Janani Balasubramanian, for Black Girl Dangerous, on their experinces with anorexia as a trans person of colour: #EatingDisordersAreForWhiteWomen
“I’m willing to wager that the majority of eating disorders are experienced by folks with multiple marginalized identities. It’s likely that a lot of us aren’t able to talk about it because we’ve been denied representations of ourselves, and been denied in society. It’s also likely that if we came full circle and really stirred up some conversations about this painful experience in our communities, we would find mirrors in each other. It’s not that I want doctors to start diagnosing us left and right. Most of the medical industrial complex isn’t competent enough to deal with our bodies. Rather, I want us, and our communities, to figure out ways to nourish and hold each other, to make space for our truths. For whatever ways that race, gender, poverty, disability, sexuality, and whatever else make us too complicated for dominant eating disorder narratives. If for no other reason, than that we don’t need yet another way to mark marginalized bodies for shame and death.”