‘Woman of Size’ Says She Experienced Discrimination Because Harry Potter Ride Seat Was Too Small

Self-identifying “woman of size” Jana Schmieding says she experienced “size-based discrimination” at Universal Studios when she was told that she was too large to fit on the Harry Potter ride.

Blogger Jana Schmieding was kicked off the “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” ride at Universal Studios because she wasn’t able to properly fit in the ride system’s seats. According to Schmieding, this was an act of “size-based discrimination” that aims to eliminate overweight people.

Schmieding, who hosts a podcast called “Woman of Size” about the alleged discrimination against fat women’s bodies, said that her friend informed her that she was also kicked off of the ride because of her weight.  “Heads up. I was kicked off the Hogwarts ride because I didn’t fit. It was humiliating but they gave me front of the line passes to rest of the rides at Universal. Just be aware,” the friend wrote.

Even though the park treats overweight patrons to a “front of the line pass” for any other ride in the park when such inconveniences arise, Schmieding contends that the size of the seats on the ride were designed by “sizeist-ass muggles” looking to make overweight people “disappear” from society.

Woof. I’d been investigating size-based discrimination for several months, interviewing and publishing conversations with women in my life who have experienced body shame, injustice and inequity around their size, gender, race and presence. Clearly, our world would prefer that women who look like the Fat Lady painting that guards Gryffindor Tower just … disappear. “Evanesco,” the spell in Harry Potter that causes an object, animate or inanimate, to vanish into non-being, is not just fictional sorcery to women of size. It’s a very real experience that we often shoulder so that sizeist-ass muggles can sleep comfortably at night knowing they’ll never catch the fat we’ve been told we’re spreading.

Schmieding passionately argues that companies consciously make decisions to keep the public “safe from” fat people.

“While ‘safety’ is often the given reason that fat people are excluded, it’s clear to us that companies are actually just keeping the general public safe from our fatness,” she finished.