Kayla Concannon (00:00):
Okay, welcome back to the Lived Expertise is Greater Than Degrees Podcast. I'm Kayla and I am really excited today to interview my friend Jess. Um, we'll probably talk a little bit more about how Jess and I got connected, but we just met this spring and have already started many projects together. So, Jess and I are kind of professional partners and you're gonna be hearing a lot from us and this might be the first time you're hearing from both of us, but it should not be the last because Jess is awesome and Jess, I would love it if you would introduce yourself.

Jess Bauzá de García (00:53):
Yeah, so, uh, I'm Jess. I use they/them pronouns. I'm a queer neurodivergent occupational therapist, a social science researcher, and accessibility and inclusion consultant. Uh, I wanted to come on to talk about my lived experience, um, from my perspective as like a queer person, a first gen college grad and academic, a Puerto Rican, um, an autistic person, and a fat person. Um, these identities have really like shaped my life and because of society's reaction to who I am, I am really, uh, unique in the lived experience that I have. Um, and I say that really intentionally because I imagine if any of my identities were really destigmatized or like universally accepted, my life would really look different.

Kayla Concannon (01:51):
Well, I'm so glad we can dissect a little bit of them today over the next, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes. And, uh, my first question for you, Jess, is what does lived expertise is greater than degrees mean to you?

Jess Bauzá de García (02:07):
So, (laughs), you actually told me about this well before you asked me to do this and I will share (laughs) my first reactions for it. So, the first time you told me, I was actually very salty about my grad school application rejections. Um, so I do have a master's, but I've been applying for my PhD for years now. Um, and so to me, when I first heard it, (laughs), I was like, "That is the whitest, most privileged shit I've ever heard."

Jess Bauzá de García (02:39):
Um, I'm not gonna lie, when you said it, I cringed, I was worried that people, um, like me wouldn't hear you out because that is not our lived experience, and the lived experience of other people with even more minoritized identities. Um, without the context of really knowing what the podcast is about, it made me frustrated. Um, it's a great phrase and it's a really good ultimate societal goal, um, but it's really hard to hear coming from, uh, marginalized identities to hear that our lived experience is greater than a degree because I can't apply for a majority of grants as a PI with lived experience.

Jess Bauzá de García (03:24):
I can't get paid as a researcher the same way a PhD or an EdD can uh, for a majority of jobs. I can't be a professor without a doctorate, so I would never get the security of tenure without a degree. Um, I can't use my lived experience to earn the same wages as someone with a degree in my lived experience. I've been booted from first authorship on papers and projects because I lacked the proper degree. So, I know the phrase lived experience is greater than degrees will give a lot of academics all of these good feelings, but right now it's not a reality, so it can frustrate some people.

Jess Bauzá de García (04:07):
Um, lived experience, plus degrees is really just what counts right now, and I hope we can move to a place where lived experience is valued the same and that's why, um, you know that a lot of my current projects have a lot of representation from the communities that I study. Um, I don't ever want to be that academic that peers in from above. I really want to focus my work on community inclusion, so I do things like CBPR, which is short of community based participatory research, or PAR, which is participatory action research because I want to be on the ground. I want to be giving to the community, not just taking their experiences and disseminating it out.

Kayla Concannon (04:55):
Well, I'm really glad we've gotten to the point that you can tell me that, (laughs), it- it was not a good idea to even think this was a good idea or good phrase in the beginning because yeah, it's... I think it's catchy, but it is privileged. It's not something that is-

Jess Bauzá de García (05:13):
(laughs).

Kayla Concannon (05:13):
... A reality and that's- that's kind of the point of the podcast is that would be [inaudible 00:05:18]-

Jess Bauzá de García (05:17):
Yeah.

Kayla Concannon (05:18):
We've been able to dissect that people have lived experience that isn't valued, that isn't respected, that isn't paid for, and I think we can definitely speak to classism and capitalism and academia and how it's very much a pay your dues kind of profession, and because of that, we- we leave a lot of people out and I think it's so cool that we have a- a movement, especially of young professionals now who see the value in collaboration because without it, we're just taking and not giving back.

Jess Bauzá de García (05:56):
Yes, that's right. I really love the work that I'm doing with Lincoln Memorial University. They really want to involve the community from the beginning, so like, the research question stage, so what do we even want to look at? Because so many people put their... So many researchers put their views on what questions should be asked about a community and the community doesn't care about that. Um, a lot of like genetics research in autism is looking at how to get rid of autistic people, how to ch- choose the whatever flag they can find that will flag for a future autistic person, so that they can recommend what families should do when they find out that's what their fetus may have.

Jess Bauzá de García (06:47):
Um, and if you ask the autistic community, that is not what we want the money for research to be going to. We want to know how we can find supports, we want to know which supports help the most of us, we want to know how to get and keep a job without burning out. Y- honestly, even ADHD people, um, that I've talked to... Wow, we all get burnt out. Fridays is just like a crash and burn for so many neurodivergent folks...

Jess Bauzá de García (07:17):
And I really love the idea of involving the community at the point of what question are we investigating because then you can build on that and like the work that, um, Dr. Schmidt and Lincoln Memorial are doing also involves the community towards the end, so towards the end of the research process, like dissemination and giving presentations because that is then giving those people that experience that they can put on their resume, which is valued in a capitalist society.

Kayla Concannon (07:55):
Oh, those are such big points, and I've... I'm familiar with participatory action research and community based... PR, practice research?

Jess Bauzá de García (08:05):
Participatory research.

