Embodiment for the Rest of Us – Season 3, Episode 8: Marquisele Mercedes
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Chavonne (she/her) and Jenn (she/her) interviewed Marquisele Mercedes (she/they) about their embodiment journey.
Marquisele (Mikey) Mercedes (she/they) is a fat liberationist writer, creator, educator, and doctoral student from the Bronx, New York. As a Presidential Fellow at the Brown University School of Public Health, she works at the intersection of critical public health studies, fat studies, and scholarship on race/ism, examining how racism, anti-Blackness, and fatphobia have shaped health care, research, and public health.
Mikey is also a co-host of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back, which explores the lived fat experience from diverse vantage points to examine fatphobia in our relationships and culture. Her socials are @marquisele on Twitter, @fatmarquisele on Instagram, and Patreon.com/marquisele on Patreon. Their website is also marquiselemercedes.com
Content Warning: discussion of privilege, discussion of diet culture, discussion of fatphobia, discussion of racism, discussion of mental health, discussion of chronic medical issues, discussion of medical fatphobia
Trigger Warnings:
29:06: Discussion of fatphobia regarding climate change
45:21: Discussion of government manipulation of COVID data
47:16: Discussion of hate of disabled people
1:11:25: Discussion of Mikey’s history with Lindo Bacon in the first two weeks of March 2022 here, here, here, and here among others (with updates here and here)
A few highlights:
6:09: Mikey shares her understanding of embodiment and her own embodiment journey
26:47: Mikey discusses how the pandemic has affected their embodiment practices
Links from this episode:
Sherronda Brown Announced as Scalawag Magazine’s Editor-in-Chief
Music: “Bees and Bumblebees (Abeilles et Bourdons), Op. 562” by Eugène Dédé through the Creative Commons License
Please follow us on social media:
Twitter: @embodimentus
Instagram: @embodimentfortherestofus
Captions
EFTROU Season 3 Episode 8 is 1 hour, 40 minutes, and 22 seconds long. (1:44:22)
Chavonne: Hello there! I’m Chavonne McClay (she/her).
Jenn: And I’m Jenn Jackson (she/her).
Chavonne: This is Season 3 of Embodiment for the Rest of Us. A podcast series exploring topics and intersections that exist in fat, queer, and disability liberation!
Jenn: In this show, we interview those with lived experience and professionals alike to learn how they are affecting radical change and how we can all make this world a safer and more welcoming place for all humans who are historically and currently marginalized and should be centered, listened to, and supported.
Chavonne: Captions and content warnings are provided in the show notes for each episode, including specific time stamps, so that you can skip triggering content any time that feels supportive to you! This podcast is a representation of our co-host and guest experiences and may not be reflective of yours. These conversations are not medical advice, and are not a substitute for mental health or nutrition support.
Jenn: In addition, the conversations held here are not exhaustive in their scope or depth. These topics, these perspectives are not complete and are always in process. These are just highlights! Just like posts on social media, individual articles, or any other podcast, this is just a snapshot of the full picture.
Chavonne: We are always interested in any feedback on this process if something needs to be addressed. You can email us at Listener@EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
[1:36]
(J): Welcome to Season 3 Episode 8 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast, the first of a two-parter with the wealth of insight and knowledge that is the lovely human being, Marquisele Mercedes. Let’s dive in!
(C): Marquisele (Mikey) Mercedes (she/they) is a fat liberationist writer, creator, educator, and doctoral student from the Bronx, New York. As a Presidential Fellow at the Brown University School of Public Health, she works at the intersection of critical public health studies, fat studies, and scholarship on race/ism, examining how racism, anti-Blackness, and fatphobia have shaped health care, research, and public health.
(J): Mikey is also a co-host of the podcast Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back, which explores the lived fat experience from diverse vantage points to examine fatphobia in our relationships and culture. Her socials are @marquisele on Twitter, @fatmarquisele on Instagram, and Patreon.com/marquisele on Patreon. Their website is also marquiselemercedes.com
(C): Thank you so much for being here with us dear listeners! We can’t wait to share the next episode in two weeks!
[4:23]
Jenn (she/her):
We have another dream guest on the podcast today, Marcus El Mercedes, she/they, joining us from Rhode Island. Welcome. We can’t believe you’re here. We can’t believe it, and we can’t wait to get started sharing this space and conversation with you. So, how are you today, Mikey?
Mikey (she/they):
I’m great. This has been really fun so far.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. We’ve been just chatting away-
Jenn (she/her):
[inaudible] started recording yet.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah. No. Yeah. I’m having a good time. I feel good. The Weight Stigma Conference was yesterday, so after that, my brain just sort of shut down. You know after you have a big event and then it’s like, “Oh, it’s over. Now, I can turn into a zombie or a badger going into hibernation for the next couple of days.”
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I love a badger-
Mikey (she/they):
So, that’s pretty much… Oh, love it. And that I’m in that mode right now. Yeah, no.
Jenn (she/her):
Hey, badger friend.
Chavonne (she/her):
Badger friend.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. And on our script that we’re looking at, Mikey is anonymous moose right now. We were just talking about that beforehand, so there’s moose vibes, there’s badger vibes, there’s otter vibes-
Mikey (she/they):
We’re all about the critters today.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love otters-
Mikey (she/they):
Very, very cute little critters.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, absolutely-
Mikey (she/they):
I love how they hold hands-
Jenn (she/her):
Badgers are cute. They do. I was just going to say, they hold hands-
Chavonne (she/her):
… I know. I’m just, “Oh, too cute. I can’t.”
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my. And then they play with their little rocks, oh, my gosh. I can’t.
Chavonne (she/her):
I know. It’s too much-
Mikey (she/they):
There’s so cute.
Chavonne (she/her):
…I’m obsessed. Yeah, yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
They like a fidget-
Chavonne (she/her):
They do.
Jenn (she/her):
… I identify with an otter look for your core.
Chavonne (she/her):
Ooh, yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
They’re like [inaudible]-
Chavonne (she/her):
I do [inaudible].
Jenn (she/her):
… I got a fidget. I got a fidget. I got a fidget. I need my safety hand. We’ll just blow it around with our safety hands-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, my gosh. I love it. We’re so excited to have you. Obviously, we are giddy with it, so super pumped. So, let’s just get going.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah.
[6:09]
Speaker 1:
As we start this conversation about being present too and in our bodies, I’d love to start with asking a centering question about the themes of our podcast and how they occur to you. Can you share with us what embodiment means to you, and what your embodiment journey has been like if you would like to share?
Mikey (she/they):
Well, in simple terms, embodiment is the experience of having a body, right? I mean, I think some of us, because of the bodies that we have and how they’re received in society. Some of us are always aware. We’re not necessarily born being aware, but over time, it becomes very clear like, “Whoa, I am in this body,” and not just I am in this body, but there is something wrong with that.
And I think other people, depending on what your body looks like, and I think what is going unsaid here is that your proximity to whiteness, your proximity to non-disabledness, your proximity to cis-hetero ideals, these things allow you to be unaware of your body in a way that is not ignorance is bliss, but ignorance is actually safety built into social experiences. You literally have protection from harms that other people who do not have the privilege of not being aware of their bodies, those of us who are black, who are fat, who are disabled, who are trans, who are openly clear, and the more I think about desirability in particular. I’m thinking a lot about people who are disfigured, people who have certain skin conditions that are highly stigmatized. If you fall into one of those groups or more than one of those groups, you don’t have the safety that is inherent in being unaware of your body.
And so, embodiment is really just, what does it mean to be aware of your body. What are the physical sensations that you have or don’t have? What is the environmental awareness that you have or don’t have? What is the psychological experiences that you have or don’t have because of your relationship to or distance from your body?
This also needs to be said. Just because you’re aware of your body doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t connected to your body. And so that’s this other layer, right? Because before I found fat politics, before I really started to be like, “Oh, shit. This is the language to describe what it has been to be in my body and have the experiences that I’ve had for the past however many years.” That was when I really started to be aware of how my body was feeling when I started to really understand my body’s place in the world on a hierarchy of bodies. Just because I was uber aware of my body and policing it all the time doesn’t necessarily mean that I was connected to what I was feeling or the things I was doing to myself because of my hyperawareness.
And so, it’s very complex. I think, like I mentioned, one of the things that has put me most in touch with my body has been understanding my body’s place on the body hierarchy and also being in community with other people who understand their place on the body hierarchy and sharing experiences and talking about it because one of the things that places us at a distance to how to treat our bodies well, that puts us a far away from how to really feel grounded is shame and trauma and the internalization of those things. And so, talking about them in particular with other people who understand, right? Just because someone has an identity doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to articulate it, and that’s where most of us fall. Like there are Black people who understand that they’ve experienced racism that they’ve experienced anti-blackness, but they can’t necessarily articulate that, or they are shortsighted in understanding how that works in the world alongside many other marginalized identities. There are fat, Black people who do not necessarily identify with the cause of fat liberation.
And so, there are differences between how we can articulate our embodiment and the political implications of our embodiment. And so, finding other people specifically who are living in the same kinds of bodies that I have or who are dealing with similar forms of marginalization via their embodiment, it’s really important to talk to those people who can have the identity and articulate it that they’ve done the work to think about what it means, for example, what it means to be a fat, Black person in a world alongside, fat, Black people who are trans, who are not because I’m not…
My life relationship to gender is very antagonistic. I think if you are a fat person… Some fat people are… especially fat women, fat identifying women are very defeminized, so they don’t necessarily have access to performing femininity in a way that’s acceptable, and that is a form of contention. And then, I think that if you have a particular kind of fat body, if you have the big hips, the big butt, the big breasts, there’s a way that it’s still happens, but you are sexualized in a way that is in line with being a feminine person in society.
