On September 5, 2026, at a gathering called the Socialism 2026 conference, an Atlanta-based activist named Da'Shaun L. Harrison stood before an audience and declared that weight loss medication is fascism.
They actually called it operational fascism designed to commit genocide against overweight people.
Harrison — a self-described Afropessimist, anarcho-communist, abolitionist, and trans theorist who uses they/them pronouns — delivered the line that launched a thousand memes: "The political deployment of GLP-1s is fascistic, not because individuals take them, but because the conditions under which they become necessary are shaped by a world fixated on genociding fat people."
GLP-1 receptor agonists — the drug class that includes Ozempic and Wegovy — were originally developed to treat Type 2 diabetes. They also help people lose weight, which is why millions of Americans now take them. Doctors prescribe them. Insurance covers them. The FDA approved them. But according to Harrison, the entire framework is a genocidal conspiracy.
The clip went viral after Stu Smith posted it on X under the handle @thestustustudio. Within hours it had racked up millions of views from people who could not quite believe what they were watching. Which is understandable. There's a learning curve when someone tells you that helping diabetics manage their blood sugar is a fascist plot.
Harrison's theoretical framework apparently draws on Frantz Fanon, the mid-century anti-colonial writer, to argue that fat bodies — specifically Black fat bodies — exist under a form of "colonial surveillance." The leap from postcolonial theory to "Ozempic is genocide" is the kind of thing that only makes sense if you've read enough theory to forget how words work.
When your political framework requires you to oppose a medication that reduces heart attacks, strokes, and kidney disease because acknowledging its benefits would undermine your thesis that weight loss is oppression — you are no longer doing politics. You are doing theology.
The left's relationship with health has been trending this direction for years. "Healthy at every size" moved from fringe blog posts to medical school curricula. Suggesting that obesity carries health risks became a microaggression. Personal trainers got accused of fatphobia. But calling a prescription medication "fascist" at a socialist conference is a new altitude record.
Ozempic doesn't care about your pronouns, your political theory, or your feelings about colonial surveillance. It binds to a receptor, slows gastric emptying, and reduces A1C levels. The pancreas is not ideological.
Apparently that's the problem.