Kayla Concannon (08:08):
Participatory research, so... But- but a lot of the things that tend to be missing from participatory action research is- is involvement through the whole process, so- so involvement in picking the research question, picking the topics of interest, choosing the participants and making sure the participants in the study, um, you know, are getting value from participating and also getting value afterwards, and so that things are giving back, that changes are being made, that action is being taken, and that's, I think, what CBPR is- is kind of closing the gap on in that nothing about us without us approach to research and practice.

Jess Bauzá de García (08:49):
Yes, and the nothing about us without us, but then also involving us in the rest of the process, that's what I really love about it. Um, and that's how I think we're gonna come and close that gap between lived experience and a degree in that ex [inaudible 00:09:09].

Kayla Concannon (09:12):
Yeah, definitely because the gap- the gap is- is huge and I think that's why especially neurodivergent communities have really low employment rates. It's- it's not because they're not skilled or we're not skilled, it's- it's because the skills are not backed by degrees oftentimes and uh, a lot of entry-level jobs require a bachelor's degree, but somebody might have a doctorate level amount of knowledge in something and they're not getting hired because they don't have the diploma to back it up.

Jess Bauzá de García (09:42):
You've actually seen that in some of our research. I actually just gave a presentation at Summit of Scholars and part of the research was actually our participants who were quite diverse did have degrees. They had bachelor's degrees, some even had doctorate degrees and they were making under 50K a year and that was really shocking, but when we looked at things like interview data or even some of the literature, it wasn't that people don't know things, it wasn't that people aren't hard workers, it was that the workplaces are just not set up for neurodivergent folks.

Jess Bauzá de García (10:23):
And then you see people working for maybe six months or a year and then they have to take two years off because they're burnt out, their mental health is horrendous, they can't even get out of bed, and they're having horrible mental health systems like suicidal thoughts and that is more indicative of a system that didn't value accommodations because accommodations were the things that people found made them most successful and accommodations that weren't jumping through hoops.

Jess Bauzá de García (10:56):
It wasn't you have to show a doctor's note, plus the doctor has the write another letter and then your therapist needs to write a letter, readily accessible accommodations that didn't require all of this privilege because having a diagnosis is a privilege, so where you just say, "This is what I need, (laughs), and I need you to trust me that this is what I need," um, was really what helped people be successful and obviously I don't want to name success as making over 50,000 a year, but in a society where everything costs money, um, we really want to help use our research to set people up and accommodations that are easy to get, um, that may not be something you've done in the past.

Jess Bauzá de García (11:43):
Like, one of the accommodations people really liked was having flexible start times, and not flexible start times as in you can come anywhere between 9:00 AM and 1:00 PM, but something like you wouldn't be penalized if you came in at 9:10 because so many people have timelined this and the anxiety and just... I don't know how to describe it, like the- the pressure of getting there on time and fearing repercussions, knowing that you have the flexibility in your workplace is super helpful and it helps prevent things like burnout.

Jess Bauzá de García (12:22):
Um, and also having like flexible ways of working, that you can work partially in an office or partially from home, um, is really important and, um, some of the newer and not as well-researched accommodations, but show a lot of good promise is having open-ended vacation time, um, or personal time where you don't need to point to, "I'm taking medical leave." You're just saying, "I need to take time off," and making sure your company is not putting up barriers because some companies will say, "We have unlimited PTO," but then they make it where if you take PTO, you're risking losing future bonuses or, um, advancements in your job and that's something that I think if that barrier is removed, people would be more apt to take that unlimited PTO to really benefit them and keep them from having to take years off to get over burnout.

Kayla Concannon (13:30):
Well, and I think some of those accommodations that you've mentioned are- are really helpful for preventing burnout because I think one of the biggest causes of burnout is both the accommodation, so yeah, access to diagnosis, disclosing a diagnosis, and then getting reasonable accommodations where a lot of workplaces and people think of accommodations as just meeting those ADA compliance factors, but those are from the '90s, and they are not very helpful to most people, but it's sort of like the curb-cut phenomenon where like the more that we just try to do s- something, we can do small things and they benefit so many people. So, the curb-cut effect is we have curb-cuts because people with wheelchairs need to safely get off of the sidewalk, um, to cross streets, but it also benefits strollers, bikers, roller skates, skateboards, and just, I mean, so many actual benefits that you don't think about until you're moving furniture down the street (laughs).

Kayla Concannon (14:34):
And then you go, "Wow, everybody won. How great was that design?" But with that, I think being creative about accommodations and seeing accommodations not as something that people earn, but something that should be standard and also that masking causes so much burnout. So, if people are able to be more themselves, be more comfortable, spend time working remotely or

Kayla Concannon (15:00):
... or taking time off. Then they get to take care of themselves. And if they're meeting their job requirements, then they're doing their job, and that's all it should be. And the 40 hours a week and the 9:00 to 5:00, that stuff's all arbitrary. But it causes so much hurt for a lot of people.

Jess Bauzá de García (15:19):
Yeah. That's... Working from home is the number one way that I've learned to unmask my autism. I remember when I was working in an office, I used to wear headphones, in-ear headphones, not over ear. But I wore them so much I was getting chronic ear infections. (laughs) And it was because I couldn't focus with... So I'm the type of autistic that needs to have the constant noise. But our lab was dead silent. Like a pin could drop and you would hear it. Everyone was silent. And it, like I can hear the blood in my body. (laughs) I can hear the classrooms down the hall. And it was so distracting.

