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Episode 23 Transcript

A Radical Belonging Book with Dr. Lindo Bacon

Introducing Dr. Lindo Bacon

Erin Everett:
Hey everybody. Welcome back to Exclusively Inclusive. I’m your host, Erin Everett, nurse practitioner. On today’s show, we have a very special guest, someone I’m very excited to interview Dr. Lindo Bacon. And Dr. Lindo Bacon has been altering books and public speaking for many, many years. One of their first books that they wrote was Health at Every Size, which a lot of my patients have already read and try to utilize the concepts within that book about being comfortable and knowing that you can be healthy regardless of what the scale says and practicing intuitive eating. Their most recent book, however, is Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). In this book, Lindo talks about their experiences coming out as non-binary, their struggles with gender through childhood, their trauma related to such, especially in regards to societal acceptance, religion, and religious rituals such as the bar mitzvah.

Erin Everett:
There are also very personal and raw experiences within that book, especially within the first two chapters of the book that Lindo shares with us to help us feel more accepted ourselves and know that we’re not alone in the struggle to belong in a society that doesn’t really want us to belong. Lindo breaks down different ways to manage and cope and identify your trauma, your unconscious bias, your implicit bias and the way that you navigate the world in order to create more self-awareness, and in order to harbor a more nurturing environment that creates a safe space for everybody regardless of identity, sexual orientation or your ethnic background. In this book, Lindo calls themselves out for their implicit and unconscious bias and the ways that they’re working on that as well. And I think that’s really important, especially while reading it as we all carry these implicit and unconscious biases. And it does impact the way that we interact with the world and the way that we can have these ‘microaggressions’ against other marginalized communities.

Erin Everett:
Dr. Bacon is highly educated, not only through traditional college and university experiences, but also through life experiences. Dr. Bacon earned their PhD degree in physiology from the University of California, Davis where they currently serve as an associate nutritionist. They also hold graduate degrees in psychology and exercise metabolism. Dr. Bacon also formerly taught at the City College of San Francisco in the health and education psychology women’s studies and biology departments. A professor and researcher for almost two decades, Dr. Bacon has taught courses in social justice, health, weight, and nutrition. They’ve also conducted federally funded studies on health and weight and published in top scientific journals. Their research has been supported by grants from the United States Department of Agriculture and National Institutes of Health. It is important to note that Dr. Bacon is industry independent. Their pledge not to accept money from weight loss, pharmaceutical or food industry signed when getting a PhD almost two decades ago supports them in speaking truth to power.

Erin Everett:
The only motivation that Dr. Bacon has is listed in their missions is to promote social and economic justice and help generate a culture of belonging to galvanize a body positivity movement, which celebrates the influence of our multiple intersecting identities. To provide the critical thought, inspiring vision, and practical strategies you need to celebrate and care for your own body. To help you develop your skills, educate, motivate, and inspire others and to nurture a culture of belonging. After reading Dr. Lindo Bacon’s book, and I will continue to refer to them as Lindo per their request, I felt myself really processing a lot of the information within the book and found layers of fear, excitement, and anxiety. Very excited for my listeners to read the book because I think it can be challenging, but also offer a lot of healing, a lot of anxiety, because I’m a person too.

Erin Everett:
I have my own struggles that I don’t necessarily talk about on the podcast because that’s not what the podcast is for. It’s to provide information to people who need it not to talk about my own struggles throughout my own childhood and life. But the tools in the subject matter that Lindo addresses in this book can be very raw and thought provoking. And I think that they do a really good job of indicating when there’s going to be trigger warnings in the book and also explaining terms that may be more niche and maybe not every reader would be familiar with. But at the end of each page if there’s terms that they have used that may not be more commonly well-known, they go ahead and explain it. They also explain some more concepts in greater detail at the bottom of each page if needed. So without further ado, I want to introduce the very special guest, Lindo. Welcome to the show Lindo, we’re so excited to have you on here today.

