Lesley Kinzel

Lesley Kinzel

Lesley Kinzel

Writer, recovering editor, and mouthy fat broad. Usually sipping tea. Actual tea.

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Nobody Owes You Fat Positivity: On Weight Loss Surgery as “Betrayal”

I’m tired.

Apr 27, 2018 · 10 min read

Before and After: A Mythology

In my earliest memories I am already fat. There is no before.

Jan 21, 2018 · 5 min read

You Are Visiting The Library of Congress

If you walk into the public entrance of the Library of Congress expecting to gain access to the Reading Room, you’ll be sadly disappointed.

Dec 8, 2016 · 8 min read

Socially Isolated Kids Are Not Weapons: They Need Help, Not To Be Labeled As Threats

There is an ad going around the internet; you may have seen it. If not, part of me wants to be all “just watch it!” and not spoil anyone…

Dec 3, 2016 · 6 min read

Weight-Obsessed Kate On “This is Us” Is Not the Fat-Positive Role Model I Want, But Maybe That’s OK

Oct 12, 2016 · 8 min read

“This is Us” Fails To Unpack The Tragic Fat Girl Trope At All And It’s Super Bumming Me Out

I’ll forgive you if you’ve somehow managed to remain unaware of This is Us, NBC’s high-expectation fall dramedy. I almost overlooked it…

Sep 21, 2016 · 8 min read

Huge Revisited, Episode 1: Hello, Is It Me You’re Looking For?

I expected a typically depressing story of sad fat teens who uniformly hate themselves. What I got was something more quietly subversive.

Sep 20, 2016 · 16 min read

The Writing Retreat From Hell; Or, A Slightly Terrifying Adventure in Small Town New England

I heard a man’s voice distantly, from somewhere else in the house. It sounded like it was repeating something forcefully. Over and over.

Sep 8, 2016 · 21 min read

Fat Shaming is Not an Individual Problem, It’s a Cultural One

“It’s okay to be curvy, but nobody should be obese.” Choke on that trash before you ever say it again.

Aug 22, 2016 · 10 min read

I Spent 90 Minutes In a Float Tank and Hallucinated I Had Extra Arms, Among Other Things

Relax, damn it.

Lesley Kinzel in Invisible Illness

Aug 16, 2016 · 13 min read

This Is Me, Irrationally Feeling Like a Failure

A delayed reaction.

Aug 12, 2016 · 6 min read

You Don’t Have To Be Beautiful To Turn Me On

Sex confused me. It did many kids, in those shady years between sex being a vague idea spoken of in huddles of lowered voices on middle…

Apr 22, 2016 · 8 min read

How Do You Know if You’re Having a Midlife Crisis, and Other Questions

It was in the fall of 2015 that I noticed I had apparently developed a fear of standing still.

Feb 18, 2016 · 8 min read

Falling Out of Fatshion: How I Lost My Appetite for Writing About Fat Politics

The first Beth Ditto for Evans collection appeared in 2009, and seemed to be a slow-burning phenomenon. There was that domino dress, of…

Feb 16, 2016 · 10 min read

I am on the eleventh floor of a hundred-year-old hotel overlooking San Francisco’s Union Square

Mar 6, 2015 · 5 min read

About those “geeky” sex ads

“Wow you guys, I cannot even fathom why women would ever feel uncomfortable at GDC.” I ran right into a classic case of confirmation bias.

Mar 3, 2015 · 8 min read

Every Year In March I Go To San Francisco

Every year in March I go to San Francisco with the positive intention of magically and overnight becoming a confirmed, ebullient extrovert…

Mar 3, 2015 · 5 min read