So, it’s all very complicated, but talking to people who I am the same but also different than, and we all sort of have done study to understand what that means and how our differences are not necessarily at odds with each other but build off of each other, especially politically in our political experiences, that has allowed me to really tap into my body and how I’m feeling, and also, has allowed me to be like, “It is important that I feel good.” And so, how do I make that happen? Long answer. I like that-
Chavonne (she/her):
I loved it.
Jenn (she/her):
I love a long answer-
Chavonne (she/her):
Fantastic answer. Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. All of it is sitting super heavy, but just the idea of awareness doesn’t equal connection is really like, “Oh, obviously,” but it never clicked that way before, so that’s really, really important. And also, being in community with other people who are aware and are working on that connection with their bodies because like you said, you can be a part of this community and not connect with it in any way or not want to be a part of it. I mean, obviously, sometimes, there are times you don’t want to be a part of all the communities you’re a part of, but that you’re actively pushing against that rather than working on the acceptance, so it’s really important. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my goodness, yes. And when you’re talking about having an identity, but not being able to articulate it, and the gap between those two things and the work that happens to bridge that gap between them, it made me feel, I don’t know, a pit of despair, some hopefulness, some like, “Oh, I can see how even earlier on in my own embodiment journey or witnessing others or trying to learn about this topic” or anything like that, it felt complex as you were saying, but to the point that I could not understand because I hadn’t done the work yet.
So, I was just sitting in that space. I mean, the work is ongoing. I’m never going to be done with the work. I don’t mean to be like, “I’m final with my work.” That was really resonating with me that it’s a process, and it’s a complex process, and it’s always evolving because we’re always evolving, and this very fucked up world is also always evolving, so it’s never going to stop being the work. So, that was the pit of despair part.
Chavonne (she/her):
No.
Jenn (she/her):
Hopefulness, right? It’s real stuff. It’s just real stuff.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s real shit, yeah. Absolutely-
Jenn (she/her):
And then, the hopeful stuff was like, “Yes, there is a way to articulate this to ourselves, to other people, and be in community that makes it all feel some level of different, right? Even if we can’t control it all and that just made me feel hope. But that’s always me, Libra. I’m going to be like, “Ooh, there’s the pit of despair, and then there’s the hope.” So, I’m always balancing, but that’s-
Chavonne (she/her):
Always.
Jenn (she/her):
And I also wrote an entire page of notes while you were talking, which was… So, something that I love to is give myself journal topics. It was line by line. I was like, “Fascinating, fascinating. Absolutely. Never thought of it just, I love long answers.” My brain is like, “Ooh, that’s exactly the answer we needed,” so thank you.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah-
Jenn (she/her):
Wonderful.
Chavonne (she/her):
… That’s perfect. I loved it. Absolutely loved it. Yeah-
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my gosh. I wanted to [inaudible]-
Mikey (she/they):
I’m so glad. I mean, but you know what it is? It’s like something that you made me think of not being clear on what there is to do about the problems we feel in our bodies. I think to an extent, it is really actually hard to understand your place in the body hierarchy, and it is hard to understand where to go with that process. And lack of clarity is just hard to deal with. I’m autistic, so I feel very strongly about things that are unclear. They are deeply unsettling to me. When someone is saying something in a way that is not clear to me or indirect, or it’s supposed to be a statement that loops around on itself, and I’m supposed to understand what that means, I get viscerally upset and uncomfortable. And I have to ask, “What do you do in that scenario?” You either ask for clarification, you seek out the answer yourself, or you sit with a lack of clarity, and you just feel super lost about it.
And I feel like that is a similar set of paths that people have when they’re first trying to learn about fat phobia or fat phobia as an extension of anti-blackness. A lot of these things feel so opaque, and to an extent, that has a lot to do with the way conversations about fatness and anti-blackness have been limited for the purposes of political entities. We are not supposed to be able to see fatness outside of the concept of obesity, for example. We’re not supposed to be able to have that conversation. And so, to an extent, learning your body and feeling deeply within your body is very difficult. And so, yeah, I just wanted to empathize with that. It’s hard to know where to go. I just remember the thing that really spurred me into fat politics in the first place was becoming… Well, to my knowledge… Because I’ve always been autistic, but I didn’t know it until two years ago. Yeah. I have-
Chavonne (she/her):
The awakening.
Mikey (she/they):
… Yeah. I have autism and ADHD. I’ve always been a disabled, but my journey into fat politics started when I became physically, mobily disabled in the first semester of my graduate program and to have to… Did you hear my cat?
Chavonne (she/her):
I did.
Jenn (she/her):
A little bit-
Mikey (she/they):
That’s so cute.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it.
Mikey (she/they):
Lucifer. Are you okay? All right. Well…
Chavonne (she/her):
Is it Caleb Lucifer after the evil cat in Cinderella? Please tell me it is.
Mikey (she/they):
No, it’s not. Actually. He is… Okay. So-
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s… Oh, my God.
Mikey (she/they):
I’m sorry.
Chavonne (she/her):
It’s okay.
Mikey (she/they):
My husband and I make up stories. When we met our cat… Okay, this is… So, Lucifer at the shelter we’re like, “Oh, my God, he’s so cute.” He had the most ridiculous name. His name was Cubby or something. And I was just like, “That is not a name. I’m sorry but no, not at my house.” So, he came home, and he was very avoidant of machines. He didn’t like the car ride home, obviously, he’s like a cat. And so, I think my husband and I crafted this story where he was an 18th century inventor stuck in the body of a cat. And so, we picked out the name Lucifer for him. And so, he is both this trapped adventurer, but also Satan, but also a cute little fluffy cat. And yeah, so his name is Lucifer, specifically spelled F- U- R- so because-
Chavonne (she/her):
I love that.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, that’s so cute.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s so cute.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I don’t even know if I can handle that because that’s so cute.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. That’s so cute-
Jenn (she/her):
Oh my gosh. I forgot about the cat and Cinderella as well. Oh my gosh. I was wondering-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Lucify. And then the mice call him Lucify.
Jenn (she/her):
That’s right-
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
That’s him.
Mikey (she/they):
Hi, Lucifer.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, what a beautiful boy.
Mikey (she/they):
And that’s his brother Tatu on the bed. That’s very cute.
Jenn (she/her):
They’re like opposite. They like-
Mikey (she/they):
They are.
Jenn (she/her):
… a little baby in [inaudible]-
Mikey (she/they):
They’re brothers.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh.
Mikey (she/they):
They’re brothers. They’re 11 years old. They are my babies. We adopted Lucifer first, and then, they were like, “He has a brother. Do you want him?” And I was like, “Um, sure. Yeah.” Mind you, I didn’t have a pet when I was young. Definitely not. That did not fly in my house. And Dominicans are also like… They think cats are evil, so it definitely would not have been a ca. It’s a whole thing-
Chavonne (she/her):
You named your cat Lucifer. Okay.
Mikey (she/they):
Here my cat, Lucifer. That totally had something to do with it-
Chavonne (she/her):
The layers are incredible-
Mikey (she/they):
… That totally have something to do with it, but-
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s great.
Mikey (she/they):
… like, “There, he has his cat. He has his brother,” and they’re supposedly bonded, but they have the weirdest relationship where Lucy is very much like, “I need personal space.” He loves his brother, checks on him when he hears him potentially in distress, loves his brother but just needs personal space. Whereas Tatu is the sweetest, fluffiest little… And he just wants to follow his brother everywhere, just everywhere. So, he’s just like, “Oh my God, brother, he’s here.” And then Lucy’s like… And then he’s like… But then, we’ll catch Lucy doing cute things like the other day. I caught a video of Lucy licking Tatu on the head, giving him little grooms, and I was like, “I know you like your brother. It’s just like you’re really autistic about it. You just really need very strict boundaries. You don’t like being overstimulated.” I get them. I understand him. I understand him completely-
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it.
Jenn (she/her):
Lucy needs some consent, “Ask me first, and then I’ll consider.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
Thank you so much. Give me a little buffer time.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
I love the idea of inventing stories for pets. My partner and I have a dog, Broccoli, who has a personality that we tend to call the sergeant because how dare our dog police other dogs at the park, but our dog like, “Let’s go see everything. Let’s smell every smell.” And then, we enter the parks. I have a park close to my house. We enter sometimes, and it’s like, “There are four dogs here, and I won’t have it.” And it’s like suddenly there’s a sergeant in our midst, right? “Let’s go towards that one. Let’s go towards… do they know that they’re out of line.” Some sort of policing happening.
And when it happens a lot, we joke. I’m like, “That came from you, right? He gets his eyes from you, and he definitely gets that I’m dysregulated sergeant thing from you because he doesn’t get it from me,” or will be like, “I wonder what it was like in his life before he met us. I wonder if he was sitting there writing himself little notes like, I’d love to find a family where I can snuggle every night and stink up the bedroom and they won’t care.” Right? Like-
Mikey (she/they):
Oh my gosh.
Jenn (she/her):
… I just need these kinds of people. And then he found us. Yeah. Oh, I love that.
Mikey (she/they):
Oh, that’s so cute-
Jenn (she/her):
I love that. And I really love what you said about uncertainty because to me that’s one of the biggest parts of embodiment conversations. For me is… I just actually said this in therapy a couple of weeks ago, uncertainty is an invader to my mind, to my body. I’m like, “I didn’t ask you to be here. You’re suddenly everywhere. I need some certainty.” Eating disorder things in my past even are like, “Well, this is certain,” right? Because it’s just… I mean, it’s so hard to be in an uncertain space. I think that’s truer. Is that a word?
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah-
Jenn (she/her):
I think it’s true-
Mikey (she/they):
Yes, yes.
