I know that you have learned to hate your body.
I know the messages, the images, the comments, both cruel and well-intended. I know the sinking feeling of seeing your changing body in the mirror, the sharp pain as your clothes dig into newly soft flesh.
I know it hurts…
Just say fat.
Not “curvy” or “chubby” or “chunky” or “fluffy” or “more to love” or “big guy” or “full-figured” or “big-boned” or “queen size” or “husky” or “obese” or “overweight.”
Just say fat.
Do not screw up your face, straining as you reach for phrases like “he…struggles with his…
Note: contains discussion of anti-queer and anti-trans violence, including suicide.
I’ll never forget my first Pride. I had been one of precious few out kids in my small high school at the turn of the millennium. My experience of queerness, like many before me, was one of isolation. There is…
I was 18 the first time I met a fat sister in arms. It was my first semester of college, and we immediately gravitated toward one another, buoys in the choppy waters of an unfamiliar sea.
That year, we became closer than either of us expected. Both of us had…
“I’ll give you my old dress! You’ll love it.”
A family friend is offering a kind gift: a dress she thinks I’ll like. She is a size 10. I am a size 26.
“That’s so sweet of you,” I say. “But I don’t think it’ll fit.”
“It’s got a lot…
I never thought I was a work from home person. I’d spent a dozen years in high-pressure jobs in big and bustling offices. I couldn’t fathom staying motivated without the exoskeleton of regular meetings, accountable face-to-face relationships with colleagues, and more. …
The conversation is always the same and no less heartbreaking for its familiarity.
After days, weeks, months of talking with their fat friends and family, a straight-size person (that is, someone who doesn’t wear plus sizes) realizes that anti-fat bias isn’t just the work of devoted bigots, bad actors hell-bent…
I spent nearly a decade away from doctors’ offices.
I was insured. I could afford my copay. But I weighed around 400 pounds, and nearly every doctor I saw made it clear that bodies like mine weren’t worth their time. So I simply stopped going.
And I’m not alone. 62%…
It was 105 degrees outside — a nightmare for someone like me.
I am 36 years old and 338 pounds, which means strangers regularly comment on my body, my clothing, what I eat. Despite spending the lion’s share of my life on weight loss programs, my body remains stubbornly the…
Celebrity fitness trainer Jillian Michaels seems to want it both ways: She insists that she’s “inclusive” when talking about people’s bodies, yet at the same time she can’t help but editorialize on the body of a plus-size pop star. …