Jess Bauzá de García (16:02):
But if I could blast like metal in my headphones, I got so much work done. And when I was home, my partner is the same way. If we blast metal, we can get work done. And so shockingly, during the pandemic, we were really, really productive. Because all day we would just shuffle metal playlists on Spotify and get things done.

Kayla Concannon (16:27):
That is my nightmare. ( laughs) That is my nightmare.

Jess Bauzá de García (16:31):
This is our opposite neurodivergences. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (16:34):
I know. So for anybody listening, Jess and I talk, uh, pretty much every single day since the AOTA 2023 conference, which is a whole nother podcast subject matter. Um, but we have (laughs) been in contact, uh, pretty much daily since then. And we have learned that our neurodivergences are so opposite. I, first of all, can't stand listening to metal music in general, but also could never get anything done. I would just feel like my like whole-

Jess Bauzá de García (17:06):
You're a monster.

Kayla Concannon (17:07):
No. That is too much. (laughs) I would love that quiet lab. I know I would love it.

Jess Bauzá de García (17:13):
Mm-mm. It was so hard to get work done. But also, I will say, getting dressed was so hard going into a lab, knowing I was going to a university. Because I had to think about what clothes I wouldn't be feeling all day, while also looking like a professional and not a student. And having sort of like literal masking, I was literally putting something on that said look at me. I'm- I'm a smart working person. Um, whereas when I was at home, I could literally wear whatever I wanted. As long as I could throw a blouse over whatever I was wearing, or a blazer. I actually kept a blazer on the back of my chair. And I'd be like, you can't see the band t-shirt, I promise. And that was how I would do meetings.

Kayla Concannon (18:04):
[inaudible 00:18:04] Zoom blazer. I also had a Zoom blazer. Because, yeah, oh my God, Jess, because the clothing that you wear at home, whatever. You can be productive if you're comfortable. People are more productive if they're comfortable. And comfortable can be sensory-wise, but it can also be comfortable because of your body size, because of your gender, because of all sorts of different factors, what colors you like to wear, what the f- how worn in this shirt is. I mean, there's so many layers to clothing. And it becomes very complicated when you have a workplace and you have expectations about what professionalism means and what professionalism looks like in that place. It- it- it adds to these demands that give us the Friday afternoon nap. (laughs)

Jess Bauzá de García (18:53):
Yes. We w- I used to literally take naps every Friday. And I would wake up feeling like I had the flu 'cause I was so burnt out. And it became almost like a tradition in our house where we would just order food on Fridays because there was no way we were doing a single thing after 5:30.

Kayla Concannon (19:17):
I am ordering food when we get off of this interview. Because there's-

Jess Bauzá de García (19:23):
I am too.

Kayla Concannon (19:23):
(laughs) There's nothing to cook. And it's too hot to cook anything in this [inaudible 00:19:27]-

Jess Bauzá de García (19:27):
Oh, I know. I just went to the grocery store yesterday and all that food can rot in there. Because I am not cooking it tonight. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (19:35):
That is another thing. That's- that's a ADHD tax. Is like buying groceries and- and letting them go to waste. There's so many layers to this stuff, um, in terms of, yeah, how we- how we label productivity. And- and it comes back to, I think, in- in part this idea of lived expertise, where when I started this podcast, it was the idea, the title. It came from this idea that if somebody has credentials after their name, they get respect. People expect that they're intelligent, that they know what they're talking about, that they are a good person. And none of those things are necessarily true.

Kayla Concannon (20:12):
And I- I think that it- it is valuable to talk about how credentials don't necessarily mean intelligence. They do not correlate necessarily. It means you put the time in, you did the work, and you got to the finish line. But there are so many reasons why people do and do not succeed in academic and other like licensing type of settings. And, um, part of this, my pursuit of a doctorate, is so that I get some respect when I say that having a doctorate doesn't necessarily make me better, or smarter, or more intelligent, or more, um, more experienced at something. I don't refer to myself as a sexuality expert. Because how can I be an expert on something that eight million people have the opportunity to do in different ways?

Kayla Concannon (21:06):
And so, I just- I just, you know, am pursuing it for different reasons. But that brings me to the question of what's an important thing that you learned in school and how did you learn this lesson?

Jess Bauzá de García (21:23):
So I- I'm not gonna pick a lesson because I'm going to be annoying in this answer. Um, so I'm going back to high school, to be completely honest. Um, because my high school experience was really interesting. Um, I remember critical thinking and being... questioning everything was something that they hammered into us. And it was everything from being able to take being critical to the methodology of being critical. So, um, in high school, we had an art class where when we would do an art, like a project, we would finish it and it wasn't just like you get an A. You also had to stand critique. And that is hard. And it wasn't mean critique, shockingly. Um, it was not mean critique. It wasn't like standing there in your c- your... I almost said colleagues. Yes, in high school my colleagues.

Kayla Concannon (22:22):
[inaudible 00:22:23]

Jess Bauzá de García (22:23):
So like fellow students would give actual feedback, like, "Is this meant to look like this?" "Can you explain why you did this?" And in my head, I was like, "No. I'm autistic and I just wanna get done." Um, but it taught me to take critical feedback. Because that's so hard. Um, and then in like science class, we were taught obviously the scientific method of investigation and what it means to be critical in investigating something. Um, like in my history classes, we were taught to go as close to the primary source as humanly possible. And then like in my English classes, we were taught how to actually find evidence.