Jenn (she/her):
… Okay, good. Thank you. Thank you for the validation. I think it’s truer for more people than realize it. Just like you were saying that gap between this is my identity and this is my insight about that and I’m able to articulate it, I think that’s true about uncertainty. I think it’s really dysregulating for all people.
I’m newer to neurodivergence myself and even considering that. My mom did as a kid when I was a kid, but I am socialized as female and identified as such, and they were like, “No, could never happen,” right? So, it took me until the beginning of the pandemic to be like, “Hi. So now I’m completely destabilized.” It’s actually the word I was thinking as you were talking is I was like, “This is so uncertain. It has destabilized me. I need a different kind of help.” My therapist says, “I think you should consider neurodivergence. I’ve been waiting to tell you this.” And I’m like, “Really? Oh, why did you wait? Tell me-”
Mikey (she/they):
This was like, “Yeah, so I clocked you a while ago, but we hadn’t had that conversation.”
Jenn (she/her):
And my therapist literally went, “Don’t worry. I have notes.” And flipped back to something. It was tab like, “Let’s do it.” I was like-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, amazing.
Mikey (she/they):
Beautiful.
Jenn (she/her):
He was actually so supportive and so certain so quickly like, “Oh, don’t you worry, Jen, I got words for this. I have things for you to read. I know what you’re going to be interested in. Let’s just start playing with this.” So, I was… Again, I’m always of two minds, but I was thinking multiple things like, “Oh yeah, uncertainty.” It’s downright destabilizing for me. I could wake up at one space and now my whole day is destabilized, which is of course why I’m considering autism and playing around with that right now myself. And also, it’s like but when I find certainty, when you were talking about being community with people who get something that actually doesn’t have to be spoken, but you could speak it to each other. Chavonne and I have that level about all sorts of things where she’ll say, “I can’t speak for you.” I was like, “Yes, you can. Go right ahead. I am certain-”
Chavonne (she/her):
And you say the same thing, and I’m like, “You speak for me all the time, and I always agree. It’s fine.”
Jenn (she/her):
Right? I’m like, “I am sure-”
Chavonne (she/her):
I was just going to say that. It’s fine.
Jenn (she/her):
Exactly. Yeah. To put it in this kind of language, I’m certain when you speak for me that I’m going to be certain about how I connect to that or not. Even if I was like, “No, I’m not quite,” it was still be totally fine. It could just be an evolution of conversation. So, I don’t know. I guess, I’m feeling in my body, the complexities of embodiment that you shared and… I don’t know, noodling and playing around with them because my brain is always doing that, but just doing it, it feels really good. It felt really whole, even though…
I wrote all these journal topics for me, so it’s clearly not fully processed by me, but it’s just there’s a level of it. Or maybe holistic is a better word, although that word can be rife with wellness, culture, bullshit. But I mean that in a sense of what if it can become tangible to me in the ways that it’s connected for me versus this big uncertain cloud. So, I mean, in that way. Ooh, that word is hard for me. It made me mad to say it, so sorry that I said holistic. That word makes me mad sometimes.
And actually, we were just talking about the pandemic and discovering these neurodivergent things and wondering and thinking and talking reminds you of the next question. Does it feel okay to transition? I don’t mean to [inaudible]-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yeah. For me, yes.
[26:47]
Jenn (she/her):
As a human being, which I think it’s important to start with. How has this ongoing pandemic affected your embodiment practices in ways that challenge your process, especially…
Chavonne (she/her):
Excuse me.
Jenn (she/her):
All of its inherent ableism, virtue signaling, and back to normal energy of the current moment, and it’s been happening for a while now. I started writing this question a while ago, but I’m curious about how it impacts for you. What your embodiment is like and has been like?
Mikey (she/they):
Okay, so-
Jenn (she/her):
A small questions. I ask really light stuff, just super chill.
Mikey (she/they):
No.
Chavonne (she/her):
The longest and the heaviest. It’s the best. It’s the best.
Mikey (she/they):
I think the reason why this hits me in a different type of way is because… You both know I’m doing my PhD in public health, so that has been a very… Oh, and Ashish Jha, the leader of the pandemic, the White House Pandemic response team is the dean of my school.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, wow.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah-
Jenn (she/her):
I had not realized.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, I hate him. I hate him. It’s-
Chavonne (she/her):
Me too.
Mikey (she/they):
… I’m very masked off about. I think one of the things that I like to center in the conversation about the pandemic is that much in everyday life when we scapegoat certain groups of people for specific things, I think all the time about how fat people are supposedly the cause for climate change for many researchers who are just like, “Fat people are the equivalent of an extra 100 billion people on Earth,” something absolutely ridiculous. So, the pandemic is continues to be an opportunity to utilize that sort of built in scapegoating. Because the way that our social and political systems operate is that that’s what they do. When things happen that make everybody really scared about their mortality, we immediately go to scapegoat, marginalized people who are saddled obviously.
Mikey (she/they):
… marginalized people who are saddled, obviously, with disproportionate rates of sickness and death. And so to see that very clearly happening from the beginning of the pandemic continuing now, and also being in public health and understanding-
Jenn (she/her):
What a mindfuck. Sorry.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
No, literally a mindfuck. Some people are just like, “Oh, this was the result of bad communication practices,” And it’s like, no. Yes, the CDC failed on multiple fronts in terms of communication with the public about the risks of COVID, but we have to understand why that is. It’s not a failure if you’re intending to obscure the risks of something. That’s actually a success in that context. And-
Jenn (she/her):
Fucking A.
Chavonne (she/her):
Right?
Mikey (she/they):
… when we understand… The goal of public health should be to promote the wellbeing, longevity of the public. I feel this so deeply as an autistic person, especially as someone who’s… like, I have a PDA profile. Not everybody knows what that is, but… Oh, yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
I do!
Mikey (she/they):
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
I learned about that last time. With Kimber, right?
Jenn (she/her):
We just talked about that in our last… And also with Lisa and Fawn, we talked about it, too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh my gosh.
Mikey (she/they):
Ooh.
Chavonne (she/her):
Okay. That might’ve just been Lisa and Kimber… Sorry, for some reason I thought it was Kimber first. Lisa and Fawn, yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
So then your listeners probably have context for this, and you both have context for this.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
And I have PDA profile myself. It’s like my major destabilization of myself.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
So think about how you feel about hierarchy, how insipid and asinine it is-
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, great words. Yes, yes, yes.
Mikey (she/they):
… and then take that, and sort of like… Because that’s what’s justified this whole pandemic response. It’s a maintenance of the status quo. So people are like, “Well, we have to go back to normal.” And it’s like, “Why?” And it’s like, “Because that’s the goal. Because the economy and the blah, blah, blah.” And it’s like, “Well, what does that have to do with people dying and people getting sick? I thought we were in public health. Why are those not the things we’re concerned about?” Also, if fits very clearly that those things require structural interventions, things like worker protections, paid leave, payments sent to people so that they can continue to afford their basic needs, perhaps more innovative solutions on behalf of governmental parties, things like food delivery, things like at-home medical assistance. Why are those things so obvious as solutions, and yet we’re not doing them?
And so when something becomes very clear to me as the obvious answer, but then that continues not happening, what happens is I just developed this very deep hatred reflex, where it’s like whenever anyone gets even close to trying to justify the non-response on behalf of public health authorities, my immediate thing is just shut the actual fuck up. Nothing we have done allows us to maintain the sort of value system that we pretended to work by. Public health is not about the health of the public. Even if we’re deeply interrogating what health is, public health is not about the health of the public. If we understand public health as something that is an arm of the state… Because that’s what it is. People act like public health isn’t political, but it is an arm of the government to maintain the fitness of the working population. That is what it actually is.
Jenn (she/her):
It’s there.
Mikey (she/they):
It fails at that, and instead it’s a tool by which to meet corporate desires, corporate wants. I don’t know how anyone can still believe that there is legitimacy to our public health system, in this country specifically.
Jenn (she/her):
I have never heard someone say my thoughts out loud so clearly before. Thank you.
Mikey (she/they):
Well, I think to some of us, there is some pressure to soften our language around this because we don’t want to come off as anti-science or whatever. I love coming off as anti-science, specifically because I love to interrogate what science actually is and how it’s been used. But we don’t want to come off as anti-vaxxers. We don’t want to do that. Also, other people are not necessarily there yet. For me, once I have all of the information and I can draw the conclusion, the conclusion is very clear and it’s there to me. I don’t keep going back to the past conclusion. But not everybody thinks that way, and so you have people trying to say, “Wow, our public health system’s really messed up. Maybe they’ll learn from this,” in an attempt to keep hope alive about the stability and legitimacy of these institutions. But for me, it’s not there. It doesn’t exist.
And so, having to deal with that really violent ableism, back-to-normal bullshit, up close and personal while being a disabled person, while being a fat person, while being a Black person, while being the only fat person in my program, actually, has been a lot. It’s kind of the thing, I think, that has both made me more dedicated to fat politics, to disability justice, to things that really matter. But also it’s this added layer of complication to doing that work, because I feel so destabilized by having to wrestle with the way I do not match up with my environment.
Now that I don’t have to be on campus for the next couple of months because it’s summer, I feel this lightness that was just not there before, and it’s so clear to me how deeply unhappy I am when school is in session. On top of the fact that once you are of the mind that our public health systems are not legitimate, being in classes around other people who do not feel that way, who are still fully buying into the system, who are happy to not be masked… They do not give a fuck. They’re ready to move on.
Being in those spaces, it just fills you with a really deep hatred and anger. And so now that I don’t have to go to classes, I definitely feel unburdened in a lot of different ways. Now that I don’t have to wrestle with the desire to problematize and complicate people’s understanding of the system they’re buying into, I do feel a certain level of freeness.