Lindo Bacon:
Oh, it’s awesome to connect up with you, Erin. I know you’re doing great work in the world, and I look forward to chatting with you.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. I’m really excited to have you. I feel kind of late to the program as far as the following, and we can talk more about that in more detail. But as far as your previous work with Health at Every Size and everything, I’ve really tried to familiarize myself with your work. So I’m really feeling very fortunate that you took the time to come on the show and help out listeners today. Awesome. So before we get started, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe a fun fact, whether it’s a hobby or a pet that you have, and then your pronouns that you like to use?

Lindo Bacon:
Sure thing. Yeah, my dog Buddy, she was named by my kid when he was about five years old, he was my constant companion. And I think she’s the one that’s getting me through this pandemic. But sadly, she’s getting a little bit old right now. I can see that she’s got a bit of arthritis, and it’s a little harder getting around, so we’re all dealing with that. So that’s my little fun fact, the one thing I’ve never actually written about. I think most of my life now is fairly public in writing I’ve done. And for pronouns, I go with they, them.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. What kind of dog is Buddy?

Lindo Bacon:
Oh, she’s a mutt, but a very cute brand of mutt. Weighs about 40 pounds, and she’s all white with brown spots.

Erin Everett:
Very cute. I’m a huge dog lover, and I actually have an Australian shepherd. I’ve put her in the other room though because every now and then, she’s the sweetest dog ever. But if anyone ever comes to the door, she’ll bark, that’s the only time she ever makes a peep. But, yeah, I love dogs, they’re wonderful. One of the few things that I wanted to talk to you about obviously was your amazing new book, Radical Belonging: How to Survive and Thrive in an Unjust World (While Transforming it for the Better). I had no expectations of this book when I first picked it up. We actually listened to your book Health at Every Size. After listening to that, I knew kind of where you were coming from as far as body positivity and intuitive eating and not fat shaming and things like that. But this book takes it to a whole new level and deeper understanding of what all that means and how to apply to all kinds of people. And I think the first few chapters of it were really raw and very courageous of you to write about.

Lindo Bacon:
I’m glad that the first two chapters kind of hit you emotionally because it was emotional writing for me. In fact, when I first started writing the book, it wasn’t meant to be a book. It was actually just a personal journal, and it was a journal exploring my gender identity from birth to present. And honestly, it was a really painful read and writing. I basically wrote that through tears, looking at the ways in which I felt that the world expected me to be a girl. And every time I tried to step out of that role a little, I would get chastised for it. My parents would condemn me for my unladylike behavior and try to force me into dresses, that just felt so not like me. And socially, I saw the same things that there were all these expectations on me that I was supposed to look more like the girl and act more like a girl.

Lindo Bacon:
And even things like wanting to play baseball. In order to do that, my father actually had to go to court to ask the boys’ leagues to make space for me because there was no such thing as girls’ baseball. And he won that, and I got on the baseball team. It was just hard, always being outside of things and never really feeling like I was being seen for who I was or valued. Anyway, that was a very painful writing for me. And you saw some of those stories in the first two chapters. But looking back on it, I also realize that, hey, my life has not been predominantly about pain, there’s also been a lot of joy in life. And my gender identity is just one small aspect of who I am. And I also realized that I had tremendous resilience and ways of managing the pain as it was coming in that really helped me.

Lindo Bacon:
And these tools of resilience kind of built over the years, so it got easier as an adult than it was as a child. So I went back and I rewrote the story having in all of those resilience skills that helped me to manage those difficult moments. And towards the end, I realized that my resilience had actually turned it around so that my gender identity has become more of a source of power for me. I’m comfortable in it now, I get respected for it now. And it gives me access into the world, the way of seeing the world that other people just don’t have. And I’ve come to appreciate and love who I am in that way. So I wrote that into the story.

