The ostomy community had a huge win in spreading awareness this week with the debut of Aerie’s newest releases to their #AerieREAL campaign.  I loved this company already, but holy moly this makes me so thrilled!

If you’re not familiar with Aerie, it’s a sub-brand of American Eagle Outfitters that make lingerie, bras, undies and some lounge, sleep and active wear as well. Their products are cute, comfy and affordable, but even better than that is their #AerieREAL body positivity and empowerment campaign.

In 2014, the #AerieREAL movement kicked off with an announcement that Aerie would stop photoshopping their models. They are all about empowering young women to embrace their beauty, no matter what they look like. Putting a stop to photoshopping their models was a great first step, but over the last four years Aerie has taken it even further.  As their campaign evolved they featured models of all different sizes, shapes, and skin colors, and didn’t hide their models beauty marks or tattoos.

This week they took their message even further and released a new campaign featuring people with different illnesses and disabilities.  So now as you’re scrolling through their products, you see real women of ALL different shapes, sizes, skin colors, illnesses and abilities showing off some awesome bras in their perfectly imperfect bodies (including our fellow ostomate Gaylyn, founder of Gutless and Glamorous!).

This is such a huge move in the direction of awareness and acceptance for ostomates and those with other disabilities and illnesses, and it makes me so happy that it’s gone viral.  It’s human nature to fear the unknown, and when you’re faced with a diagnosis, cure or disability that leaves you looking “different” from everyone else that you know, it’s easy to resist it or go into it feeling helpless and hopeless.  To see someone who “looks like you” being positively represented in mainstream media can do wonders for self-esteem and body confidence.

Thank you Aerie and American Eagle Outfitters, for creating such an inclusive campaign, and for including ostomates in it! Thank you for making the effort to normalize disabilities and illnesses that many people feel they cannot or should not share about.   Step by step, day by day, the stigma about ostomies is taking a back seat to the reality that life with an ostomy can be just as good, if not better than life without one.