focused on inclusivity, or are there people left behind? Is this item or event accessible to people of all genders and all body sizes?
For as long as any group of people is subjugated, I don’t believe we can genuinely celebrate.
When I look at my surroundings, I want to see authentic representation, meaningful support, genuine advocacy, and an atmosphere of belonging. I want to hear my transgender and intersex communities also speak to sizeism, ableism, and body-based discrimination. I want to hear my friends invested in body liberation speak to barriers to gender-affirming care and how gender ideals are implicated in sizeism. In my life today, I am lucky to be in communities where we are having these conversations, seeing one another, and holding each other’s intersectional experiences with care.
It is easy to equate riots and resistance with danger. However, these efforts of organized resistance are about seeking deeper, more meaningful change. They involve challenging systems that profit from marginalization and demanding authentic, systemic support for all bodies and identities. True body liberation and LGBTQIA+ pride are about more than just visibility; they are about achieving genuine equity, respect, and freedom for all individuals. When I experience this, which does happen in certain spaces, I can truly reclaim Pride for what it is – an uprising.
