Gentle Thanksgiving website = Fatphobic
Dear FarmUSA/Gentle Thanksgiving,
I applaud your efforts to get people to eschew animal-rich Thanksgiving meals, but I find your Top 10 Reasons to Skip Turkey this Thanksgiving list to be problematic. Number 4 ("Commercial turkeys are too obese to breed. Won't happen to you.") is hurtful because it implies that fat people cannot reproduce, and this is patently wrong. Number 2 ("You are what you eat. Who wants to be a “butterball”?") is just so hurtful and reminiscent of juvenile verbal abuse. I'll tell you who wants to be a butterball: fat-positive people who know that health can happen at any and every size. Fat people who are sick and tired of being demonized by vegan organizations who haven't gotten the memo that fat vegans are alive and well in America. Intelligent people who know that being vegan or becoming vegan doesn't magically change a person from fat to un-fat.
Please take out Number 4 and Number 2 on your list. They are inappropriate and communicate hurtful messages and erroneous implications about fat, fat people, vegans, veganism, and combinations thereof.
Thank you,
G. of B.
[I didn't have the time or energy to get more into this, so this letter's all I came up with. I doubt anyone's going to give a shit unless more people say something, anyway.]
I applaud your efforts to get people to eschew animal-rich Thanksgiving meals, but I find your Top 10 Reasons to Skip Turkey this Thanksgiving list to be problematic. Number 4 ("Commercial turkeys are too obese to breed. Won't happen to you.") is hurtful because it implies that fat people cannot reproduce, and this is patently wrong. Number 2 ("You are what you eat. Who wants to be a “butterball”?") is just so hurtful and reminiscent of juvenile verbal abuse. I'll tell you who wants to be a butterball: fat-positive people who know that health can happen at any and every size. Fat people who are sick and tired of being demonized by vegan organizations who haven't gotten the memo that fat vegans are alive and well in America. Intelligent people who know that being vegan or becoming vegan doesn't magically change a person from fat to un-fat.
Please take out Number 4 and Number 2 on your list. They are inappropriate and communicate hurtful messages and erroneous implications about fat, fat people, vegans, veganism, and combinations thereof.
Thank you,
G. of B.
[I didn't have the time or energy to get more into this, so this letter's all I came up with. I doubt anyone's going to give a shit unless more people say something, anyway.]