Fatitude: Rejecting the Platitudes

Submitted by Meaghan, who loves the Phase and contributes occasionally to TNG.

I've started this post so many times, in my head and on the computer, and I can't seem to find peace with any introduction to my perspective. Writing about fat, and being fat, is incredibly difficult. It's not only difficult because I have emotions (or "baggage") tied to it, it's not only difficult because I'm constantly fielding cues and directives from major and minor media about my fatness, and it's not only difficult because people feel entitled to talk about my body and what I do with it regardless of whether I give them permission, and it's not only difficult because the average person finds it impossible to consider all of the intersectionalization behind fatness. It's difficult for those reasons and so many more. In order to write a coherent and emotionally-controlled piece about being fat, I type in fear that someone will take advantage of my vulnerability and attack me for being who and what I am. So here goes...

Hey, D.C. I'm a big fat lesbian.

You've probably seen me in your bars, on your streets, in your restaurants ... EATING ... and you've probably thought some really fantastic things about me. My big bulky arms, midsection, my thick thighs, huge ass, multiple chins or even how I hold eating utensils, how I carry food from the plate to my mouth, how I accidentally spill something now and then on my enormous bosom. You've noticed, you've thought about it, and some of you have even been generous enough to share your opinions with me. Hell, when I was out to dinner last night and asked the server about my dairy free options because I have an allergy, he just assumed I was on a diet and told me about all of their "lean" dishes instead.

You're proud of me when I read labels in the grocery store, assuming I'm counting my Weight Watcher's points, and you probably assume I idolize all the great fat role-models like Camryn Manheim, Beth Ditto, America Ferrera and Queen Latifah.

You probably assume that I'm not partnered, or have never been kissed, and how lonely it must be to be fat and unloved. You probably wonder where I find clothes, and why they never fit right, and how hard it must be to not be able to go shopping with friends at any mainstream stores, or to run the risk of always having an identical item of clothing as the other fat girls out that night because fat clothes are a dime a dozen.

You make a lot of assumptions about me and about fat people. And I'm here as one fat person to say that your critique is our baggage.

Fat people, like anyone with a socially unacceptable quality, aren't born with shame or anger. Assumptions made in Ben's post last week, both in the original text and in the comments, are what continues to divide fat and not-fat people.

My fatness will not be cured with lentils and salads. Fat is more than just about health and exercise. If you have never been fat, it is more than you can comprehend. But when people take it upon themselves to align fatness with badness or wrongness, they do a great disservice to themselves. It is shallow, presumptuous, superficial and cruel to feel entitled to discuss other people's bodies.

I am fortunate that I am a lesbian, because I have been told that fat men in the gay community have it even harder than I do.

Curves, chub, and voluptuousness are prized among many lesbians, but the image-consciousness for which the gay male community is notorious does not escape any of us. There is even a non-profit organization that hosts an annual week of workshops, called NoLose, that helps queer women, dykes, bisexual and trans people and their allies debunk, deconstruct and endeavor to end fat oppression. There is obviously a consequence to fatphobia and fat hate, and that consequence is not always weight loss.

I realize that this is a lot of information to absorb, and probably many opinions and observations that you feel don't apply to you. You may have never policed, or desired to police, your family's consumption of fried chicken. You probably care deeply about a fat person in your personal life, and are appalled by what I've said here. You probably think I have diabetes, or high cholesterol, or high blood pressure. And you probably wonder why, in fact, Los Angeles has so many fast-food-eating fatties (which launches an entire discussion into racism and classism, and how those beastly machines make it impossible for people in low-income areas to have access to healthy and reasonably priced food that is of good quality).

And I say to you, like a Transformer, there is more than meets the eye.

Consider the expansiveness of a problem, and don't diminish it with your individual lense or perspective. My fatness, and the fatness of any person in this world, is not something for you to contemplate. You don't need to know why I'm fat. If you want to know why anyone is anything in this world, and how they feel about it, let them speak for themselves.

As gay people, we have requested this courtesy be extended to us in order to diffuse hate and maliciousness, and it is only reasonable that we extend the courtesy toward the rest of the world.