Demanding that people prove to you that they’re oppressed is a standard tactic of bigots trying to pretend that neither they nor anyone else is bigoted, that the particular form of oppressed they’re demanding proof of does not exist. They will not accept any evidence that the oppression does exist, either. They will always find some way to dismiss it, and then continue to demand more evidence.

Because what they want is to utterly deny that the oppression exists, because if the oppression exists, then they’d be morally obligated to stop being fucking bigots and do something about the oppression. And they don’t want that. They want to keep being bigots. And they will keep on finding excuses to keep being bigots, no matter what evidence you show them.

We have posted study after study, anecdote after anecdote. Fat people are bullied more, fat people are harassed more, fat people have a much harder time access decent health care, fat people fucking die because doctors do not give them appropriate treatment, fat people are paid less, fat people have a harder time getting jobs, fat people have a harder time getting promotions, fat people have a harder time finding clothes much less office clothes. We are systematically and structurally oppressed. That’s what this is. We are denied access to basic things that are necessary to life and livelihood. That’s what it means.

But the bigots who want to stay bigots will keep dismissing everything. That’s what the demands that we prove our oppression are about.

-MG