“Be a Feminist with Eating Disorders”

“Be a feminist with eating disorders”

I've lost weight again.

I always lost track of what I should eat, what I want to eat, and what I can eat. I've had malnutrition at least four or five times in my life. I've also had a heavy eating disorder from high school until my 30s.

I lived most of my life in an abusive environment, and while being a transgender studies scholar, and working as a transgender studies professor, I was always fighting against something.

I am always excessively tense. Since high school, I have had a mild fever for a long time, and even now, I occasionally still get it. Very often, the only thing I could control was eating.

So, to confirm that I had control over something, I would eat as I liked and throw up as I liked, which gave me relief.

It was self-harm and an addiction.

From the age of 3 or 4, I couldn't swallow food I didn't want to eat and would just keep chewing it in my mouth. My father would tease me, saying it would turn into poop in my mouth.

Even so, I was forced to eat and wasn't allowed to leave until I had eaten everything. It seems I couldn't eat properly since kindergarten.

In my elementary school, we had school lunches where everyone ate the same thing. We had to finish the same amount of food within the same time every day.

The teacher would give me a lunch plate to eat first, and while waiting for everyone else to get ready, I had to start eating alone. However, I couldn't finish on time, so during the cleaning time when all the students cleaned after lunch, I would keep eating amidst the dust.

Every single day. Even when my friends took half of my food, I struggled to finish eating.

My mother was extremely supportive of my dieting. Because she had gone through extreme diets herself when she was young, she was happy to help me with my extremely strict diets.

I remember being hospitalized with pneumonia when I was 13, but when I confirmed with my mother as an adult, she said it was because I suddenly stopped eating. That’s when I realized I was malnourished.

During the blood test when I was admitted to the hospital, I fainted from anemia. I clearly remember the scene as if it were a video.

My mother was looking down at me with very cold eyes. She was annoyed because she was the sole breadwinner for the family and did all the housework, and my hospitalization was another burden.

Even now, I can recall that entire scene. I was dissociating, so my memory is recorded in the form of a sepia-toned video, including myself.
The scene involved the nurses dragging me by my armpits from both sides, and another part of the memory is through my half-opened eyes, seeing my mom looking down at me.

I never criticize her for those experiences; I have enormous sympathy for the challenges she faced in her life. I was her strongest supporter.

I am a strong supporter of women like her, advocating for feminist ideals. That is the root of my being a feminist activist.