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FINALLY earned the badge!

I was teaching a Red Cross fire safety workshop to some cub scouts at a local park. It was an incredibly hot day (heat index over 100), and those of us leading the various instructional sessions in the park had to stay put as the cub scout groups rotated among us. My co-teachers had brought folding lawn chairs, and we took advantage of every opportunity to rest and drink water between groups. At the hottest part of the afternoon, I collapsed into my chair once again, but this time, it buckled beneath me. Once I got over the initial shock and confirmed I wasn’t injured, I started laughing, because all I could think was “FINALLY! I earned my Broke Chair badge!”

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Too damn hot to cover up

At a Mexican resort, I walked from the pool to the beach to the bathroom in just a bathing suit. I got dirty looks, and I looked at them right back with a defiant face as if to say “what”. They looked away and kept on walking. The next time I went to a resort, I wore a bikini – way easier to take down to pee than a damp one-piece. I kept telling myself that if someone has an issue with my body, that is their issue. And it’s too damn hot to cover up!

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Butt 1, Interior Design 0

I was at an event at a friend’s house, a friend whose wife is a fancy interior designer and whose house is designed at every turn. The guest bathroom has a marble and copper basin to wash your hands. and a specialized toilet with a seat apparently not rated for my specialized ass, because it cracked when I sat on it.

No one should design a toilet seat that doesn’t support quite a bit of weight. I was brave enough to let my friend know right away rather than let her discover the broken toilet later; she was gracious enough to commiserate about its apparent fragileness and not blame my size.

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Fat Positive Therapist My Fat Ass!

I went on a web-site to find a fat- positive therapist (body-positive/whatevs). It was a website that lists fat positive providers. So I found one, [Redacted]. I went to my appointment, sat in the waiting room, and watched a thin man exit the door of [Redacted]’s office.

I walked in and saw the usual set-up: chair with therapist in it across from chair for client. I went to go sit in the client chair, and she yelled out, “Don’t sit in that chair! It’s not for people like you!”

Following, an awkward conversation ensued where I was instructed to drag over the Fat Chair.

So, yeah, while I didn’t get to break a chair, I did my best to try! Oh, and I never went back! Now tell me why the fat chair couldn’t have just been for EVERYONE?!

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Well, Actually I Sexed a Bed to Death…

I’d always approached my new lover’s bed with a practiced wariness given it was both an IKEA frame and a creaky relic from her college years. That particular day, however, I threw caution to the wind and we basically sexed it across the room and back. Well, halfway back — ‘cuz then came that fateful *CRACK* as we both tumbled sideways onto the floor.

I was absolutely mortified but she just laughed and looked rather impressed with our achievement. I called a friend who drove over in her truck and power-tooled it back together again (with a few extra supports) while smirking.

Life is short. Break the furniture.

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My health, Mansplained

My partner and a friend and I were on a train to join a few others for a nice day out in Bath, UK. After a few minutes it dawned on me that the man behind me was speaking very pointedly and loudly to his wife (but in my direction) about how terrible fat people are, how we’re ‘just like drunks’ and should be denied medical services and taxed according to our size. It was a long, vitriolic rant with an ever-increasing volume, and it hit me like a ton of bricks just how dehumanising the entire thing was.

I tried to stand up to him but I failed as I was so struck by the cruelty of it. Specifically, by how much word I would have had to do in that moment *just* to have him look at me as an actual human being, worth the same kind of basic respect and decency any human should offer to another. It messed with me but ultimately it solidified something in my perspective.

What was meant to tear me down and make me feel worthless in fact built me up instead. It lit a fire in me of defiant humanity and it taught me to extend to myself the compassion and empathy that others might not, and to work to counter dehumanisation as an activist and artist. I’ll take my badge now!

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Stranger Soda Censure

I’m sitting in an airport terminal, completely FREAKING OUT as I’m about to get on a plane to fly internationally for the first time alone. It’s 6:30AM and I slept exactly 45 mins. the night before ‘cuz butterflies, packing panic, and full-to-bursting excitement. I make it through security with literally 2 hours to spare because I’m chronically early when I’m stressed out so I grab a much-needed dose of caffeine in the form of a diet coke (sugared sodas make me feel like I need to shave my teeth and I am one of approximately three people from the Pacific Northwest that absolutely loathes coffee).

I’m sitting in the waiting area, uselessly jabbing at my phone with nervous fingers, when I become aware of a voice just at the edge of my consciousness.