Lindo Bacon:
And then the third draft was coming back at it with all of the professional stuff that I’ve learned. I’m also a scientist, and I have a lot of expertise in health as a physiologist and as someone trained in psychotherapy and in exercise science. So I know how the body works. And what I realized was that the pain that I was experiencing, the fear, that stuff is biologically written into our bodies. That we all have this very physical need to belong to community. And when that gets threatened, there are physical ramifications. And so I was able to write in the biology of why I experienced the pain, what resilience skills you can use to manage that pain, how your body looks different when you’re managing the pain better.

Lindo Bacon:
So the final book is basically weaving together the personal stories that make all this stuff real and the science that explains how the more we develop a sense of belonging for everybody, that’s where the beauty lies. And it’s possible, it’s possible for all of us as individuals, and it’s possible when we come together as a collective. And these two things happen at the same time. That’s a rather long-winded response to your question, but that’s how the book evolved and turned into what it is.

Erin Everett:
That’s awesome. No, I don’t think it was too long-winded at all, I think it was very well thought out. And it also stimulates some questions for me. When you say everybody has a strong sense of needing to belong, I also noted in the book that you also refer back how unnatural it is for us during this pandemic to be socially isolating, which I can totally relate to. But also, do you find that people who had more acceptance in their childhood have an easier time feeling accepted and belonging as adults or do you think there’s really not that much correlation there?

Lindo Bacon:
I think there’s a very strong correlation that your childhood kind of sets you up for your adulthood. And people who experience more of a sense of belonging as childs will come up with a sense of expectation that’s going to happen in their lives, which is a beautiful thing. And sometimes it can also lead to a sense of entitlement where you always expect that your feelings are going to be centered and paid attention to. So yeah, it sets you up with those skills, which is wonderful. And for those of us who didn’t feel that same sense of belonging as a child. And I should say that it wasn’t across the board that I didn’t feel a sense of belonging. In other words, I did, and I had friends. But anyway, for people that don’t have a sense of belonging in childhood, it could set you up to feel distrustful of others and expect that they’re not going to treat you well as an adult.

Lindo Bacon:
And so you’re always vigilant, and that makes it harder to step into spaces. So we all carry the marks of our childhood. But I also think that at any moment, we have the ability to change all of that. In scientific terms, we call that neuroplasticity, which is just mentioning the fact that your body is set with certain ways of acting when you get into adulthood. It might be the vigilance and distrust or it might be the expectation that everybody is going to love you and the confidence in the world. And those are our go-to feelings when we enter new situations as adults. But we can reverse anything in adulthood, but we have to pay attention. There’s certain ways that we need to act that’s going to help to free us from the conditioned responses that are more likely.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And I think, one point too that you even mentioned in the book that perhaps people who had experienced the childhood and adolescence and even early adulthood of acceptance and everything that if they did encounter a situation that they weren’t included in, it may make them feel even more left out because they weren’t part of a marginalized population that was almost used to feeling left out. And so the expectation for the marginalized populations was they weren’t going to be included and they had already developed some resilience and coping skills around that. Whereas those who had, were still as adults then trying to navigate that, like, “Wow, I’m not really used to this,” and might encounter setbacks in their personal growth and development based on that.

Lindo Bacon:
Exactly. It makes them more likely to seek out people that look and act like them and to be scared of more inclusive places.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And I think that’s really important to note because I don’t necessarily … Part of reading the book, I felt a little called out myself because like you say in the book, there’s a lot of different types of trauma. There’s a lot of different things that happen throughout our lives. And while gender is one thing that someone may struggle with, there’s a lot of other different things as far as like child abuse and how that may manifest in body shaming, fat shaming, eating disorders and that of thing. But also reading it as someone who may not have dealt with any of those things in their own personal life is like, “Huh. Wow, I hadn’t thought of it like that.” And so it actually took me some time to read through your book because I tried to do it so thoughtfully and take some of the things that you were saying and apply them and apply some more self-awareness on how maybe I interact with the world, especially when you were talking about implicit and unconscious bias. I thought that was really phenomenal.