Jess Bauzá de García (23:07):
Um, I remember when I finally learned what a journal was, I felt so grown up. But then I would... Because I felt so grown up, I would then use that to actually like find things and find evidence for things that I thought were true. Um, and I'm really grateful for that because that ended up constantly popping up throughout my life and future education. Um, I grew up around a lot of misinformation and like to be complete- completely honest, like propaganda for a certain mindset.

Jess Bauzá de García (23:41):
Um, and part of how I got to the place that I am at is by being really critical about the thoughts that I perceived to be fact and dissecting them. Um, when I was finally able to be independent, I- I didn't take anything that I grew up thinking as a fact as a fact until I actually read about it, went back to some primary sources, looked up news and, um, things like that from the time. And that really changed the way I thought and acted around things. Um, I felt like I became more open-minded 'cause I never felt like I knew for a fact what anything was.

Jess Bauzá de García (24:23):
Um, like for example, when I first read about occupational therapy, I was a psych undergrad. And I was working in an eating disorders lab. And I saw OT being prescribed for these very, very sick children. And my first thought was these kids are so sick. They were teenagers. But I was like, these kids are so sick. Why are you getting them jobs? Um, I had never questioned the use of the occupation. And I just felt like I knew for a fact that an occupation was a job. And that was also one of those things that really humbled me.

Jess Bauzá de García (25:03):
And I went back to the sources and, um, I was working with Dr. Alex Timko and I went back and read some of her work and started to learn about the history of occupational therapy. And I was really fascinated that the word occupation didn't mean what I thought for years it meant. Um, and that in the word of OT, occupation is anything that you do. And now I'm an occupational therapist. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (25:29):
I am so glad I was muted for your entire answer to that question because I had so many reactions, both visibly and audibly. And I'm glad I was muted. Because lots of things. I also took art class in high school and we had critiques. But we were all friends in the class and so it was like, "Hey, pretty cool choice of mixed media over there." (laughs) And you're like, we- we mostly hyped each other up. But I- I look back on moments and I know every time I had an art critique, it was something that we had probably two months to work on, some type of themed project. And we worked on it and I got nothing done, nothing done, nothing done, and it's the final week and the critique is Friday. And so then I'm suddenly in the art room over lunch, before school, after school, trying to get it done. And it's like why did nobody think I had ADHD? It's so obvious when I look back and things like that.

Kayla Concannon (26:29):
And- and I also had, yeah, musical and dance performances in like elementary school for our parents, at the nursing home. We were all over the place. And it's like, that sort of stuff was hard while it was happening. But I think now it's why I'm comfortable, you know, public speaking. That's never been a fear of mine 'cause once you do public dancing you get over public speaking pretty quick. (laughs)

Jess Bauzá de García (26:53):
I did dance in college too. And I like took them as classes. I didn't wanna take Phys Ed. I thought that was ridiculous. I was like, "I am out of high school. I'm not taking another physical education class." But one of the options was to go to the art school and take a dance class. And I was like, "Bet, I'm gonna do that." And I took two levels of modern dance. But part of some of your own choreography was you had to like have a story behind it. And my autism is like my story is that I am actually flexible enough to do this. Or I have the power in my legs to do this, so I'm doing it, so it can be done.

Kayla Concannon (27:36):
The most concrete story. It's like-

Jess Bauzá de García (27:38):
Yes.

Kayla Concannon (27:38):
... [inaudible 00:27:39]

Jess Bauzá de García (27:39):
And then people- and then people in critique would be like, "I saw the emotion where you felt heartbreak, which went along with the song." And I was like, "Correct. That's exactly what I was going for."

Kayla Concannon (27:51):
(laughs) Wise audience. [inaudible 00:27:54]

Jess Bauzá de García (27:54):
And then I- I got a really negative critique on this piece. I- I liked it because I felt strong while I was doing it. I- I was a vegetarian at the time, and to be a strong vegetarian, I was like, "Yes." I can- I can jump. I can, um, I can bend. I can- I can do some of these endurance moves. And that was literally how I choreographed something. I picked a song that I had been stimming to for weeks on end. And then I choreographed to that. And the choreography was literally I'm strong enough to do it, look at me do it. And I remember the feedback I got was, "None of the emotion from those moves are congruent, or, uh, flow well with the messaging of the song."

Kayla Concannon (28:42):
(laughs)

Jess Bauzá de García (28:43):
And in my head, I was like, sure, definitely. I don't-

Kayla Concannon (28:48):
[inaudible 00:28:49]

Jess Bauzá de García (28:49):
And they would ask me to defend my work. And I'd be like, "Mm-hmm. Yes."

Kayla Concannon (28:55):
Oh my God. I think [inaudible 00:28:57]-

Jess Bauzá de García (28:55):
And I feel-

Kayla Concannon (28:58):
... I do like half improv. I don't even think I could have stuck to choreography. So impressive.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:04):
Oh, I rolled my ankle I remember at one point. And I was like, I can't do any turns now. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (29:09):
(laughs) Act natural, act natural.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:12):
It was like floor work. We are doing floor work.

Kayla Concannon (29:15):
Oh my God.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:15):
Which was totally meant to happen.

Kayla Concannon (29:18):
Follow- follow-up question. Do you have any recordings of these performances?

Jess Bauzá de García (29:22):
I do. And I will burn them before you ever see them. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (29:28):
No. (laughs) Oh-

Jess Bauzá de García (29:29):
I had... I was still in my emo, like hardcore emo phase. So my hair was a disaster.

