I must confess, I have a problem (let’s say feelings) with a lot of points in this article. Am I obligated to get behind the fat acceptance movement because I am also a lesbian? And am I a douchebag because I am not attracted to fat women? Am I an asshole because I was fat and then lost 70lbs? Did I somehow sell out? Am I a jerk because I think fatness is more in your control than you think it is, and it’s perfectly okay to not want to be fat based on how the world treats you? Maybe I am all of these things, but that is how I feel.
One commenter, who described herself as a “formerly fat, now fit, lesbian,” said she was “disgusted” by “the false parallels drawn between the real systemic oppression of LGBT people… and not being able to fit your fat ass into an airplane seat.” Another wrote: “Oh, hell no, I am not living my life in the closet so [you] can eat more Doritos and whine about oppression…Put down the goddamn McDonald’s and read a fucking book.”
This article and “Sized Up” were both pretty illuminating and hard-hitting for me. Illuminating because while I’m against both fatphobia and homophobia, I’ve never really considered the ways they intersect. Hard-hitting because I glimpsed some of my own thoughts and actions in both articles. When you wrote, in “Sized Up,” about being afraid of getting “too fat,” I instantly recognized my own mindset; I’m afraid of gaining weight because I don’t want to be a stereotypical “fat lesbian.” I would never outwardly judge another queer woman for her weight, and yet I’m still passing judgement, in a way, through my self-judgement. So yeah, a pretty powerful realization.
Actually, “fat” is just kind of the term the “fat acceptance” movement has latched onto. I don’t ADORE it or anything, but using it is a matter of reclamation. So if a fat person wants to use the word fat, let’s not silence them, and as a fat person, I recognize that the author of this article is mostly using the term to describe a specific movement. It’s kind of like, some lesbians like the word “dyke,” and others don’t, but it’s one thing to say it as a lesbian, and it’s another thing coming from a straight man. So I would say that traditionally-sized (?) or thinner people should be careful the ways in which they use “fat,” but otherwise it’s a completely acceptable term.
The problem with a lot of the arguments that fat acceptance people make is that they blur the line between people who are 10-30 lbs overweight (maybe a little more for guys) but are healthy because they have an active lifestyle and/or have more muscle mass and a normal %bodyfat and the people who are sedentary and clinically obese. And they use the argument that “BMI is bullshit because of [the former group of people]” to justify themselves. Obesity is not genetic. Some people might gain weight easier than others, or naturally be a little heavier, but no one is genetically wired to be 45% bodyfat, Look at a picture from the 1920’s. How many obese people do you see? And, before everyone decides that I’m an ignorant, fat-phobic asshole, I’m not about shaming fat people. But to say that individuals aren’t at least partly responsible for their weight/%bodyfat/fitness is totally wrong.