Lindo Bacon:
Yeah. And I think that stuff is so important because all of us can go through the world just seeing everybody through our lens. I think about how cis people who are used to their gender identity being seen and acknowledged have no clue what the experience might be like for somebody that might present or be seen in the world as, say a woman, but isn’t. And how important it is to do simple things like find out somebody’s pronouns before you use them. If you’re cis, it just makes sense. You don’t understand that experience of what it’s like to not be seen and what it’s like when you mis-gender somebody. So it wouldn’t occur to you if you’re used to seeing things through these terms like I know what a girl looks like. You don’t know what a girl looks like, you can never know somebody’s gender identity just by looking at them. You can know their gender presentation, but that could be very different than who they feel like inside.

Erin Everett:
Gender expression, gender identity, and not synchronous, they’re very different, they’re very exclusive of each other.

Lindo Bacon:
Right. People shouldn’t have to go through surgery or whatever it is that might help people to visually put them into a box. There should be more room for gender expression without the assumption of gender identity.

Erin Everett:
I agree.

Lindo Bacon:
And so just to get back to the point that you originally raised, that if you have always been seen for your gender identity, if you’re cis-gender, then you won’t know what the feeling is like when someone doesn’t see you and how painful it is to feel like you always have to go through the world asserting yourself and pushing your identity, especially if that identity is just one aspect of yourself. And it’s a hard thing, but all of us have these biases through which we see the world. And we don’t understand people who have different, say, cultural background than us. And that causes a lot of pain in the world.

Lindo Bacon:
And some of it might we might be more explicitly aware of that, but a lot of it isn’t. And some of it falls in the middle of that like, for example, I know that if I’m walking down a dark street and if I see a black man approaching me, I’m much more likely to hold onto my backpack more tightly than if I see a white woman coming towards me. And I don’t know these people, I don’t know who is more capable of violence. And I also know that I don’t want to be that racist person. And yet, there’s this unconscious thing in me that just reacts that way, and I don’t want to be that person.

Erin Everett:
Right. It’s uncomfortable, especially when you can view yourself as someone who is very accepting of others and very down to earth and very real and nonjudgmental. But then you have to confront these uncomfortable unconscious things. You’re like, “What is that?”

Lindo Bacon:
Right. And think about what life is like for that black man to just feel like just his presence makes people unsafe and how he may want everyone to know he’s just this sweet guy if you get to know him. And yet there’s this unintentional thing that happens when white people are around him where he’s just not trusted. I feel for all of those people for whom I have committed microaggressions against and made it tougher for them and then contributed to their sense of unbelonging. And I want to keep minimizing the harm that I do in the world and maximizing the good that I do in the world, which means working on all this stuff.

Erin Everett:
I feel like we get one life. And if we’re not constantly working on ourselves, then we’re just bobbing along. I see life as an opportunity for continuous growth. I think you’ve done a really good job with that with your book though. I think that you’ve really brought attention and brought to the surface a lot of things that people are dealing with internally and maybe you’re making vulnerability more socially acceptable.

Lindo Bacon:
And I also want to say that I’ve used the word working like working on ourselves, and maybe there’s a different language that we should be using. Because I also think that there is so much joy in this that as we go through this process, what that means is our world become so much richer because we have so many more people in our lives with so much richer and different cultural experience. It’s a really beautiful and wonderful thing too. So maybe it’s not really about work, it’s also just about a way of accessing more joy in our lives.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. Personal enrichment and development. Because it’s not always work, like you say, it can often be very rewarding and insightful. Sometimes it is hard too when you’re addressing your own implicit or unconscious bias. But otherwise, it can open up a whole new insight and you can learn so much more about other people that maybe you didn’t even know existed, especially for those who are just now familiarizing themselves with the gender community. I’ve been working with the gender community for a long time, but I do encounter people that are ‘ignorant’. Ignorant, meaning lacking knowledge about it. Not by choice necessarily, but it’s just not something that they’ve been exposed to or chosen to learn about.

