"I wish I could have talked to this kid for five minutes. I wish I could have told Billy that it gets better. I wish I could have told him that, however bad things were, however isolated and alone he was, it gets better."

grain

[Trigger warning for fat hatred, fat shaming, dehumanization, bullying, suicide, and child abuse.]In September 2010, Dan Savage founded the It Gets Better Project in response to the recent suicides of gay youth who had been bullied. About founding this project, Savage wrote It's a great idea, to have adults who have lived as children in a homophobic society telling kids that life might not always be as difficult.But does Dan Savage think the bullying of gay kids is the only type of bullying that counts?I don't write this as anti-gay activist who, like those Peter LaBarbera types, claims that anti-bullying campaigns are secret Homosexual Indoctrination Programs.I write this as a progressive who doesn't think that the oppression of gay youth is the only axis of oppression that warrants the public's deep concern and sympathy. I write this as a lesbian who finds it's profoundly hypocritical for the founder of a prominent anti-bullying campaign to perpetuate bullying against another class of kids (and adults) who are widely bullied, ridiculed, and mocked: fat people. (Note: Gay and fat are not mutually exclusive groups. Indeed, many fat gay, bisexual, lesbian, and transgender people are widely shamed within the gay community).Item: Less than four months after he founded a campaign to address the bullying of gay youth, Dan Savage posted a Tim Minchin video entitled "Do Not Feed Donuts To Your Obese Children." Underneath the video he joked: "Yes, it's harsh, brutal even, very nearly bullying. But... um... you gotta admit that there's aCinnabun or two of truth to it."Sample lyric: "Boombalata kiddie-stuffer / Your kid's a fat, have you noticed that? / And you oughta be ashamed / For you have only got yourself to blame / Your 5-year-old princess in her size 14 tutu / Only eats pizza like that because you do." The lyrics also explicitly mock women with polycystic ovarian syndrome and exhort parents to abuse their children in an effort to make them thin: "Tell them they have to jog / Until their jogging shorts fit 'em / If they hesitate, ask firmly / If they still resist, hit 'em."The best that Savage, our apparent arbiter of all that does and doesn't count as bullying, can do is call it "very nearly bullying"? Gee, ya think?