Being in public health during this moment of COVID is just, for certain people, it could be really demoralizing, because they had a really deep trust of the system in the first place. I never did, because why would I? There’s absolutely nothing that public health has done in the entirety of its history, especially towards people like me and the people that I love in this world, that would make me buy into the system. There is nothing there that inspires confidence or trust or legitimacy.
Public health is this constant contradiction between what it says it does and what it actually does. And that, to me, it’s just a domain full of shady little bitches doing shit that they say is beneficial for the public, but is so obviously a lie. The fact that public health professionals can get on the news and get airtime to speak to millions of people and just blatantly lie about not just the pandemic and just basic-ass science.
I remember Ashish Jha going on Twitter and being like, “We haven’t gotten criticism for our COVID response to this thing.” And I’m just like, “You’re lying. That is just a blatant lie, and you know that’s a blatant lie.” That’s the thing. When it’s a kind of game where people can just do whatever the fuck they want because they’re on the winning team, I don’t want to play that. I don’t love games regardless.
Jenn (she/her):
Me neither. They’re very uncertain. So uncertain. I hate them.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
They’re uncertain, but also it’s just like, gamification works for some people. You know how people are like, “If I complete this task, I’m going to give myself this thing.” And I’m just like, “I’m just going to give myself the thing because I want the thing.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Exactly. Exactly.
Mikey (she/they):
And so like-
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s why my office looks like this.
Mikey (she/they):
Literally. I’m just like, I’m going to do-
Jenn (she/her):
Look, I’ll show you both. People listening can’t see, but I’m showing my bed, which has DOOM, don’t organize only move, is what DOOM stands for. So this is my DOOM pile that I moved from a closet because I was like, “Oh, if I move this and then I start organizing it, then I can do this. But I just moved it and then did the thing.” So just me and my whole space just gets everything [inaudible].
Mikey (she/they):
That’s the thing. We can’t be goaded into doing stuff. It completely goes against the grain. You can’t. You can’t. The whole, “Oh, I’m going to do this so then I can blah, blah, blah.” I did it once and it worked for one day because I was like, “I’m really going to commit to this.” And then the next day I was like, “Okay, that sort of worked, so I’m going to try it again.” And then it didn’t because my brain was just like, “That was silly yesterday. You could have just skipped all of that and you could have just given yourself the thing.” And now we’re in this position where you hate the task so much that any attempt to make it into a fun little thing is going to make you into even more of a bitch. You already know that. So I can’t-
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, that is correct for me. Correct.
Mikey (she/they):
It’s a PDA thing.
Chavonne (she/her):
It is.
Mikey (she/they):
Do you know Monica Creedy?
Jenn (she/her):
That sounds very familiar, but I don’t know.
Mikey (she/they):
She goes by a Fatty, MPH.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes!
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
So Monica is one of my closest friends, and we both are constantly… So whenever I get into my, “Why do people not understand this? Why are people not reading?” I remember feeling this way about the AMA BMI press release thing, where everyone was like, “That’s so great.” And I was like, “Did anybody fucking read the thing?” Monica is really great because we have the same thing, but she’s older than me, so she’s like the kind of person who could be like, “Mikey, people think differently in the way that you do. Not just their values, but specifically in the way they think. When they really want something to happen and it seems like that thing is happening, they’ll take that conclusion and be like, ‘That’s what’s happening.'” And it’s like-
Jenn (she/her):
I do that. I’m going to catch myself, though, because it’s actually a mask of mine. Where I’m like, “Great!” And then I’m like, “Shit.” But I’d rather just know what the shit is instead of being like, “Great,” first. It’s actually easier on me.
Mikey (she/they):
You need to lean into lateral thinking. You need to lean into that impulse to actually collect information on what’s happening and then making a decision. Because it’s a superpower, in a way.
And so thinking in that way, knowing how these things are connected and being able to very clearly say, “Hey, our government systems are leaving us to die. That has made this pandemic a nightmare.” Because there’s no ambiguity about it. There’s no ambiguity about it. If you’re the kind of person who really wants to believe that things are done for a reason and have justifications, that’s really not a satisfying way to think about things. It makes you feel a sense of hopelessness.
Yeah, so I’ve been seeing a lot of hopelessness from other people, too, but I’m in between, I don’t necessarily feel that way. It’s more like, I know that change and safety was never really going to come from the state, so I never had that hope so it hasn’t been dashed. You know what I mean? But it’s this very complex mix of emotions where I’m a disabled person, I’m a fat person, I’m a Black person; all three of those groups have been scapegoated during this pandemic and have been blamed for the disproportionate sickness and death that they’ve experienced. And part of all three of those communities, our existence is a tool for other people to benefit from and also to justify their lack of action.
It sucks. It feels shitty. I think the way that this pandemic has been used, the coverage on it in particular, it’s so attention-grabbing and -holding in the worst way possible. People are sort of left to think and think like, “Well, is it over? Is it over? Is it over? Are they going to do something? Are they going to do something? Oh, they’re saying it’s over.” We’re sort of held hostage in this weird arrangement.
And so, one of the things that I’ve had to do in order to feel any semblance of peace, but also to be able to take care of myself, is to sort of disengage from that. Because ultimately, I know that any new information that comes through, it’s just going to be an extension of things I already know. We’re at the point where data is not being reported. If you want actual rates, you have to go to sources like the People’s CDC, which has a really good newsletter that-
Chavonne (she/her):
I’ve heard of it.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, the People’s CDC is great. They’ve been doing advocacy to try to do things like keeping mask mandates for healthcare workers, and so they’re one of the groups. They’ve also been scapegoated by media outlets as this fringe group of people, but it’s not an accurate representation of what’s happening.
And so, yeah, I feel like it’s complicated. But even if you want to know what’s going on, you can’t trust government sources because they’re not reporting data. They’ve manipulated dashboards. They’re making things look good. Once you’re at the point of changing colors on a map in order to make things seem less bad, you’ve lost the plot if you ever had it. So that’s what’s going on. And so you have to rely on these other sources in order to really keep up, and that makes the barrier to entry higher and higher and higher. It creates this context where if you don’t want to be hopeless, the answer for that is to just ignore what’s going on and move on, because that’s the only alternative.
Yeah. And so people are in a position where they’re being enabled to make bad choices or to lean into things like deeply internalized ableism, because most people hate disabled people. We don’t have to beat around the bush around that. Most people don’t want to-
Jenn (she/her):
Or are very afraid.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, they’re afraid or they don’t want to see disabled people. Being around disabled people makes them uncomfortable. Because, one, it reminds them that they can become disabled at literally any time.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Mikey (she/they):
And the other thing is that none of us want other people to feel the way that they do about disabled people towards us. We don’t want that. That’s a natural response to seeing how a group is hated. And so it’s a lot easier for people to be like, “Oh, well, disabled people, I don’t see any,” even though you don’t know who’s disabled and who’s not. It’s a lot easier for people to go like, “Well, I don’t see any disabled people,” in part because a lot of our most disabled people are having to shelter in place at home because of how unsafe it is outside.
So it’s like this cycle that feeds into itself. People are happy that there’s disabled people out of sight. They’re happy that we’re moving on because they want to feel a sense of normalcy. They’re unable to do that because the government is like, “It’s up. We don’t care about this anymore.”
Yeah. And so having to deal with that kind of energy in everyday life, in public health… I have no confidence in our formal systems. But also in order to maintain a sense of, not solace, but I want to be able to wake up in the morning and not feel burdened by everything happening in the world. In order to do that, it requires that you very carefully balance your exposure to rhetoric that is ultimately dehumanizing to you, but also that you change your belief system in a way that orients your hope towards people and not governments.
And so that has been my work during the pandemic with it myself, to really think outside of government systems for what we know to be freeing and what we know to be stabilizing and what we know to be protection and safety. That actually is kind of interesting in this new age of fat activism where people are focusing more and more on anti-discrimination laws in order to achieve a semblance of a weight-discrimination-free society. But again, it’s complex. It’s again, this extension of looking for safety from systems that aren’t, they’re not made to make unsafe in the first place. So it’s complicated. And all these things have been happening at the same time, and so it’s a really weird time to be doing the work that I do.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh my gosh.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s the feeling. Woof. It’s a lot in a good way. It’s just a lot to think about, a lot to process. Sorry, go ahead. I want you to go first, Jenn.
Jenn (she/her):
No, it’s fine.
Chavonne (she/her):
Well, because I have a question and it’s going to lead into something longer.
Jenn (she/her):
Okay. So I’ll try to be shorter, but let me see.
Chavonne (she/her):
No, it’s fine.
Jenn (she/her):
I have a public health degree. I have a master’s in public health that was on my way to being a dietician. It’s actually the place where I first began deconstructing things for myself, because I seem to be the only one in a lot of… There’s a lot of people in these classes. Let’s bang it out in a year and let’s go be doctors, there’s lots of people just flying through public health programs. “This is my entrance exam,” that kind of stuff.
So it’s a strange environment for that anyway, but there’s also people like me who are like, “Well, I’m going to do the two-year version. I don’t need to have seven classes in one semester.” You know, really kind of spread it out. But in these classes full of people with this really intense energy, and I went to USC, University of Southern California, which is a whole nother layer of bullshit on top of the bullshit inside the classroom. That’s for a whole other conversation.
I’m not a quiet person. This is also why I’m like, “Oh, yeah, I don’t really have filters about these things”. Like, “Oh, you say I’m neurodivergent. How interesting. I guess I could see that throughout my entire history.” But I would raise my hand and I would be like, “So how is this in the interest of public health?” is a question I asked throughout my degree. I was even like, “I’ll be a TA for this class because I’m going to figure it out on the backend.” I did not figure it out, just FYI. I did not figure it out. I taught it three times. I was responsible for entire lectures for my peers, and I was still like, “Wow, there’s no figuring out.”