Erin Everett:
And for them non-binary is a concept that they’re trying to figure out. And for me, non-binary is probably one of the most beautiful things a person could be to be honest with you because I … And one of my colleagues, Michelle, who I’ve actually featured on the show before have talked at length about how non-binary people are just so far ahead of the game compared to the rest of us who are still stuck in binary land in some ways because you’re seeing beyond social norms and social constructs that were developed by people hundreds of years ago. And you’re presenting yourself as a person rather than a social construct. And it’s just like, here I am, this is me. And this is how I am, and I’m not going to conform to what other people have in mind for me. And so in that way, I find it very beautiful.

Lindo Bacon:
And it’s interesting. I think back to like elementary school. And in elementary school, I was really one of the most popular kids. And I think one of the reasons why was because I was a bridge between the genders, and the boys and girls were separate all the time. And they didn’t interact because they had such different ways of being in the world, and they were scared of one another. And yet I could hang out with the boys. And one of the things that was amazing is that the boys, I wouldn’t say that they related to me like another boy, because they were much more comfortable expressing their emotions around me than they were around with their boys.

Lindo Bacon:
There’s something about me being in that middle gray zone that makes it safe for people who are binary to express aspects of themselves that aren’t as culturally accepted. I look back to elementary school and how much I played this role with people and how much it was loved. And then I look at how as we got older that role became a little bit less respected because the gender roles were so built in of being the right incorrect way of being that it suddenly became shameful for a girl to act like a boy. What they-

Erin Everett:
Or coined the term tomboy.

Lindo Bacon:
Right, right. Exactly.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. God forbid if you didn’t run around in a dress in pretty curls and bows. And if you wanted to play in the mud, you were coined a tomboy.

Lindo Bacon:
Right, right. And I feel like, again, that that’s one of the things that makes me beautiful today. And it’s one of the things that I think people appreciate in me. And I think that the more people see that we don’t have to be tied down to gender, the more it’s going to free people who are in those binary categories to see more aspects of themselves, and that they don’t have to be limited to certain ways of being in the world. And they can also start to see the ways in which their gender has been assigned to them has been quite harmful for them.

Lindo Bacon:
Look at how this whole idea of feminine beauty has harmed women. So many women feel like they need to adhere to a certain ideal or there’s something wrong with them. And so they spend their life chasing it and feeling inadequate because nobody actually does and how painful that is. And if we could lighten up on the need to meet up with these feminine ideals and just kind of be more accepting of the range that this is what a human looks like and find the beauty in that, that would be awesome. And of course, we could also go beyond the need for defining as so important in our lives.

Erin Everett:
Yes, exactly. And as far as defining beauty as material things or certain ways to express and have a deeper understanding of what it might be to find somebody beautiful.

Lindo Bacon:
Right. I want to just interest you with a little story here, it’s a story I tell in my book. But every time I hear the word beautiful, I think about my name because that’s what Linda and Lindo means, it’s beautiful in Spanish and then Portuguese too. And when my parents named me Linda, it was because they saw beauty as important for a girl and they wanted to have that beautiful girl. They saw that as the way of me getting accepted in the world. And when I shifted my name to Lindo, I did because I learned that Lindo first off was the masculinized form of Linda, which seemed more appropriate of who I was.

