As the summer approaches, the pressure to lose weight intensifies, and the month of July is very propitious in the I Basque Country. Make Famous Restaurants known. They are also present: they will be held from 9 to 11 September in Gernika. We have talked to Mijo Lizarzaburu, a member of the organization, to get more details.

As explained by Lizarzaburu, seeing that in many places coarse activism was underway, as in Madrid and Barcelona, and that in Euskal Herria there was no such movement, some people who work in other movements joined together, especially the members of the transfeminist movement. Based on this need, these first days have been organized to deal with the "culture of diet, the culture of the gym and, ultimately, the world".

“We don’t fit and we don’t want to fit”

I've asked Lizarzaburu how they understand phobia. "We joined Magda Piñeyro's analysis. In general, society works only as something aesthetic, and that makes us so angry. Of course, there is an aesthetic canon that we do not fulfill and, therefore, an erotic capital that is not within our reach, but it is not only the erotic or sexual capital: your mother looks at you with the communion dress and feels the disappointment".

In addition to the aesthetic aspect, medicine also influences a lot according to the organizers: "We focus on this distinction between normal, abnormal and sick body, and we say that the thick body is an abnormal body, but not necessarily sick body. We live in a great pathology." On the other hand, aesthetics and medicine are intertwined and provoke moral oppression, that is, "the obligation to lose weight to all women, but especially to coarse ones, which will be reproduced in all parts of society. The moral rule is that if you can lose weight, you have to lose weight."

His criticism and his vision are not only focused on gordobia, but they are clear that it has to be a "movement against omniscient capitalism". Hence the motto of the days: "Our goal cannot be for H&M to be our size or to liaise with normal straight men. We don't fit there, but we don't want to fit. We want to use this gap, a gap that arises naturally when a thick body lives in the hetero capitalist world, to create a place in it."

Critique of fat, a licit political struggle for every movement

The days are aimed at coarse and the main public is coarse, but within them no specific limits have been established: “All kinds of moulding, marica, woman and trans that oppose fat are invited.” Cis men are not on that list. They have separated them and Lizarzaburu explains it to us as follows: “We understand that it is a different place of oppression. In the case of fat tents, their failure is that they are not a straight girl, that is, that they are not a slave, and that is very different: you want to slimmer to be a slave; the blind man wants to be an enslaving slimming. And it's another place. I empathize with being bad in sports, but if you're good, it would be the bully of high school, and I would score goals and beat us."

The restoration workshops will deal with themes as diverse as cordiality, health, mother-daughter relations, shibari… Only for the fat. “Listening to a conference can be interesting for all of us in transfeminism, for example. But then, in the workshops, being a germinal movement, there has to be an intimate moment to share things. In the crew we have only two or three hats; we want a big crew so that we are all comfortable.”

Those not identified as coarse, however, have the possibility to collaborate in the organization through shifts, translation service or cleaning. For this purpose, they can indicate in the registration itself what they are prepared to do.

Conferences will also have a broad vision, with local and external rapporteurs, as this movement is not only for “self-consumption”. That is why anyone who is interested can attend the conferences, which are open: “We see that this struggle is a legitimate political struggle for every movement, we see a thousand connections, for example, in all femininity thickening is put to the extreme, then it is opposed to that rhythm of consumption, gym and production of capitalism, and they are bodies that break the image of discipline and success.”

First meeting: to see what happens

The objective of the days is not necessarily to create an autonomous movement of them. “We leave the doors open to create that movement; first we will create the benchmark point to then develop a movement, but I guess we sometimes have a closed militancy model, and we think it will only succeed if you create a lot of assemblies in all the villages, which will do a lot of things every week. I do not believe that there is such a force at the moment; so, even if the door to create a movement is open, for the moment we want to create connections between us and with other movements”.

In addition, as they are the first days, they will serve in part to perform the "testing". “To see who we are, how we are and what movement needs. To see what profile comes. In addition, at first it is very interesting that the profiles are not defined, it is very open”.

Programme and registration

In addition to workshops and conferences, there will be a session of bertsos, concerts, performances and dances. To register and receive more information, you can go to the Jatunaldi website or to the Instagram account.