As a fat, visually disabled queer femme person, there’s lots of reasons for people to yell/spit at me. None legitimate, of course, but plenty of reasons.
I usually get someone maybe monthly, but in the last week I have:
- had someone deliberately run into me then spit at me while calling me a “bent cripple”
- Had multiple honks, most telling me to smile, and when I flipped one off he decided to yell “fat bastard” until the traffic began moving
- Had several leering men on buses, including one who sat close and kept moving his hand to my thigh
Granted, I’ve had a lot on this week, daring to leave the house every day, if not multiple times, but I’m always pretty busy, yet this week has just felt like abuse after abuse.
People feel empowered to exhibit these behaviours lately.
But I’m still so grateful because most of this has come due to the increased anti immigrant and increased racism. I’m white, I’m only getting the increased hate that comes alongside normalising racism. (Liberation for one group cannot come without liberation for all – just look at the rabbit hole transphobes go down!)
We need allyship more than ever. We need to call out all micro aggressions and offhand comments. We need to hold ourselves to a higher account and recognise we are all racist, misogynistic etc., and it’s only a moral failing if we ignore this.
As liberals, we need to recognise it has to start with us. We need to call friends and family out, we need to call ourselves out.
It starts with us, because we need to stop going down this dangerous road.
* Katharine Macy has been a Liberal Democrat since birth, with their grandparents and mother being councillors and activists. Katharine has a PhD in autism in human evolution and work for a law firm as an Inclusion and Wellbeing advisor. They are the Chair of the Liberal Democrat Disability Association.
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6 Comments
Your point is so well made, Katharine. I’m so sorry you had to suffer this.
Last year I found myself in a General Election
campaign where I received a totally unwarranted WhatsApp dressing down from a patronising male councillor with a fraction of my political experience. I hate to admit it but his misogynistic barbs hit home. I rang HQ for support. And the support… was Katharine. Their solidarity made such a huge difference.
Katharine, you are amazing. Thank you.
Standing shoulder to shoulder with you…
Thank you Katharine. A marvellous, humbling article.
All the abuse you have suffered is unacceptable. However the law seems to discriminate against certain types of abuse. In your case, some of the things said would be classified as hate incidents but calling you a ‘fat bastard’ wouldn’t count as a hate incidents but. Time for the list of protected characteristics to be expanded to include fatphobia
Yes, appalling.
Is this not also an example of the way in which society as a whole is deteriorating?
Too many people are being reared without being taught that basic decency and consideration is the way to behave. This shouldn’t be confined to how one regards particular groups within society – it should simply be the basis of normal behaviour. But in too many instances it doesn’t happen.
Maybe if politicians spoke out clearly and consistently as to how we should all behave towards everyone, there might just be a bit of traction.