Lindo Bacon:
And the other reason is in some cultures, the words are defined a little bit differently that Linda is beauty in more of a physical sense, but Lindo is more of a beautiful essence in a person not so much connected to physical beauty. And so I love the way the transition to this name not only messes with gender, but it messes with our whole concept of beauty as well. And so the name Lindo seems so much more appropriate to me. It’s a way of maintaining what my parents wanted for me, but taking it on in a form that is just more me.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. That is really beautiful, and I love the thought behind it. Hey everyone, I have a quick favor to ask. If you wouldn’t mind taking a moment and just clicking the subscribe button on whichever platform you use to listen to my show, that would be wonderful. Not only does it allow you to get notified every time I publish an episode, but it also helps with my ratings and reviews. What that means in podcast world is that I’m able to climb up in the rating scale and reach other listeners. The whole reason why I started the show is to access people who needed the information. So please just go ahead and click subscribe, then we can all be happy and continue to listen to this good quality free information. Thank you so much.

Erin Everett:
I often love hearing too, with a lot of my patients who start out on their journey, some people arrive at my clinic or however you want to phrase it. Most people have already been struggling with their gender for a long time by the time they come and meet me, and they’re ready to start hormones, they’re ready to start their medical transition. And that could entail anything as far as just doing low dose non-binary or full masculization, full feminization. And some people get surgery, some people don’t. But sometimes people haven’t landed on a name that fits them. And helping them along the way and seeing them their shoulders relaxed the more comfortable they get, every single solitary followup I have with them as they become more comfortable in their authentic self and watching the process of them selecting a name that fits them and the stories behind it is probably one of the most joyous parts of my job.

Erin Everett:
I feel so lucky to be able to work with the people that I work with because it is so rewarding. I feel very special that they allow me into their lives and they trust me to help them with something that’s such a transformational process. Selecting their names, I have heard some very beautiful, deep, meaningful stories, and yours is one of them. Just the story behind where they can select their identity, live their true authentic self. Like I always say, stay fierce, live your truth. And hearing it and how they select their name to represent and meet the world with their new authentic self is just awesome.

Lindo Bacon:
Yeah. It’s a wonderful process, and it just makes me think too how we all should have access to this. A lot of people regardless of gender identity, feel like their names don’t represent them. Your parents name you before birth usually, and they don’t know who you are. And I think it would be a beautiful ritual when we all hit a certain age we all did that deep thinking about what’s the name that would most represent us?

Erin Everett:
Yeah, I think you’re right, I think that’s a really cool concept. And I think too talking about people’s authentic selves brings me to probably one of my most favorite quotes in your book if you don’t mind me quoting you. When you show up completely and reveal your authentic self, you run the risk of rejection. That spoke volumes to me because I’m constantly encouraging people to live their authentic self, live their truth. And I do acknowledge they run the risk of rejection. And that can vary from simple rejection in the store, not being seen, and I think you share a story too in the book, not being seen as non-binary and people trying to ma’am or sir you and not being seen as who you are.

Erin Everett:
So it can be something, when I say as simple, that’s still painful, but can also be as far as losing your entire family, losing your entire career because it’s either very masculine driven and you are trans feminine, and that’s just not going to be accepted where you work. It’s all different concepts. And so your whole write-up about vulnerability versus self-protection was fascinating and very eyeopening for me, and I appreciate your thoughts on those.

Lindo Bacon:
Yeah. I think that is so important that if you have a lot of power and privilege behind you, you could afford to be open about who you are. And vulnerability is easier if you have a lot of support for who you are. But you think about all of the black trans women that are getting killed for being who they are.

Erin Everett:
The ultimate cost.

Lindo Bacon:
Yeah. And it really makes it clear that some people might make a choice to protect themselves and not show their identity because it’s not safe, and I want to honor that too. But the problem with that is if you don’t show your authentic self, then people don’t get to say that who you are has value and really love you for who you are. So there’s a cost that comes from that. And it becomes so, so important to develop a community so that there’s some places where you feel safe as you make the decision to protect yourself and not show yourself. And it can be really hard to figure out where to be vulnerable and where you might feel more safe doing that and where it’s best to not, to just present it in an authentic self and get by.

Erin Everett:
We as a society have a lot of work to do with that.

Lindo Bacon:
Exactly. And it’s very hard to manage the costs of being closeted.

