[TRIGGER WARNING: EATING DISORDERS]

There is a person, right now, who is realizing their body is not wrong, disgusting, or broken for the first time in all of their 37 years on this planet. There is a teenager, who has reclaimed the word ‘fat’ - now using it as an adjective, embedded with 15 years of self-love and survival. Right now, there is a 78 year old, a 46 year old, and a 12 year old, staring at their bodies in the mirror and seeing nothing but sexy, hot, ferocious, UNSTOPPABLE. There is a person, right now, reading the story of another and realizing they have not spent 24 years struggling with disordered eating alone. There is a person, right now, who is wearing booty shorts 2 sizes too small ON PURPOSE. There is a person, right now, who has started to make a point of telling themselves daily that they are strong and beautiful, as a way to heal 19 years of ‘incapable’ and ‘ugly’.

Sharing our stories of struggle is incredibly vital and important, but it is also important to share our stories of resistance. When we illuminate the change that we are creating (as well as our struggles), it is easier to see that we are not alone, that we are moving through this self-hatred that sometimes feels like concrete, that we are destroying the systems that tell us which bodies are attractive and valuable, and which bodies are wrong.  When we make our struggles and resistances available to others, we create space for self-love to creep in to the hearts and minds of those around us. After a while, self-love starts to spread like wild-fire, rapidly transforming the body hating landscape of dominant culture and creating more space for all bodies to experience love and value. What is more badass than that?

Sometimes even the smallest, or simplest acts of resistance can seem like the hardest. Just remember that all of our struggles are different and that we are doing what we can. There is no ‘right way’ to begin to love ourselves, and there is room for all of us to exist where we are at. If you can’t take action today, there is always tomorrow, next week, next month, etc. Just keep trying, and above all treat yourself with gentle compassion and kindness because the fact that we are even contemplating these things is a powerful act.

- Majestic Legay

* I wrote this after I read this [tw eating disorder] because realizing I wasn’t alone in struggling with (and resisting) disordered eating was so fucking relieving and transformational for me. When I read this, I thought “yeah, this is their very important reality, but the author is erasing the ways that these people resist. what about the ways that we resist? we should share that also”

Glitter Politic. It’s kind of like a super power. From the minute we are born, the world injects us with poison. This poison takes the form of self-hatred, fear, disempowerment, loneliness, and worthlessness. The poison has become part of us, and has corroded us from the inside. Embodying a Glitter Politic is the act of taking those parts of ourselves that feel toxic – those deeply terrifying, seemingly ugly parts – and seeing ourselves as whole. It is about having compassion for the impossibilities within and around us. It is about throwing those parts of ourselves that feel infected back out into the world in the form of beauty, like a weapon.  In doing so, we suddenly have the power to unlearn, challenge, and redefine what is beautiful.

When we re-imagine, re-define, re-create beauty and share that with the world, people internalize it and it incites a chain reaction. It becomes its own virus – a glitter pandemic. When we become aware of the ways in which our world privileges certain bodies over others, and actively reject those destructive value systems, we have within us the power to annihilate beauty as we know it.

Self-love is volcanic. When we externalize our love for ourselves, we erupt love from its cold, ashy hollow and it surges forth, hot with promise, into the hearts and minds of others. Self-love collapses the imagined borders and walls we have built with the hope of protecting ourselves. It unravels the ropes that bind and isolate us from each other. Suddenly, our interconnectedness becomes profoundly obvious. Through self-love we can shatter the dominant narratives that tell us we are autonomous, non-connected individuals. Self-love in the face of fear and hate cracks open a space teeming with possibilities for connection and transformation.

It’s time for us to turn our feelings back on. Embodying a Glitter Politic is about returning to the body. It is about willingly entering a space of vulnerability, that place of uncertainty and ambiguity. This place is terrifying because it is mysterious, shifting, inexplicable. What does it even feel like to be in love with our bodies? What does it feel like to see our bodies as liminal, as shaky, as undefinable? What does it feel like, inside our bodies, to exist in this marginal place? Are we raw here? Are we scared here? It is in these indiscernible places that compassion – a recognition that in our loneliest moments, we are not alone – becomes possible. Embodying a Glitter Politic is a challenge, a call to action. It is a mission to begin the journey of engaging with ourselves fully. Only from this place can we connect, and only then can we see change.

-Ashley and Majestic

The following are some random and incomplete thoughts on love slapped into some paragraphs. Lets start talking about this together.

Love not Fear. This phrase has been circulating around my geographical queer communities these past few months. For me, embracing love instead of fear means that we must reformulate and unearth the unknown possibilities that love holds. The ways we learn to love are deeply embedded in dominance, fear, and ownership. I don’t think loving like this creates vibrant or nurturing spaces for people to learn and grow. I often feel like the ways we are learning to love are broken and harmful. Believing love can be different is what keeps the fire in my heart alive.

Recently, an amazing activist and thinker in my life, Khalilah Alwani was inspired by this spoken word piece by dubpoet D’Bi Young. She shared this beautiful quote with me and several others:”I cannot promise to love you fearlessly, but I will love you with courage and integrity”. In her spoken word piece linked above, D’Bi Young talks about the need for us to love one another “courageously and relentlessly”. My belief in the powerful potential of love profoundly affects my politic, and loving “courageously and relentlessly” with patience for the complications, is part of that.

The idea that we can approach our relationships, our activism, our bodies, our lives from a place of “courageous and relentless love” has been one that I have mulled over constantly these past few months. Depending on the day this feels unspeakably difficult, or absolutely possible. I believe that a huge part of transforming our world means making room to learn to love one another in new ways. The problem with that, as Ashley Aron once wrote is that love is a sticky package. Loving with courage and integrity takes work, and is complicated by the baggage (read: UNIQUE LIVED EXPERIENCE) of those involved. 

North America is a climate thick with fear, fear of the state, fear of each other, fear of our bodies, fear of love, fear of death - I could go on and on. Loving others or ourselves in a complete and total absence of fear seems a somewhat insurmountable feat to me. That being said, I really believe that love has the ability to soften and melt fear, which is a start. I think a lot about fear. How it has changed me, and how it has mediated my relationships with others. I have been thinking about how fear divides us, and prevents connection. It is fear that prevents us from reaching out, and doing things that would likely be really amazing for us. Fear is like cement. Like quicksand for hopes, dreams, revolution. It slows us down. It stifles us. I think it’s time to tell fear where to go.

When I think about love not fear I can feel it scrape against something rough in my heart. This rough place is deep, dark, gorgeous, raw and filled with possibility. I know that this place is a place where radical and revolutionary love can emerge and proliferate. Love is powerful, and dangerous as fuck. To begin to relearn love, we must relentlessly pursue and rework it. We need to take love back to the drawing board. What are some ways that we can do that? How can we come to each other with courage and relentless love, instead of fear?

-Majestic