Kayla Concannon (29:35):
Wow. But let it be known that the vegetarian had enough muscle to get through the dance routine. Let it be known.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:41):
Literally. I was so anemic. (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (29:42):
Okay.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:44):
I was so bad at being a vegetarian.

Kayla Concannon (29:46):
Fair. Vegetarian that could use an iron supplement. (laughs) Okay.

Jess Bauzá de García (29:51):
I was [inaudible 00:29:52]. Don't you worry.

Kayla Concannon (29:52):
Great. You and me, we're getting back on topic. Okay. Next question, Jess. (laughs) What is the most important

Kayla Concannon (30:00):
... important thing that you've learned outside of school and how did you learn this lesson? And I, it's okay if you do more than one again.

Jess Bauzá de García (30:09):
Um, so I think the most important thing I learned outside of school is how much unconscious bias will impact life. Um, I remember thinking everyone was super aware of the way they thought, and therefore if that's how they thought, that's how they acted. But some people will really try to say that they hold no negative bias, which is impossible. Um, so the way that that shows up most for me and impacts me the most is lots of people have anti-fat bias. Um, I didn't always live in a larger body. Um, I used to s- tip the scale more towards thin to average. And when I really started to heal my relationship with food, ironically, and movement, I gained weight, which is fine, is neutral to me now. Um, but it was not neutral to the people around me.

Jess Bauzá de García (31:12):
And I remember being in OT school and it was so different. I was of average size then, and people treated me very different than the way I'm treated now. Um, and as an autistic person, I really had to have a mentor spell that out for me explicitly. I remember being very confused as to what changed. I remember thinking, "Am I actually a bad OT? Did, was I a good student? But I'm now a bad occupational therapist?" And this mentor really spelled it out for me that since I live in a larger body, now that I have to be cognizant of the many nonverbal cues I give off and that people will take in. So like a bias that a lot of people hold conscious or unconscious towards fat people is that they're gross, um, smelly, unhygienic, unintelligent, unprofessional. So for example, when we co-presented earlier this year at the conference, I knew I'd be scrutinized for how I appeared because I have mere moments to make an impression in such a busy place.

Jess Bauzá de García (32:29):
So I knew I had to prepare, and I knew if I tried to dress in my typical day-to-day clothes, I'd be seen as a slob. Um, and I'm non-bi- No, I'm non-binary. Um, but if I tried to dress more androgynous at my size, even in a professional setting, many cis people will view that on a fat body as someone just wearing unflattering clothes. And I really couldn't afford, financially afford for people to view me as unprofessional at a conference where I spent so much money to get there and I needed to make those connections to advance my career. Um, so that meant that I needed to lean into my assigned gender at birth. So femme clothes, or as I think I told you, I call it my girl cosplay.

Jess Bauzá de García (33:20):
Um, I made sure I ordered clothes about four months in advance of our conference, so I'd be able to take them in, figure out if I liked them, if they'd be flattering, if I could feel the tag, if the fabric was too much, and then take them to get tailored. So they hit the ground, they hit the top of my shoe, um, they tapered at my thigh at the right way because if my clothes didn't fit perfectly or they weren't in style, that was the other thing I made sure I was following the latest trends, um, I ran the risk of our colleagues viewing me as sloppy and unprofessional. And I mean, this goes beyond close to, I mean, you can tell I have very thick and curly hair. Um, and I sweat really easily because of a side effect of one of my medications. Um, when curly hair gets sweaty, it is just a halo of frizz. And other curly people get this.

Jess Bauzá de García (34:19):
But in our profession, we are a very white woman that is very put together and thin. And I knew I wasn't gonna have that leeway. Uh, my body size was already gonna be working against me as an unconscious bias, so I had to also have socially acceptable hair. So, you know, this, before the conference, I went to the salon. I had my roots dealt with. I had my color fixed, I had it cut, and I had it professionally straightened. Um, and I wanna acknowledge just because if anyone sees me or goes to my Instagram, that I'm still really privileged, um, despite everything I just said. And it's a bummer. It's a, it's a inconvenience that I had to drop money at the salon before a professional, uh, conference. But it's nothing like real hair discrimination. Um, Black folks have been dealing with hair discrimination since colonization, and they've had their natural hair stigmatized and have workplace rules placed against them.

Jess Bauzá de García (35:23):
Um, CROWN Acts are being passed in the US, um, but society really still holds that bias. You can legislate, but those biases still exist. Um, and CROWN is an acronym. Um, it's create a respectful and open world for natural hair. Um, and I will just cut myself off because this isn't my lane. Um, I'm very white passing. Um, but people like, um, Esi Eggleston Bracey, um, and there's a professor at Drexel, um, Professor Wendy Greene, and they are some really good sources to turn to that actually have this lived experience. So people should look into that. But um, yeah, it takes a lot of planning to attend a conference as a fat healthcare professional. I literally prepared with my therapist and my dietician so I could be ready for all of the wild and inappropriate and rude comments people make. Um, you get so much condescension for not being a slim muscled person in healthcare.

Jess Bauzá de García (36:36):
Um, I've gotten so much non-consensual eating and fitness advice from colleagues without them knowing that I have an extensive eating disorder history and I'm still repairing my relationship with movement. And that's the thing, they just wanna pathologize what they see. They just wanna pathologize a body size. They want to fix me, and they see me as a patient and they think that they can, like in air quotes, help. Um, but they don't know that at this body size that I've run a half-marathon, they don't know that at this body size, I'm an aerialist. I lift weights with this body. I don't need them thin-splaining diet advice to me. And when I try to like gently rebuff their advice, I get things like, "Well, clients don't want rehab from someone that doesn't look healthy." And that's a mindset we really need to move past in healthcare is that you are only gonna be respected if you are either a thin person or a muscled person.