Erin Everett:
People often ask me who are not a part of the gender community or even the LGBTQIA plus community, explain to me the transgender experience. And I’m like, “I cannot explain that to you. I identify as cis, and I can’t tell you what somebody else’s experiences, and I can’t even explain it to you. But here’s what I’ll tell you, do your best to accept it, meet people with love.” You don’t have to understand what they’re going through, you just have to show them respect and love because not everything could be understood or even explained in such a way somebody else can understand your experience. I think it’s really impossible on a lot of different accounts to understand somebody’s journey. You can empathize and you can try your best to relate and to create a safe space for them though.

Erin Everett:
And I think that’s what we need to do as a society is stop trying to figure out, well, where did this come from? Stop trying to seek the answers because not everybody needs to know everything, But what we do need to know is that everybody is deserving of love and acceptance. Does that make sense?

Lindo Bacon:
Sounds beautiful. I hope I captured that in the book as well.

Erin Everett:
I think you do. And that’s why I am so thoughtful about this right now, and I really felt like you spoke to me a lot through this book because it’s something I feel like you put into writing in a lot of ways that I feel and always verbalize to people. Your words really spoke to me in that regard, and so it made it easier for me to sometimes verbalize the way that I feel to other people, because this is what I want to emulate. This is the vibes I want to throw out into the universe is, I don’t care who you are, what you do, but I’m here for you. And if you need me, this is a safe space.

Lindo Bacon:
Yeah. Yeah. That’s beautiful, and thank you.

Erin Everett:
Yeah. And I also love that you call people out in here, and I don’t mean call people out in a bad way, but create thought-provoking by saying that it’s not okay to say I don’t see color. It is so important that we see color, I have always said that, because if you don’t, then you cannot address the disparities amongst the people of color. So that was the other thing that I think is so important, especially with everything that’s going on in today’s world with the Black Lives Matter movement, but also Trans Lives Matter and Black Trans Lives Matter movement. It’s uncomfortable and it needs to stay uncomfortable so that we can continue to create positive change.

Lindo Bacon:
Right, right. One of the things that was really beautiful for me and important, so I’m really proud of was I asked a black woman to write the introduction and to write about what was meaningful in the book for her. And I was a little scared of that. As a white person, could I write a book that spoke to somebody who had such different experiences than me? And particularly this was a woman who is well-known and as a spokesperson for black people. Her name is Ijeoma Oluo. The forward that she wrote was just beautiful. And in it, she wrote about her own history on belonging and how every chapter of the book spoke to her. That she could find something in it that really made clear her experience in the world and validated her.

Lindo Bacon:
And that to me was really great because I was trying to write this book for all of us who have at some point felt like we don’t belong. And I just so wanted people to feel seen and valued. And so it was a book that was intended to be written for marginalized people and to center their experiences. Another thing that’s been really beautiful to is that my audience in the past has not been that. My audience in the past from my previous books has been more people who are privileged, so they’re also reading the book. And the experience for them is at times they felt like it’s really clear that the book wasn’t … The institutional and systemic discrimination might not be a part of who they were, but yet they still experience that feeling of not fitting in on some level because nobody ever fits into blackness or whiteness or man or woman totally.

Lindo Bacon:
There’s all these ways in which we feel like things just don’t match up. So it turned out that it did feel very accessible and quite a learning experience for the people who are more privileged and gave them more perspective on their own experience. And it also gave them more perspective on the ways in which they unintentionally set up conditions so that others don’t feel like they belong, and kind of gave them ideas for solutions and how to work through that. So I feel really honored to see the response to this book and how it’s kind of reached across all of our differences.

