Doing Better in Minneapolis and Beyond
[Image description: NAAFA Executive Director Tigress Osborn joins Minneapolis fat community members, justice advocates, and housing advocates at the Minneapolis Public Services building to support Bill 00563. The group includes Minneapolans of various races, ages, and body types, including some holding signs in support of expanding the city’s anti-discrimination laws.]
By Tigress Osborn, Executive Director of NAAFA
Soon after this newsletter hits your inbox, the Minneapolis City Council will vote on Bill 00563. When passed, this bill will add height and weight, housing status, and justice-impacted status to the city’s civil rights protections. Last week, I traveled to Minneapolis to testify in favor of the bill on behalf of NAAFA and the Campaign for Size Freedom. (See this month’s Video of the Month for testimony from me and many others.) The Minneapolans involved in putting height and weight discrimination on city leaders’ radar have been laying this groundwork for at least two years. It was an honor to represent all of you by joining them in this work.
Alyssa Greene, now the Chair of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Commission, first reached out to us after NYC passed their size discrimination bill. She was part of a team of graduate students working on a capstone project examining size discrimination and the potential for new laws in Minnesota. She was motivated by what she saw in her day job as a therapist specializing in eating disorder treatment. Though she does not have lived experience with size discrimination herself, she noted what her clients were facing. “I saw how those in larger bodies receive worse care, experienced more stigma, more assumptions about their behaviors, traits, values,” she told the City Council Public Health and Safety Committee at last week’s hearing. “These systemic impacts on someone's mental health and physical health are much larger than what one therapist can work on in eating disorder treatment with someone.” So she decided to do more, connecting with politicians and with local fat community leaders to garner support for these landmark changes.
As I sat last week alongside other fat liberationists and allies at the bill’s hearing in the Public Health and Safety Committee, it was also an honor and a privilege to be there in solidarity with those testifying for the bill’s other two important changes – adding housing status and justice-impacted status to protections as well. Even when we haven’t built direct coalition across causes, we can find ways and times to support each other’s freedom and equity. Those folks cheered for us as we testified, and we cheered for them, too. We are all excited to celebrate together when the bill passes!
And the bill is likely to pass. The committee already voted yes unanimously, and those in the know believe the City Council is likely to vote yes. Council President Elliott Payne was part of that unanimous committee vote. He had this to say about the bill: “This is just extremely, extremely timely. We’re in an era when our federal government is attempting to strip rights away. It’s our job here at the local level to build those rights up and build those civil liberties up, and to make sure that our staff have the resources they need to deliver on those protections.”
President Payne’s sentiments echo my feelings on why we continue to prioritize the Campaign for Size Freedom when there are so many pressing legal and governmental issues at hand right now, especially on the federal level. Any place we can shore up local rights, for however long we can shore them up, is worth the effort. Solidarity and showing up for each other breeds more solidarity and showing up for each other.
NAAFA Board Member and Advocacy Chair Tegan Lecheler is a Minnesota native. She taught me about Paul Wellstone, a popular Minnesota politician whose most noteable saying is, “When we all do better, we all do better.” Minneapolis is about to do better when it comes to equity and justice for people of all sizes. That win is going to inspire more change across Minnesota and across the country. (Next up, Delaware!) Your support helps us help communities do better so we can all do better.