Kayla Concannon (37:41):
That was just so much. I was taking some notes on things I wanna comment on. But like I say to pretty much everybody I have on this podcast is, I can't wait to listen to this when it comes out because there's so much that you are bringing up for me that I wanna think about and talk about and, and kind of de-stigmatize with other people. And one of the things that you brought me back to is how before conference, we had created a three-hour workshop together over email, Google Drive, and Zoom. And so until conference, when we decided to go from basically strangers to roommates, (laughs), we, um, had never seen each other below the shoulders. And we had that Zoom phenomenon where you-

Jess Bauzá de García (38:25):
Yes.

Kayla Concannon (38:26):
... spend, you can spend many hours with people all on virtual meetings, and you see them shoulders up and then suddenly you meet them in person and you realize that your brain created a body for them, that it gave them a height, a weight, a lead... Like you just created a picture.

Jess Bauzá de García (38:42):
Oh, you were six foot in my mind, maybe 5'11". I (laughs) when I saw you for the first time. I was like, "That's not what I was expecting."

Kayla Concannon (38:53):
That is hilarious 'cause I'm like 5'1" tops on a good day (laughs). But, but yeah, I remember. And then you were outside of our Airbnb and you were like, "I can't find the door." And I looked down and I see the top of your head, which has purple hair. And I went, "Oh, that's Jess (laughs)." And then, and then we, we like met and hugged and we were like, "Wait, what?" And we just like looked each other up and down because we just created some type of body. And, and it's such a weird thing because we also did it when everybody was wearing face masks all the time, is we didn't realize that we gave people a bottom half of a face until we saw the real bottom half of a face. And we were like, "Oh my gosh, I didn't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't that."

Kayla Concannon (39:36):
And so we're, we're, that's a weird thing that we had experienced with each other. And then I also think it, we had talked about how expensive it is to go to a national conference. Um, and I had talked about doing a, maybe like an Instagram reel about how much money I spent on membership to an organization, registration for the conference, flights, Airbnb, food, all the things. And then you had echoed that with saying, and all this extra money to think in advance about how you looked when you went there. And then I just, I, I mean I over-pack I just throw a bunch of stuff in a suitcase and that day I figured it out. But I also recognize that that's because I'm in a profession where I very much fit in as a straight presenting, straight sized and mostly straight haired woman (laughs). And so that is something that I don't even have to spend the mental energy or the money on that you enlightened me to.

Jess Bauzá de García (40:44):
Yeah. I remember running around the day before going, "Where's my they / them pin? I'm gonna be in girl cosplay. People are never going to gender me correctly."

Kayla Concannon (40:51):
[inaudible 00:40:53].

Jess Bauzá de García (40:52):
Um, but yeah, I had my outfits planned out so far ahead. I had Google Sheets about like what undergarments I was gonna wear with each outfit. Um, I had an app that let me make sure that the waist of the jumpsuit would hit at the bottom of a cardigan to make sure that the dimensions didn't look weird. And it was just because I knew I had such a short amount of time. And it's not like, it's not like I was gonna trick anyone into thinking I was thin. That was not going to happen. But at least if I could look as professional as possible in that short amount of time, people would hopefully be open to collaborating, open to being someone that I could professionally turn to as a mentor. Things like that. And it took a lot of money and a lot of planning. Many Google Sheets, many Google Docs (laughs).

Kayla Concannon (41:52):
Many documents were created to pull this off. And I would say maybe my outside observer perspective is that I think you navigated conference successfully. You've gotten connections out of this that have led to different opportunities and some of which we're able to do together, which is the most exciting. So everybody listening should stay tuned. Um, but I, I also think it's, I wonder about kind of the return on investment. So like how much effort and money and time that you put into stuff like that, like does it pay off and is it worth putting that time into? Or, or is it, is it almost possibly healthier to your relationship to yourself to kind of just not have to go through all of those hoops? I don't, I don't know. From a, let's get the perspective of an aerialist. Because-

Jess Bauzá de García (42:47):
Um-

Kayla Concannon (42:47):
... I said go through hoops that didn't land.

Jess Bauzá de García (42:49):
Ah, ah. Ha, ha.

Kayla Concannon (42:51):
Sorry.

Jess Bauzá de García (42:51):
I Don't do hoops. So that's why I was so lost for a second.

Kayla Concannon (42:57):
I didn't know. it was bad (laughs).

Jess Bauzá de García (42:59):
No, um, return on investment is such a funny way of saying that because I actually bought a bunch of clothes specifically obviously for conferences, knowing that now conferences wouldn't be virtual, and I, to prepare for conference. I was putting things together and I needed an app where I could visualize it. I'm one of those people that doesn't have, what is it a mind's eye? Is that what we call it? Um, and I can't just look at stuff hanging in a closet and go, " Mm-hmm. Those things for certain go together." I actually downloaded an app, it's called Purple, and you can write everything about an item. And it's actually super helpful because in femme clothes especially, um, you can be like a medium in one brand, actually not even in one brand, in one specific like fabric of one brand and then be a 2X in something else.

Jess Bauzá de García (43:57):
Um, at one point when I was just starting out my journey to repair my relationship with food, I had everything from an extra small to an XXL in my closet and they all fit. And that was the thing that blew my mind. Uh, that's not the case anymore, but I wanted to be able to have data on that. I'm such a scientist. I'm such a nerd. But I downloaded this app mostly because when you add a new item, you add a picture of it and that's super helpful. And you can get feedback like, what season is this in?

