When I saw “thin privilege” as binary, I really struggled. If a person either has thin privilege or doesn’t, then we’re drawing this dividing line. Where do I fall? What does that mean?
Realizing that there’s a spectrum has helped. I have thin privilege in some areas and not in others, and that’s true for pretty much everyone. That allows me to better understand where it shows up.
I can use any seat in our clinic’s waiting room. That’s thin privilege. It doesn’t mean that I never struggle or never run into issues with my size or even fitting into other places. Some people need the wider seats with arms, but they still have thin privilege compared to people who need the seats without arms at all. Those people have thin privilege compared to people who can’t sit in chairs at all, and so on.
The same is true for clothes. Friends have talked about the difficulties of finding clothes. First they aren’t in trendy stores, and then you can’t find them in any mainstream stores. Then you get to sizes that aren’t available even in plus-size stores, and then sizes that are only found from a few specialty websites. All along the way, individuals have areas where they have thin privilege and areas where they don’t.
Having thin privilege doesn’t mean your size is never an issue; it’s contextual.
Thin privilege isn’t something people are asked to be ashamed of; it’s something people are asked to be aware of.