I love this essay and cannot recommend it enough. It’s a piece of theory that when i first read it made me feel seen and validated and politically relevant at a moment when I really felt like I didn’t exist at all. I like to reread it whenever those feelings kick back up. (It’s also definitely not only aimed at women, as it explains in the article, but uses that word for specific reasons.)

Sick Woman Theory is for those who are faced with their vulnerability and unbearable fragility, every day, and so have to fight for their experience to be not only honored, but first made visible. For those who, in Audre Lorde’s words, were never meant to survive: because this world was built against their survival. It’s for my fellow spoonies, my fellow sick and crip crew. You know who you are, even if you’ve not been attached to a diagnosis: one of the aims of Sick Woman Theory is to resist the notion that one needs to be legitimated by an institution, so that they can try to fix you according to their terms. You don’t need to be fixed, my queens – it’s the world that needs the fixing.

I offer this as a call to arms and a testimony of recognition. I hope that my thoughts can provide articulation and resonance, as well as tools of survival and resilience.