Jess Bauzá de García (44:32):
So I like rotate my closet on seasons. So I'll know where an item is at all times because it also has the location. So is it in my closet? Is it in my dresser? Is it in my storage unit? The price. And then I make outfits on this app. I sound like I'm plugging it. That's so bad. But you put in how much the outfit costs or how much the item cost, and then you can get a price per wear. And that's what-

Kayla Concannon (44:58):
[inaudible 00:44:59].

Jess Bauzá de García (44:58):
... when you said return on investment,

Jess Bauzá de García (45:00):
Then I was like, "Actually, a pair of pants I have already have paid for themselves 'cause I've worn them so much." (laughs)

Kayla Concannon (45:06):
That is something I think about when I'm shopping 'cause a lot of, a lot of, um, a lot of people struggle with, like, impulse spending. And, and I kind of go, like, "Well, what does this actually cost me?" I think about it in two ways, like, what do I make per hour and then what does ... how many hours do I have to work to buy this thing? And then the opposite. If I buy this thing, how much did it cost every time I used it? And that's, that's so cool that the app calculates it for you, um, and that you can coordinate different outfits and see what looks good together. And maybe if you are at a store, and you're thinking about ... or online shopping and you're like, "Oh, I wonder if I could use this item," you can quickly s- probably scan through and see what you already own.

Jess Bauzá de García (45:48):
Oh, yeah. It's great. Like, you can have a- ac-, mm, accessories, um, and then you can, like, rename your different parts of your closet. So I have things like, um, jackets, but then I have blazers in a separate one, and then I have (laughs), oh god ... In Boston, you have to have everything from, like, a trench coat for spring to a trench coat for fall, and then you need three different types of winter coats based on how much ice, snow, or if it's just co- dry cold. Um, so I have, like, all of my (laughs) different coats in there, and then I have different pants and stuff, and it really ... It's, it's an app not meant for autism, but wow, is it helpful to an (laughs) autistic person.

Kayla Concannon (46:33):
That's universal design. Like, that's it, is that it's designed for people who are probably really into fashion, but it, it's working for you. And I think it is helpful to plug those sorts of things 'cause it helps, it helps each other out. I also wanted to plug a podcast that I love, Maintenance Phase, which does a lot ... Do you like it?

Jess Bauzá de García (46:52):
I love it. I-

Kayla Concannon (46:52):
Oh my god, I love you.

Jess Bauzá de García (46:53):
... I live for Aubrey Gordon.

Kayla Concannon (46:55):
Aubrey Gordon, Michael Hobbs, yeah, and Aubrey's books, uh, awesome, awesome.

Jess Bauzá de García (47:00):
I have ... I think they're actually propping up my laptop right now. I love those books. I have [inaudible 00:47:06] them so many times, it's ridiculous.

Kayla Concannon (47:09):
Well, the books are awesome and the podcast is awesome because the podcast, they go through, like, a lot of trend diets, and they basically debunk a lot of stuff. But they also just do so much about just taking the morality out of people's body size. Like, we, we think ... We assume, like you were saying about healthcare that, like, if a healthcare professional is in a bigger body that we assume that ... those things, that they're lazy, that they don't take care of themselves, whatever. And that's untrue because there are plenty of reasons that people can be in different bodies and most of our bodies have a place where it's just gonna naturally sit when we're healthy.

Kayla Concannon (47:45):
And I think that, um, the opposite is that if we look at, like, someone who's thin and we go, "Wow, they must be ... They must have their shit together. They must be nice. They must be rich." Like, we go through all these sorts of things and it's like, there's so many layers to how people look and what people eat. And in, in a country where we also have s- In a world where we have so many people starving and in food deserts, and just unable to access healthy things, it's, it's really, it's really unfair that we place so much judgment on how people look.

Jess Bauzá de García (48:21):
Yes, and even calling things healthy. Like, do we mean nutrient dense? Do we mean that it's a fruit or a vegetable? But, uh, if you could give ... I mean, college me, you could have given me a zucchini and that would've been a healthy thing. But I didn't have access to any way to transform it into something edible. It ... Great, I'm so glad I have this zucchini, but it's, it's literally going to rot in my mini fridge and that's something that I think about all the time when people talk about food deserts, and why are you eating fast food? I'm eating fast food because it's literally fast. Um, I have 20 minutes before I have to be home, and I have to feed a family, and it's calories. It's keeping me alive. (laughs) It's ... I'm not going to bed starving and it's not always heal- Like, I feel like the healthiest thing (laughs), fed is best. I know that's for babies (laughs), but fed is best for people too. Um, it might not be, like, a salad with kale and lemon juice, and gosh, I'm trying to think of, like, super food, super foods. Like, it doesn't have sliced almonds and, like-

Kayla Concannon (49:41):
Quick-

Jess Bauzá de García (49:41):
... those m-

Kayla Concannon (49:41):
... [inaudible 00:49:42] foods. (laughs)

Jess Bauzá de García (49:43):
... those mushrooms that are everyone thinks are going to anti-age you. It might not be that, but it's food, and it's dinner, and you're gonna go to bed with a full stomach. And you're not gonna have all the hormones in your body going, "I'm starving. Let's hold on to every single fat molecule that we hold." And I think that's really important for people to get beyond. Not every choice needs to be a piece of kale wrapped around an apple slide.