As you were talking, it was reminding me of how I noticed the word intervention, the name for public health studies and plans, and what the CDC might do to roll out a vaccine or something like that. Those are all “interventions” and I was like, why do we feel like we have to intervene? I have different language for that now. Now I’m like, “Oh, it’s outright policing. We’re not going to show up when you need help. We’re going to show up later, and we’re going to intervene.”
It just never resonated with me. Even in an admin class where I’m like, “Why are we being taught to administer all of this this way? All of this is bullshit.” They’re like, “Please hold up the status quo.” And I’m like, “Okay, but then let’s talk about it openly.” And like, “No, we’re not going to do that. We’re just going to hold up the status quo.” I was like, “Finish this degree, Jenn. Finish this degree. Get out of here. This is so expensive. Finish this degree.” Right? I felt that way. I had some kind of crises type moments, very PDA moments where I was like, “Do I just stop going to class?”
But it was always like, “Wait, wait. This was very expensive.” That can trump a PDA moment for me anytime where I’m like I don’t care. Even if I hate it, even if I’m drawing angry doodles to myself, I will be there. This is what I signed up for; I will finish this. But that’s also a mask, but anyway, that’s a whole other conversation as well.
But it was always a place full of antagonistic conversations and lack of insight and awareness by people teaching, people attending, people who wrote the books. It was in LA, so the head of the Department of Public Health came and talked to us, and it was one of the most racist, ableist, intervening, “I’m the boss of you, don’t disrespect me,” type things I’ve ever witnessed in my life. I left three times. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t even be in here.” Everyone’s nodding. “This is the guy. This is the one we listen to. Look at him. We all want to be him.” And I’m like, “This is all wrong. This is all bad. This is not okay.”
He was like, “How do you kick out a houseless person from a hospital who was overstayed their welcome?” Was a major theme as part of this presentation. I was like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” It was just like that feeling we were talking about PD-
Mikey (she/they):
No, no, no.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, it was just that feeling. We were talking about PDA earlier. I was like, actually, the times that I reflect on and think about where my body is like, “This is not okay,” I could see it so clearly. Why doesn’t anyone else get it? I can’t go backwards now. This is where I get it. I see it. I’ve had times in that program where I was like, “Come, come see what I see,” and people didn’t get it. Or I’m like, “I’ll teach it to them.” Didn’t get it. I’m like, “I’ll fix it on the backend.” They’re like, “But this athlete…” USC has had a lot of athlete problems that are now public, but it was like, “Jenn, this athlete has to go to their competition. I don’t care if they didn’t turn in their assignment.” That was backend shit.
I had to opt out of stuff. I was like, “Well, you’re going to grade then, because I’m not doing this because I’m going to start saying things and I can’t do this.” And I’m like, “Hi. That person added me on Facebook.” This is early Facebook days, and I was like, “I can see they’re in New York, but they said they were sick. I don’t know why they added me on Facebook and now I can see that they’ve lied to our faces, but we can’t grade this assignment, but we have to. Their mom is the vice president of this entire school.” Those kinds of things. It was a horrible place, and I don’t think that’s an exception. I used to be like, “Oh, that’s just USC, the University of Social Connections. That’s what it was about.”
But what I was sitting with as you were talking and I was just flowing with you was this shit is everywhere. It’s always like this. I’ve had multiple careers in one, but I started working at NIH in cancer research. It was like that there too. There’s no exception to this. I was there during the, “Oh, we’ve sold all our stock shares and we got paid $20,000 to go across the country,” era, and it was across NIH. It was figured out while I was there. I was like, “What is this place? Do we have any morals or values? Do we say anything that we mean? Do we understand? Do we have any insight?” The resounding answer for me has been no, and so I want… Earlier I said, “You’re saying my thoughts out loud.” I’ve never actually, I don’t think, had an experience where someone else has been inside of a public health learning environment that bullshit academia environment being like, “This sucks. This is all wrong. This is not correct.”
I mean, this is actively not correct. It’s actively wrong. It’s actively harmful. It’s the cognitive dissonance is I can’t even track it, it’s so strong. I just appreciate that. I feel such solidarity with you, and I was also the largest body, and I am in a mid fat body, just to name a kind of body that I might have, I was the largest… It’s California, right? For sure I was the largest person, the land of eternal youth, but it came up in conversation a lot and I felt very shame and guilt through that, and it kept me from exploring my own relationship with my embodiment that it was, everyone knew it, but so did I, but I didn’t know what to do about that, but ooh, public health fixes that kind of stuff, and it was this really fucked up narrative swirl.
I used to say, this is what I do when I process things in the past. I’m like, “Oh, I wish that I had said this particular thing at that time that I clearly didn’t know.” From comments like, “Jen, I knew you were in the parking lot,” because I had a Saturn and everyone else had some rich person’s car, and they were like, “I knew you were here. It’s the only gold car,” because silver was very in that year. I was the only one in the whole parking lot, and I got to class early because I was trying to prep to just deal with a class I didn’t want to be in.
You’re helping me realize it’s a more universal experience than I have realized before. I was like, “That program is fucked up.” They didn’t get it, but it’s more like maybe no one does in this lack of insight, lack of self-awareness, veils of conversation. No one was complaining about our response in this pandemic. When you said that, I was like, “Oh, you know how many times I heard that?” They were like… And those people are actually noncompliant. That bullshit language and the intervention.
Chavonne (she/her):
I hate the word compliant. Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
Mm-hmm.
Jenn (she/her):
I actually remember an example being about someone presenting research about a vending machine and people not going to the vending machine full of quote unquote healthy foods was non-compliant. That was actually the focus of their study. And I was like, “Non-compliant? They don’t have to go to your vending machine.” Even the rhetoric [inaudible].
Mikey (she/they):
Fuck your vending machine with your fruit jerky. Fuck You.
Jenn (she/her):
Exactly. Exactly. You don’t want apples covered in some kind of acid that makes them not brown, so it’s spicy apples? You don’t want those? My autistic brain could never, I don’t like spicy apples. I just like regular apples. I just like to eat them just like an apple. I don’t want them to be all fizzy. Why? That’s not noncompliant. I don’t want a fizzy apple. For something this small and ridiculous, that to this big stuff we’re talking about, it’s so ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous.
Mikey (she/they):
I have a recommendation for you that will probably blow your mind, and I’m really setting high expectations for this because it is actually that good.
Jenn (she/her):
Okay.
Mikey (she/they):
Get this book, Fit to Be Citizens by Natalia Molina. This book specifically is about the history of the development of public health departments in LA in the backend of the 1800s, early 1900s, specifically that allowed for the racialization of Mexicans, Chinese and Japanese immigrants.
Jenn (she/her):
Of course it did. Jesus. Of course it did.
Mikey (she/they):
The LA Public Health Department is the reason why Chinese immigrants were actually sequestered into the first Chinatown in the country. Read that book. It was…
Jenn (she/her):
I will. Never heard of it.
Mikey (she/they):
I literally recommend it to every single person who’s like, “What do you mean public health is bad?” But it’s also incredible reading when you’re already in that place. And you mentioned the guy from the LA Public Health Department, which is why I was just like, “Yeah, Jen needs to read this book,” because everything you’re describing is the historical tradition of public health, specifically in LA and in the country.
Jenn (she/her):
Of course it is. I’m going to read [inaudible].
Mikey (she/they):
And I only learned about that book and had the language now to articulate some of these problems is because of a class I took in my second semester of my PhD program taught by a race scholar, Lundy Brown, who is this tiny little white woman who wrote a book on the spirometer. Yeah, Breathing Race Into the Machine.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
Mikey (she/they):
She is incredible. She was also the first person who was like, “Hey, it seems like you want to study fat phobia and racism, and you should do that.”
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, wow. Okay.
Mikey (she/they):
She holds a very, very special place in my heart, and I first read that book, along with other books like Protest Psychosis, and just all these things discussing public health as not just an arm of racism, but as a generator of how we understand races in racist ways. Yeah, I highly recommend it, and mind you, I took that class and I took a bunch of classes in the front end of my PhD because I was just like, “I’m going to do a bunch of shit.” You know what I mean? You start out the program, you’re just like, “I’m going to do everything. No one’s going to stop me from doing everything.” And the thing is, Brown has this program called the Open Education Program where if you are there doing a PhD, you can do a master’s, any master’s of your choosing that’s part of the program, free of charge.
Jenn (she/her):
Wow.
Mikey (she/they):
And the thing is, usually you would have to apply for the program, but I was admitted to Brown with a special fellowship, and so that meant that I could just do the program anyway.
Jenn (she/her):
Wow. Amazing.
Mikey (she/they):
And so my plan was to originally do a master’s that was focusing on critical public health studies. I took all these classes, I took Lundy’s class, I took a intro to disability studies class, lots of these really wonderful classes completely outside of public health. At Brown, the School of Public Health is… No. Okay, let me start with this. The campus, the main campus at Brown is on top of a hill called College Hill. Literally at the top of a hill looking down at the rest of the city of Providence.
Jenn (she/her):
Of course it is.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, but the Public Health School is at the bottom of the hill, and it is the most depressing fucking building, corporate building that you have ever been in. It’s hideous. It’s sad. The lights make you depressed. It’s a whole thing. I had to leave the School of Public Health in order to get an education on racism in public health from the historical perspective. And so this is an example of not just the failure of our public health programs, how they’re crafted, the standards by which that they’re certified and evaluated, but also what they’re for. They’re intended to create little cogs in the machine that keeps the machine going. People who want to spend the rest of their life applying for grants, people who want to do the whole rat race where they’re writing a million different papers at once. People who really like being in competition with other people and they have no qualms about thinking about some of the worst traumas in other people’s lives as just things to study.
