There is something else I would like to talk about, actually. I’m having vegan cake right now, and I’m also a vegan, so I want to talk about this, about autonomy and agency.
I went vegan almost four years ago, in April it’s gonna be four years, and I’ve gone through really different stages… all this binary thinking of vegan, not-vegan, it’s really not like that, you know? All of these things are a process.
Right now, I see it as kinda that I try to respect other bodies, also beyond my species, because I’m also anti-speciesist.
For me, antispeciesism is that framework that recognizes that (a) humans are also animals and (b) the fact that we function differently doesn’t mean we’re superior to other species. And that relates also to the way I see the world, I want to respect everyone’s autonomy, even those outside of my species, of other animals… I’m pretty sure everybody knows the cow they get their milk from doesn’t consent to that, you know? And all these things for me are so important, because we share the world with so many beautiful other animals, and humans are a certain way but that doesn’t mean that it’s the way.
L: So it’s about who you consider to be a person or a being that you share a space with and what is just an object in your space…
Exactly.
L: I’m glad you brought that up because I also find it a very interesting discussion, like what does anti-speciesism mean and what does veganism mean in a broader context of social justice.
Yeah, it’s not mutually exclusive with other forms of oppression. I also had this misconception, I used to be this vegan who hated other vegans because they are so racist et cetera. I was this really anti-capitalist, anti-racist, feminist person, and I ate plant-based, but I didn’t like vegans. I was like ‘They are so annoying with their capitalist shit and with their meat replacements and their racism’, but that’s also a really big erasure of black vegans and other vegans of colour. It’s not only a white people thing. Also, you don’t know how I see the world outside of what I eat, you know? I think it’s important to understand that this is really complex.
“I think with every single issue or cause that you defend without really understanding how complex it is, you end up damaging others around you.”
I think with every single issue or cause that you defend without really understanding how complex it is, you end up damaging others around you, including veganism., because for us, For me and my anarchist friends, veganism is political, you cannot just see it as a bubble where you’re defending other species but you’re not defending fellow humans and you’re not recognizing their experience, you know, that’s impossible for me. We actually like to call them plant-based people then, not vegans [laughs].
But also it does come from somewhere else, this stereotype that vegans are racist, because a lot of organizations and a lot of people for example have made holocaust comparisons and slavery comparisons when talking about animal rights, and that’s so wrong, all these white cis straight vegans making these comparisons. There is a way of being anti-racist and anti-speciesist, they can co-exist.
“Vegans come in all shapes and sizes!”
Many vegan communties are really fatphobic as well and I hate it, I hate it so much, it’s so widespread. They promote this thing ‘when you go vegan, you lose weight’, but my body looks exactly the same as it did four years ago, if anything I gained weight because I just eat whatever the hell I want now.
I find it infuriating because even outside of how wrong it is, it is also not helping your cause, because if you wanna show people what you think about something, you’re not gonna change anything through shame and accusations, it’s not the way. And there’s so many fat vegans as well, it’s just inaccurate, you know? Vegans come in all shapes and sizes!
Another thing I don’t like about these average vegans is they are often very capitalist as well, like they are really happy when Burger King releases the Beyond Burger, but Burger King is horrible, they exploit their workers, they exploit millions of animals in the rest of the products that they make.
So, people promoting that kind of thing, people posting racist things, making these terrible comparisons, not calling out transphobic people in the movement, not calling out sexist people in the movement because ‘You’re gonna divide the movement’, all these things have fed the stereotype that vegans are problematic. But I think it’s also a very binary way of seeing things, ‘If you’re vegan, you’re this, if you’re not vegan, you’re this’. Everything can co-exist.
L: Thank you so much for this conversation.