Kayla Concannon (50:14):
Yeah.

Jess Bauzá de García (50:14):
And-

Kayla Concannon (50:15):
And kale-

Jess Bauzá de García (50:15):
And also foo-

Kayla Concannon (50:17):
... [inaudible 00:50:17] salmonella. Like, (laughs) it's-

Jess Bauzá de García (50:18):
Exactly. Oh my gosh.

Kayla Concannon (50:20):
(laughs)

Jess Bauzá de García (50:20):
But also, like, that's another thing. An apple slice wouldn't be healthy for me. I'm allergic. And so many people try to give diet advice because they think people don't know better. I, I know that for most people a sliced apple would be a great snack but for me, I'll end up with hives all over my chest and mouth, and God knows what kind of havoc that is wreaking in my endocrine system, in my inf-, like, in inflammation in my body, how long it's gonna take for all of those hives to go away. Um, swelling, things like that. And no one, no one thinks of that. (laughs) Um, so yeah. Morality out of food. Morad- Morality out of body size. Fat people have been around forever. I love when people try to go, "In the 1950s, women were 80 pounds." Yes, that is what you see because that is what media loved. But guess what? There were fat people.

Jess Bauzá de García (51:19):
There's ... I can't even remember the name of it. There's an Instagram account that shows historic fat people because they were not celebrated. (laughs) They were, they were just not someone that people would depict, and I feel like that's what people are gonna think when they look back on the 2020s and the, oh ... especially the early aughts that everyone was thin. No. No, everyone probably had some version of disordered eating that they were dealing with (laughs). Um, or they were taking some kind of diet pill that was going to ruin their health long term. But, um, no, fat people still existed and fat people were still competent, and still smart, and were successful, and took care of their families, and had children, and were mentors. But maybe they just weren't what people wanted to see when they looked in a picture.

Kayla Concannon (52:15):
Yeah, I think that's sort of a, a ... The storyline is true for so many groups that have been erased through history. I mean, like, I ... You talk to a lot of people's grandparents right now, and they'll say, "Oh, I never, I never met anybody that was autistic." And it's like, well, yeah, 'cause they were in institutions. Like, there's [inaudible 00:52:36]-

Jess Bauzá de García (52:36):
Or, or if they were helpful to the economy, they were just the weird person. Like-

Kayla Concannon (52:42):
Yes.

Jess Bauzá de García (52:42):
I love when (laughs) ... I love when the older generations are like, "The, this new autism thing," and it's like, hey, my uncle has a train set that wraps around his entire basement that he has hand-painted diligently every night." (laughs) Yeah, no, autism's definitely brand new.

Kayla Concannon (53:01):
Yes. Yes. Ye- Exactly. It's like, just 'cause you don't remember it or just 'cause you weren't exposed to it doesn't mean it didn't happen and doesn't mean it wasn't there, and that's true for so many things, and I, I feel like ... Obviously, we do talk all the time and recording our (laughs) conversation is, is new. But I do think that there's so much that people should continue looking out for you for. So I want you to shout out your different accounts and stuff. Um, and I also want to make sure that we have time for you to give, like, a key takeaway besides that you did the classic occupational therapy, helped people find jobs [inaudible 00:53:45], which is hilarious to me, that, that you did that too, but-

Jess Bauzá de García (53:49):
So are you asking for my handles? Sorry.

Kayla Concannon (53:51):
That's great.

Jess Bauzá de García (53:51):
You have to be so-

Kayla Concannon (53:52):
Yeah.

Jess Bauzá de García (53:52):
... specific (laughs) with me (laughs).

Kayla Concannon (53:55):
(laughs) I am asking for, yeah, your accounts, your website, um, any- anything that you wanna shout out because people have to follow you because people have to know what you're up to next 'cause it's lots of exciting stuff. And I also want your, like, key takeaway.

Jess Bauzá de García (54:11):
Cool. I'll do key takeaway first because that feels right. So, like, a lesson that I want people to learn from this, um, isn't everyone is a horrible person. (laughs) That's not what I want people to think I'm saying. Um, what I'm saying is that you should try to analyze and really interrogate your internal biases, um, and be really intentional in the way that you treat other people. Um, something I really like to tell people to do is Harvard, on their website has something called the implicit bias test and it can give you really good information about yourself and your unconscious internal biases. And obviously, you can game them. You can get them to say that you have no bias against minoritized people, but that's not helpful.

Jess Bauzá de García (54:58):
Taking those tests and getting that information no matter how uncomfortable the results are is just data. Take that data, and then you can use it to unlearn the shortcuts your brain has made when you were growing up. That's what an internal or an unconscious bias is. Your brain wanted to find a way to not have to analyze every situation as brand new, so they made short cuts. So you just have to unlearn them. You aren't a bad person for having an internal, unconscious bias, but you can work on yourself and that's something that you ... You don't just turn 25 or 30, and you're done. You're an adult and this is how you're gonna be forever. That's how we end up with really hateful, ignorant people. Um, you can always work on yourself. There's always something you can do to make sure you're the most accepting, kind person. Even if you don't know all the right words, there's still ways that you can be accepting and open. So yeah, that's my final takeaway.

Kayla Concannon (56:04):
Fair enough. Well, JBDG, we will tag accounts, put your email, put all the other things in the show notes so people can reach out to you because there is a lot that you have coming.

Jess Bauzá de García (56:16):
Cool, thank you.

Kayla Concannon (56:17):
Thanks for being here, Jess. Bye.

Jess Bauzá de García (56:19):
Bye.