And so that is a universal thing that I have not seen any public health program not do. And I’ve spoken to people who’ve gone to Harvard to University of Oklahoma. It’s all over the place. Yeah, our public health programs suck and if you develop a critical consciousness, it is because you already have that in you, but not everybody does. And you have to… If you are the kind of person who goes into the program fully buying into what it is, because even when I started my program, I was just like, “I want the degree because otherwise people are not going to listen to a fucking thing I have to say, period.” It was not because I wanted to be juggling millions of dollars in NIH grants. I don’t give a fuck.
But there are other people who do, and I’m always surprised when I run into those people. And I was continually surprised when I met so many of those people early on in my program. Now I’m responsible for radicalizing half of the students in my program, which is a problem for the administration because they’re like, “Why do you guys keep talking about this?” It’s just a whole thing. Yeah.
Jenn (she/her):
Of course you are. I am 0% surprised by that. Zero.
Chavonne (she/her):
Agreed. Agreed.
Mikey (she/they):
I mean, I think people hear me talk in class, and then if they’re hit by something in a deep way, then they do more reading, and I think that that’s what’s happened, because I also, when I came back to school after that first semester where… In my first semester, I mentioned this earlier, I became physically disabled, so it became hard for me to walk. It became hard for me to stand, and it became hard for me to sit. And so having that experience, I had never before that felt disabled by my body. Ever. I’m from New York, so I was used to walking everywhere and just, I had never felt actually physically limited by my body.
And then having that experience and then going back to class and then knowing even more deeply how all the things we were talking about were fucked up and trying to correct that, I made a commitment to myself that in order to preserve my peace, I would not do that. I would just let things unfold as they were going to unfold, because ultimately, Brown was fucked up before I got there. I can’t fix it in the time before I leave. I can’t do anything about that.
And the other truth of that is that even if I could, it’s not necessarily worth breaking myself to do so, and there are other more important places to put my energy and I can decide where I put my energy and I can decide to be completely emotionally divested from school as long as it was good for me. And so I don’t try to go out of my way to radicalize people, but I think that if you already come into these spaces, not fully buying into it, and then you hear someone be like, “This is actually bullshit,” and blah, blah, blah, even if it’s not like that, because I’m not going that hard at it anymore, so I’m not trying to convince anybody. Once you find somebody else who has questioned something that you’ve been half half about, I think it’s inevitable that people pursue that further and then they end up radicalized.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it. I love it.
Mikey (she/they):
And I think that’s what’s happened with some of the people in my program. Yeah, I mean, one person even left. One of the people I came in with who was going to be studying is no longer in my program. She just quit. And she told me straight out, she was like, “Part of it is just that now that I know what it is, I can’t do that anymore.” And I really applaud her for doing that because some people do learn and they just keep doing it because it’s a career choice for them. This is a career development program ultimately. That’s what PhDs are.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, it can be really hard. Yeah, but you should read that book, by Natalia Melina. Oh my gosh. But Chavonne (she/her), you said you had a question.
Chavonne (she/her):
I did, and I think you both have answered it beautifully. Obviously, Jenn has a history in public health [inaudible], and you both talked about how PDA has shown up in the field. That was my bigger question, but something that’s coming up for me is, okay, I wrote a few things down. I think we’ve talked about it with a few people, but the person in mind the most is Aaron Flores, I think, when we talk about… I’m going to take a step back, because Jenn was talking about despair. You’ve talked about despair. And so what’s coming up for me is this idea of, I’m a social worker, so there are lots of things that need to be fixed in social work, but [inaudible] have this conversation about I admire the people who get in there to fuck some shit up, because that’s how I see my place in the field.
That’s how I see my place in mental health care, especially for people who are members of the global majority here in New Mexico, and trying to find that balance between, I’m going to go in and I’m going to fuck some shit up, and how worth it is it to fucking ruin my day, ruin my fucking body, is what it’s feeling like lately, to get in there and fuck things up. And we talked about credentialism and how that plays into white supremacy culture, how I need to do this, this, this, and this. Spend all ridiculous amounts of money to keep my credentials up just as someone actually listens to me and I’m feeling…
And maybe because I had a really hard morning, Jenn and I talked about it because insurance sucks, but that’s what we have to do in a very poor impoverished state to make sure that we can support people. And I guess that’s relating to PDA in my head, how do you find that balance of, “I’m going to get in there, I’m going to make this place… Because I believe in this state, I believe in what we’re doing here,” but how do you find this place where you can get in there and fuck shit up without feeling like you’re losing yourself in doing it? I’m thinking about that in your work as well at Brown.
Jenn (she/her):
Dang, that is such an important question.
Mikey (she/they):
It is. It is. It is. I have a little story that doesn’t necessarily seem super related, but is how I approach these things now.
Chavonne (she/her):
We love stories.
Mikey (she/they):
Awesome. Okay. If you ever-
Jenn (she/her):
And I love finding the thread of relatedness. Don’t worry [inaudible]. I will be there.
Chavonne (she/her):
We will always find it. It doesn’t matter. We’ll find it.
Mikey (she/they):
[inaudible] If you’ve ever been in a grad program, you are familiar with the concept of the incomplete.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
Okay. Something to know about me is that until a month ago, I had never had completely good standing in my PhD program, and I love to tell people this because they’re just like, “Mikey, you’re so smart, blah, blah, blah. You probably don’t struggle in school at all.” No, I struggle deeply. I struggle deeply in school, and it is because grad school is not a place for people who don’t care about arbitrary bullshit, and so I have never been in good standing. There’s multiple levels to it. You can get knocked down if you have a bad grade or whatever. I’ve never been in good standing until last month because I have always had outstanding incompletes. From that first semester where I became physically disabled and I couldn’t finish the rest of the semester in person, I had to retake a class because one professor wouldn’t give me an incomplete. He didn’t give a fuck.
And then I had another incomplete that took me a year to address, and then by that point, I already had another incomplete, and then at the end of my second year, I took leave from school because it was like we were fully into the pandemic at that point. I had just lost somebody really important in my life in a really tragic, traumatizing way. Yeah, thank you. And my sister had become widowed at 27. There was a lot going on, and also I had just found out that I was autistic, and it became very, very apparent that I was both having a mental breakdown, I was having a relapse in my eating disorder, and I was also dealing with autistic burnout because the May before grad school, I was finishing my undergraduate degree and I went straight into grad school.
I didn’t rest, and I had been working for so many years at such a ridiculously high capacity my whole life and dealing with what I did not understand was my autism and my PDA and my ADHD and had been highly masking and had also been through several traumas and was dealing with a consistent low level source of trauma for many of the years of my life, resulting in CPTSD. It was time to break. I broke.
And so I left school for a year, and then I didn’t finish my incompletes while I was gone, and then when I came back, they were just like, “You didn’t finish this.” And I was like, “Okay.” And they’re like, “Oh, so we’re not going to let you take your qualifying exams until you finish this.” And I’m like, “Fine, fuck you.” And then I… Okay, there was this one class taught by a physical activity uptake interventions person. Their whole thing was about working with Latinx teens to make them exercise more, which I felt lots of ways about, and this was an interventions class, and I was basically supposed to develop an intervention, and I had been struggling to do this final assignment for about a year and a half.
The PDA was PDAing, and it was not just like, “I don’t want to do this thing.” It was like the task had become so big that I just did not feel equipped to both meet the expectations that I had created in my mind that were waiting for me. I was like, “They’ve waited this long, it has to be the best thing they’ve ever read, and I have to justify taking so long and all this.” I was like, “This cannot be mediocre.” And the thing is, any response to that, my husband was like, “You have never done a single mediocre thing in your entire life, and that is part of your problem.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Ooh, that hits.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, but the part of it is that it doesn’t really matter what anybody else tells me at that point. It’s like, I have to figure this out myself. I need to do this. The only way I was able to finish that intervention proposal, which was supposed to be written in the NIH format, which is just a very arbitrary, ridiculous way of writing things, and that was another layer of shit where I was just like, “I don’t want to fucking do arbitrary shit in an arbitrary way.” It was just a lot. The only way I could do that was by scrapping literally every other assignment I had turned in at that point and redoing them with a completely different idea that I was fully invested in.
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, wow. Yeah.
Mikey (she/they):
[inaudible]. Yeah, with that, I got it done and I got it done, what? A week before my qualifying exams. I studied for two days, then I took the exam. That was literally, this was all happening in the span of, this is all January of this year.
Jenn (she/her):
And then you collapsed into bed for three weeks? Like what?
Mikey (she/they):
No, I literally, but the thing is, it was so… Oh, mind you, the qualifying exams were like a joke. They were a joke in comparison to-
Jenn (she/her):
I always thought they were so hard.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. Okay.
Mikey (she/they):
No, they are. The thing is once… Okay, this was a switch in my mind that flipped. Through the process of scrapping everything and writing it over again, it was that I realized that what I was trying to do was… Autistic people and PDAs in particular do a lot of image management. They try to manage how other people are going to react and respond to them. In part because especially if you’re like me and you don’t necessarily do the fight or flight thing, and instead you do a fawn response where you go into people pleasing, or when I walk into a space that I’m really, really stressed out about, like in the past when I’ve gone to the doctor, my response to that has been, “I’m going to become the funniest person you’ve ever met in your life because I need you to invest in me. I need you to care.”
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
Because I need you to invest in me. I need you to care.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes. Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
And it’s not a conscious thing. It’s just something that turns on. And so I was trying to essentially do that through this assignment in a way that would justify all the time it took to get it done, because my life had gone to shit, and I was recovering from autistic burnout. I was trying to make up for all that through this assignment. And the solution to that was not specifically to just do something else, because I also kind of have shiny object syndrome. So when things become new, they’re really exciting and I’m just like, “Oh, I’m going to explore that.” So it wasn’t just that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. [inaudible] nothing very hard at this. We’re like, “Yes.”