Erin Everett:
Yeah, absolutely. And to your point, your writing is very different even though some of the messages you’re sending a very similar. But the Health at Every Size book felt a lot more scientific geared towards having a healthy ‘relationship’ with food and also promoting body positivity. I guess the way that I learned about you as a person and your writing is I’ve always created or tried to create a safe space for my patients regardless of their shape, color, or size. And I found myself unknowingly getting a following in the Atlanta community for not being a fat shamer. And it’s nothing that I purposely did, it’s just came from word of mouth and referrals. And so more and more people came to me and said, “I heard about you through FATlanta, I heard you’re not a fat shamer and that you practice health at every size.”

Erin Everett:
And I’m like, “Well, I’m definitely not a fat shamer, I’m not sure what health at every size is though.” And so I made a point to go and educate myself and found your writing. Well, I actually listened to that book. So I got to listen to you read the book to me, but it was great. And me and my nurse practitioner student at the time were just constantly, we listened to it together simultaneously and having a lot of feedback about it. And so that was initially when I reached out to have you on then learning about that you had this new book. And then reading the new book just blew me away compared just the amount of wisdom that you could put into this book and encompass even more populations and more concepts was just amazing to me. I think you really hit it out of the park.

Lindo Bacon:
That’s beautiful. Thank you.

Erin Everett:
Yeah, you’re so welcome. And I just know that there’s so many people that I’ve already been hyping up on my social media about this interview with you, they’re going to be listening, they’re going to benefit from this book. And I think it was whoever I arranged the appointment with, Jennifer, and I’m not clear exactly what their role is with you, so I apologize. But she actually sent me a copy of your book, but I had already purchased it and started reading. So I want you to know that book actually got gifted to somebody who was having a hard time and also identifies as non-binary. And they’re a person of color, and I just really think that this book is going to be healing for them. Just know that your gift also got paid it forward to somebody else who I think could really use it.

Lindo Bacon:
That’s awesome. And I’m glad you mentioned Jennifer because I would love to give a call out to Jennifer Canzoneri who has seen me through all three of my books. And she’s been a wonderful publicist and cheerleader for the call.

Erin Everett:
Awesome. And she was very pleasant to work with and communicate with. Yeah, she’s awesome. Well, I’ve had so much fun chatting with you today. I feel like we could talk for hours. I just could just pick your brain and all of your wisdom and life experience and learned experience, but I’m sure you have many other things that you need to be doing. But before we wrap it up, is there anything you want my listeners to know or any final thoughts you might have for them?

Lindo Bacon:
Man, the only thing I can think of is … That’s weird, I just said man, I don’t do that, I don’t know where that came from. But anyway, spread the love in the world. There’s just too little of that, and we so need to just be in this world together to be building community. As the 99%, that’s our power is being part of a collective. I honor the work that you’re doing Erin and how much you’re part of this community. And I just want to encourage everybody else to join in in making this a more beautiful world.

Erin Everett:
I appreciate that. Yes, that is a wonderful message. I know I just said I wasn’t going to ask you more questions. But for the person who’s sitting there and maybe not ready to come out as their authentic self or is still battling internal conflict, do you have any short words of advice for them?

Lindo Bacon:
The common advice that we’re supposed to give is just to remind people that it gets better. Your experiences as a kid are very different from what happens when you are an adult and you have more agency. But I think that the most important thing that we can all do that’s going to be helpful is to find a community. Because even if you don’t feel safe in the world in general, you can always find safe pockets where it is safe to express yourself and to get the feedback that you’re loved and valuable and keep searching for that because it’s out there and it’s so necessary for everybody for survival. So know it, know that there are people out there that want to love you and see you and accept you and are like you, share your experiences. And you can find them.

Erin Everett:
That’s awesome. Thank you so much for sharing that, I really appreciate it. And so Lindo, your book is available at major retailers, but also we encourage people to check out small local retailers, local bookstores, support local business. Especially here in Atlanta, everybody, there are a lot of LGBTQ owned and operated bookstores that Lindo’s book is available in. So do your research before we head to big box stores even though we love them too. Thank you so much. Remember everybody, stay fierce and live your truth.