Jenn (she/her):
Welcome to my life.
Mikey (she/they):
Literally so many more people struggle with this than they know, and if this turns on the switch for anyone, it’s okay to just be like, “I have this issue,” because then you can work with yourself around it. So it wasn’t necessarily that I was like, “Oh, I’m going to do the new shiny object thing that I cared about.” It was that literally, my old project was something that was trying to appeal to the things that I thought that my professor thought was important.
And once I stopped doing that through my new project, I got it done in three days. That’s the thing. Something that had taken me a year and a half, I got done so easily once I stopped trying to appeal to what was essentially public health authority on its terms, and that’s how I’ve continued to do my work without losing myself in the process. So I used to spend a lot of time online. I don’t do that as much now, in part because of everything that happened with Lingo last. It was just, that was a traumatizing situation and I was just… Oh, right, that was also going on at the time that everything-
Jenn (she/her):
We talked a lot about that on here.
Chavonne (she/her):
I exhausted hearing about this period.
Jenn (she/her):
We’ve referenced you all over our show notes.
Chavonne (she/her):
All over the fucking place.
Jenn (she/her):
We’ll read what Mikey has to say.
Chavonne (she/her):
That would be another episode, we could talk about that. We didn’t know if we should bring it up.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my God.
Chavonne (she/her):
Because you’ve had to talk about it nonstop for months.
Mikey (she/they):
Well, it’s been like a year since that happened, right? There was shit going on. I stopped being online as much, and I’ve sort of felt myself flourish, not just in the way I feel about myself, and that’s for lots of reasons. I can avoid people posting selfies and just shit that makes me preoccupied with what bodies are and how they’re perceived.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes. Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
But the other part is that, so you know that saying give the people what they want?
Jenn (she/her):
Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
I am very anti that. I don’t want to give the people what they want.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my PD is like, “Exactly. Exactly. Exactly.”
Mikey (she/they):
I don’t want to give the people what they want. The times that I’ve done the best work, I think the most impactful work in my life, and when I think back to what those are, I’m thinking of when I was the first person to talk about Wegovy, when I wrote that article about anti-Blackness and anti-fatness and anti-diet dieticians. When I think about my pipe wrench piece and the fat issue that we wrote-
Jenn (she/her):
Love Your pipe wrench piece. One of my favorite things you’ve ever written, truly.
Mikey (she/they):
But all of those things were done in the spirit of I’m not going to give the people what they want. I do not care about what the people want. I’m very much-
Jenn (she/her):
Hacking your PDA and making it work for you.
Mikey (she/they):
Just a little bit. Because the other part-
Jenn (she/her):
Well, as gentle as one can be in a PD space, it’s not gentle, but you know what I mean.
Mikey (she/they):
But it has a justification, too, because of something that kind of frustrates me about a lot of, I guess the media and content that we have coming out of this fat acceptance space is that people are very focused on traditional or already set ways of thinking about stuff. Of course, we’re not supposed to think about fatness outside of a [inaudible], but even for people who think about fatness outside of [inaudible], there is a very specific script that people follow when talking about things. And you can see this, and this these are like meta meta thoughts. When you look at the way people responded to the AMA BMI press release, for example. This was all over the place. It was like, “Oh, finally they recognized the BMI is racist.” That is a set thing, that’s a set schema on how to think about this thing. BMI is racist.
They acknowledge the racism. That’s good, right?
Jenn (she/her):
Yes.
Mikey (she/they):
And so when we follow these sort of set plots on how to think about things, that’s how we lose the plot, actually, because the AMA was doing something that I know is an evolution of tactics in how fat phobia operates. They’ve really evolved in the past couple of years specifically to infiltrate this space of people and rhetoric that’s preoccupied with things like racism and anti-blackness and how that connects to fat phobia. They understand our little pithy slogans. They’ve heard the BMI is racist. They’ve heard the BMI is not an indicator of health. They’ve heard that fat doesn’t mean necessarily unhealthy. They’ve heard those things and they’ve used it to not just build expertise, and when I say build expertise, I’m pulling from language that Rachel Fox used yesterday at the Wasting Summit.
Jenn (she/her):
I was just thinking of Rachel Fox and the assemblage of the [inaudible].
Mikey (she/they):
Anti assemblage. When I tell you that that presentation that everybody heard yesterday, it was my hundredth time hearing it, because me, Rachel, Monica, and Blakely Payne are in a group chat and we have been for a while. And so I’ve seen these ideas develop, and we’ve been able to build off of each other and really evolve our thinking on fat phobia in ways that I think the space is really needing. And so I’m happy that Rachel’s ideas are now being put into the public, because we’re not thinking about how things sound. We’re not thinking about how to appeal to these pithy little slogans. When people say, “BMI is racist,” what they are saying is that the BMI does not measure non-white bodies correctly. What they should saying is that the BMI is something that has allowed for the racial categorization of people in a hierarchical sense.
That is what they should be saying. That is what they should be appealing to. And so when you decide to not give the people what they want, you are allowed to think outside of the confines of these pithy slogans. And that’s where stuff like Rachel’s anti [inaudible] assemblage comes from, because Rachel was also dissatisfied with how people talk about fat phobia, and how they understand fat phobia, and how they understand what is fat phobic and what is not. And her work, her framework missing from our space is how we have people who are okay with working with Novo Nordisk. There are lots of fat influencers who have been working with Novo Nordisk in their It’s Bigger Than Me Campaign. Are either of you familiar with Wear Your Voice?
Chavonne (she/her):
I’ve heard of it, but I can’t say that I know enough.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah, but it was a publication.
Jenn (she/her):
Was that DeSean’s, where DeSean edited early on?
Mikey (she/they):
Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
Okay.
Mikey (she/they):
So DeSean used to write, I think was an editor for Wear Your Voice, and they had to shut down a while ago, a couple years ago. But it was this incredible space with lots of really, they have an archive, lots of really great pieces in particular. I love DeSean’s pieces. I love Sharonda Brown’s pieces. They recently published a book on asexuality, and it’s so good. It’s so good. And they talk about anti-fatness and anti-Blackness, and literally just for Sharonda and DeSean’s pieces from that era alone, it’s worth looking at their archives.
Jenn (she/her):
They’re incredible. I have done a lot of deconstructing by revisiting those words over and over.
Mikey (she/they):
Yes. Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
It’s an incredible space for that. And it makes it like it’s an angry space, too, because you’re like, “You’re right, and I didn’t know it. Say it.”
Mikey (she/they):
Yes, but you don’t get that work if you are trying to appeal to what people think is what’s important. You don’t get to that kind of stuff without being like, “The way you want me to do this is not valuable to me.” And so when I think about how I’ve done this work without losing myself, it’s that I don’t give a fuck about giving people what they want. I’m more concerned with giving people something that’s useful to them and that pushes the boundaries a little bit of the schemas that they’ve adopted and how to think about not just fatness, but specifically fat phobia. Yeah. So my trick is always to not give the people what they want. If there’s a way that you can maliciously comply yourself out of upholding, because I think there’s a lot of cool social work abolitionism, especially on Twitter.
And one of the people in my program, actually, he’s an indigenous person and has a degree in social work, and is doing his PhD alongside me now, Chase. Chase is very much like the kind of person who practices social work in an abolitionist way and understands that social workers can’t be the fucking cops. And you have to fight against that. You have to outwardly reject that, but not in a way that’s like, “I’m going to work covertly.” You have to be out loud about it, because that’s how you attract other people, too.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yes, yes. Absolutely.
Mikey (she/they):
So literally just openly reject the values in social work, actively reject that. And I think a lot of people are looking for that, and I think people really respond to that.
Chavonne (she/her):
Yeah. And that’s why I opened a group practice, because I hate it.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes.
Chavonne (she/her):
I’m sorry, go.
Jenn (she/her):
No, no, you.
Chavonne (she/her):
I was like, “I can’t work in these fucking places anymore. I’m going to hire the people who want to do the work.” And no, I’m done. I can’t work in these spaces. That is a matter of privilege that I’ve been able to do that, but no, I’m good. I’m good.
Mikey (she/they):
Use that as much as you can to make your own space, and that’s the only way it’ll grow. Yeah, I love that, that you were just like, “I’m going to make a group practice,” because fuck you. No. Yeah, but you’re doing everything right. It feels difficult, because it literally is. It’s so fucking hard. It’s so hard. So Jen’s going to open her group practice, and I’m like, “I don’t want to keep telling you how hard it is. It fucking sucks.
Jenn (she/her):
It’ll never deter me. I have never heard words that I’ve needed more in my life. Maliciously comply. I don’t want to give the people that they want, social work, dieticians, intuitive eating counselors are the cops. I’m pointing at myself, because I have to unlearn and deconstruct constantly. No matter how much I’ve done, I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to stop, because I’m always going to be in the mix of things outside of me trying to convince me that there’s a new way to think about things that’s actually the old way of thinking about things. I just know that that’s part of this, and this is so interesting, because PDA shows up in creating my own practice, too. So I became a dietician a decade ago, and then I immediately took a year off, because I now realize I was in autistic meltdown.
I was absolutely done. I’d never taken a break in my life. It didn’t matter what was next. I was done. And then after that space from it, I couldn’t go back and work for someone else. I was applying to things and then I was in interviews like, “No, I won’t do that.” I was very PDA forward, and I was like, “Oh, that doesn’t sound very interesting to me.” And all sorts of stuff were coming out of my mouth I’d never said in my life in an interview.
Chavonne (she/her):
Amazing.
Jenn (she/her):
And I was like, “So it’s just like a rat race in there where you are?” All my questions were like, “Oh, this is what we do here? Dang it.” I’ve already switched careers twice, and I kept realizing this is what we do here. I don’t want to do this. That’s not what I’m signing up for. What do you mean I have to go work for Children’s Hospital LA, but I have to only do what I’m told and not actually do things for the children at Children’s Hospital of LA?
Chavonne (she/her):
Oh, my God. Yes.
Jenn (she/her):
I have worked. My mask was always, not just credentials, but work for the place that itself has letters so I can tell people it has those letters from here forward, and now those same letters, and I’m like, “Let’s talk about the NIH, letters because that place isn’t perfect. Let’s talk about the Children’s Hospital LA. Let’s talk about them.” I’m glad I have those experiences because it took whatever veil I had left and destroyed it forever. When people say letters, and I’m like, “Yeah, but what’s behind the scenes, because I bet there’s a bunch of stuff over there that you have no idea about?” And just the PDA of, well, in college, someone said, “Oh, but you do plant research. You can’t go to pediatric oncology research.” I was like, “Fucking watch me.” Right? My PDA is like, “Oh, yeah? You think I’m not going to apply there and literally move across the country because you told me I can’t? I am.” Right.
And I did, and then I was like, “Oh, no, I’m miserable here, too. I don’t like it. Oh no, they’re so mean.” It’s really hard, because people in my lab actually have children dying all the time, and all my work feels fleeting, and it’s like, “But let’s get serious. People are actually dying. Why can’t we do real shit?” It was like a mind-fuck. And all of those sorts of things all the way to this year that I was just mentioning where I was like, “Oh, no, I actually cannot work for someone else. I have realized I am completely unemployable. I’m going to have to learn how to be an entrepreneur,” which had its own set of PDA stuff, where I’m like, “But I don’t want to do that. That just feels like what I have to do. That’s not my idea,” all that stuff.
Mikey (she/they):
That’s not fun.
Jenn (she/her):
And it took five years into it, five years ago, to be like, “This is destroying my body. Eating disorders are real. I have one.” Actually, what I learned to be a dietician is what I’m using to “protect myself” in this way. I need to be more present in this field. Okay, fine. I can do the business side of this, but I’m not yet, I don’t need to be a dietician. I was even like, “Do I need to leave this field? Maybe it’s not going to be letters for me. Maybe it’s going to be something else.” But then it was like, “Oh, people talk about body image? What’s that? What’s a embodiment? What do you mean not talking about food with people when you’re the dietician? I don’t get it. What do you mean just talking about their life?” Right.
Like a lot of awakening things, and the PDA started to fade away, because you said something that was the most affirming thing I’ve ever heard in my life. You already have that in you. Critical consciousness is what you were referring to. When it awakens in you, it’s because it’s already there. I was just sitting over here like, “It is? Oh, I didn’t know that.”
Mikey (she/they):
[inaudible] already over here.
Jenn (she/her):
I totally absorbed that and was like, “That’s about me.” Like, “Yes.” And now this is career-wise is the happiest I’ve ever been as a person. I’m more human in sessions with people, in conversations with people, even in having assistant. I’m a more human person, but also autistic people, it’s like, “How do you person?” I really mean in that way, too, where I’m like, “I also get that I need a manual for that in some ways. It’s not automatic over here for neuro-divergent me, but I’ve manualized that or made it like an autobiography or other sort of phrasings like that that we could use because of this maliciously comply.
It’s actually how I know that this is what’s for me now, if that makes sense. It’s just on a personal level, that’s what I’m really getting from this conversation with you, and I’m like, “Oh, shit.” I love validating myself. I love getting that this was already here. I love being more and more human all the time, which means being more and more raw and vulnerable all the time, which immediately makes me nauseous. Good thing I have an ice pack on, because I still don’t like it, because it’s uncertain, but there is certainty to find in there, and that’s part of what’s feeling really affirming to me. I think to sum up how I feel in this moment is holy fuck. I actually don’t have any other words for that.
Chavonne (she/her):
That’s appropriate. I love it.
Jenn (she/her):
Just holy fuck.
Chavonne (she/her):
I love it.
Jenn (she/her):
Well, we just took a little breaks-y to have a little chat amongst us three, and we want Mikey to come back and Mikey said, “Yes.” We’re going to have another conversation because we don’t want to change anything about this conversation. We just want it to keep going.
Chavonne (she/her):
This is amazing.
Jenn (she/her):
And this is how it always works for us. We’re like, “Oh, let’s schedule it for two hours,” and then we’re like, “But what if it’s for more hours? What if there’s a whole second version of this?” We’re constantly expanding together. It’s something that Sivan and I do together really well. It’s one of my favorite things about our relationship. It’s like, “What if we expand it?” So I’m so delighted and excited, Mikey, to have you do some more expansion with us, but also the deepening I was just mentioning when we were just talking amongst ourselves, because I don’t know, there’s so much beautiful stuff here, Sivan, and I love having this conversation over and over and over again. It’s one of the most beautiful conversations. We’re so interested in it. It’s such a, I don’t know, an opening space, and just thank you for your vulnerability and sharing, and being willing to come back and have another party with us again, even though we’re talking about tough stuff, it’s always a party over here, so thank you.
Chavonne (she/her):
Always a party. I send it off mic, but I am such a fan girl, so I’m like, you have to come back once a month if you want.
Mikey (she/they):
That’s so sweet.
Jenn (she/her):
I love it. I love it. I love it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Let’s just get a standing appointment every month. Oh, no. This is amazing. This has been incredible.
Jenn (she/her):
Mikey, you’re a person who is yourself, right? I love talking with people who’s like, “This is me. Let’s talk about it.” That is my level of connection, so I just love it.
Chavonne (she/her):
Absolutely.
Mikey (she/they):
It’s relatively new, so I think-
Chavonne (she/her):
Beautiful.
Mikey (she/they):
There’s a lot of things that have intertwined in the past couple of years where I’m like, “Wow, I really feel like me.” I feel like I’m understanding what that means, and it’s great.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my gosh. Thanks for letting us witness that.
Mikey (she/they):
Of course.
Chavonne (she/her):
It gave me chills, too. Absolutely.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes, I do. I have goosebumps everywhere.
Mikey (she/they):
Yeah.
Chavonne (she/her):
I’m starting you to sweat again, but in a good way.
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah, yeah, also that. It’s because I was talking about having you come back again, and that made me nervous for the future, but in a good way. I was just like, “Oh, that’s funny.”
Chavonne (she/her):
I was like, what’s happening? I mean, The high is like a 100, but still, what is happening to my body?
Jenn (she/her):
Yeah. New Mexico’s on fire right now.
Mikey (she/they):
Yes, absolutely.
Chavonne (she/her):
New Mexico’s on fire.
Mikey (she/they):
I don’t know how y’all are doing it right now. I can’t. I can’t with the heat.
Chavonne (she/her):
Because we don’t live up north and we don’t have to deal with your bullshit winter.
Mikey (she/they):
Oh, you’re right. But I love the winter.
Chavonne (she/her):
At least that’s my balance for me, my balance.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, I love the winter. I lived in Brooklyn for almost a decade. I actually miss the winters. I lived in Brighton Beach, so I got beach winters, which it was like a thing unlocked the first winter. I was like, “There’s beach winters?” That’s actually not a concept that had occurred to me. This is amazing.
Chavonne (she/her):
I lived in Pittsburgh for a decade and I was like, “Never fucking again. Never fucking again.” I am not built for this.
Jenn (she/her):
Well, Pittsburgh being in a bowl has some really fucked up weather, I must say. My aunt and uncle live there.
Chavonne (she/her):
That lake effect, it’s brutal. Yeah, it’s fucking brutal. So I’m like, “I’m okay. I’ll sweat for a summer. That’s fine,” because I’m not going to freeze everything off of my body in winter time.
Jenn (she/her):
Yes. When I’ve gone there in the winter, I cannot.
Chavonne (she/her):
I was going to say, “Sweat my balls off,” but I don’t know why I felt like I shouldn’t say, but that’s what I was going to say. I just sweat my balls off. I’m either sweating them off, freezing them. There’s always balls.
Mikey (she/they):
Yes, yes.
Jenn (she/her):
Or balls to the wall as like, “I’m going as hard as I can.”
Chavonne (she/her):
I think I said that during an episode, too, like, “We’re just balls to the wall. Let’s do it.”
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my gosh.
Chavonne (she/her):
To the window, to the wall. There’s just a lot of balls.
Jenn (she/her):
That song was starting to play for me, too. Oh my gosh. So more of this.
Mikey (she/they):
Let’s do more of this.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh my gosh. Thank you for agreeing to that. I can’t wait. Sivan just pushed her sleeve sleeves up, because we are really getting super sweaty.
Chavonne (she/her):
Tuck in clothing in places. Yeah. It’s a bit warm.
Jenn (she/her):
Any last thoughts from anyone before we’re done today?
Chavonne (she/her):
What a gift. This has been amazing. Thank you. Sincerely. This made my entire week.
Mikey (she/they):
Thank you for having me.
Chavonne (she/her):
You have no idea.
Jenn (she/her):
Oh, my gosh. Can’t wait. Okay. Bye everyone.
Mikey (she/they):
Bye.
Jenn: Thank you for listening to Season 3 of the Embodiment for the Rest of Us podcast. Episodes will be published every two weeks-ish (let’s be real!) wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find the podcast at our website, EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs.com.
Chavonne: And follow us on social media, on both Twitter @EmbodimentUs and on Instagram @EmbodimentForTheRestOfUs. We look forward to being with you again next time in this evolving conversation.