“Excuse me. Ma’am?…Ma’am?”

I look up. “Yes?”

“You know that stuff is poison, right?”

Confused brows.

“You really shouldn’t be drinking that. I get that you want to lose weight but diet coke is not the way to do it.”

“Umm — I’m good, thanks.”

She moves a chair closer. “I don’t mean to pry.”

“Really? ‘Cuz it seems like you do.”

“It’s just, the universe just told me you needed to hear this right now. There are better ways to lose weight that won’t harm you in the process.”

The rest is a blur of not-having-it-ness. I managed to tell her that I wasn’t trying to lose weight (shock-face!) and that, while I agreed with her about diet coke being not-awesome, what I do with my body was none of her concern. I told her about Fat Activism, ‘concern trolling’, and our gawd-given right to have imperfect coping mechanisms that we work through in our own way, at our own pace, without pandering condescensions from strangers. She eventually got it. Yay!

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Taking One for Team Fat

If being popular is your goal, doing fat activist work is probably not your best bet. It’s a counter-cultural belief system that flies in the face of all the hefty (har!) symbolism that’s been assigned to fat bodies in society; sloth, greed, lack of intelligence, immorality, lack of self-control, etc. etc. etc. Fat Activism, like Feminism before it, is the radical notion that fat people are, in fact, actually people. And that fat is not some disembodied wrong that needs righting, but is one aspect of a whole and complex being who will most likely defy stereotype in myriad ways.

Reminding society of fat people’s humanity is a difficult job. Fighting against stigma while actively experiencing it takes a big toll. Fat Activists on the front lines in media, in the workplace, in legislation, or even in interpersonal dialogues with family and friends are often suffering for that work. Fat voices in the media open themselves up to harassment via social media (sometimes extending to dangerous doxxing and rape/death threats). In the workplace, they open themselves up to discrimination and job loss. In politics they risk losing respect and clout. And interpersonally, they risk rejection and loss.

I recently earned this badge by having this very project ripped to shreds in the Telegraph by someone who said it made her ‘retch’ to think about fat people being ‘rewarded’. A friend gave me some good advice when I started to take this to heart. She said: “If you throw a stone into a pack of dogs, the one that you hit is the one that yelps.” The harshest critics are often the ones who need the end result of this work the most: empathy and compassion. I hope she finds it. I certainly have!

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Will someone please just invent Fatty Airlines, Already?!?

You know it’s real love when a fat girl willingly flies 5,000 miles. Twice a year. In coach. Alone.

Flying isn’t fun for anyone but for fat folks it’s basically a voluntary psychological ass-kicking. International flying ups the stakes with longer, packed flights, unfamiliar procedures, tight schedules, and stressed-out co-passengers. Prior to falling in love with my partner (who lived in London, UK while I lived in Oregon), I’d basically declared flying to be a no-go unless I could magically afford first class tickets to minimise stress.

If you’re not familiar, first class international tickets cost approximately TEN SQUILLION DOLLARS (plus tax) which is about 9.9999 SQUILLION more than most people have got. I literally DO NOT KNOW who flies in First Class? Who are those people?? WHERE DO THEY GET TEN SQUILLION DOLLARS FROM?? But anyway:

After my partner got her dream job in London, the chances of me talking her into coming back to Portland so I never had to fly anywhere dropped significantly. It was suck it up and fly in coach or wave goodbye to my favourite person on the planet. SO I sucked it up. And I flew. A LOT. And then I moved. And now I *still* have to fly a lot because all of the *other* people I love still live where I used to and so far none of them have agreed to move to a new country so I don’t have to fly anymore. Jerks.

I can say, though: Worth it. All of it. And London is beautiful.

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Full Moon, Mermaid, Butt-Nekkid, Sea Swimming!

Because I’m basically a walking homosexual stereotype, my partner and I went to Lesvos last year on holiday. We met up with a gaggle of friends and spent our afternoons dipping in and out of the water and sunning ourselves on the clothing optional ‘ladies’ beach’.

I’m pretty empowered as a general rule but my swimsuit game has always been a little conservative. The last swimsuit I ordered ended up having so much extraneous fabric that I wore it to a party one night as a cocktail dress. After having my picture taken surreptitiously (or not so surreptitiously, considering I caught her in the act) by a Mean Girl on the beach the year before, I felt determined to not be shamed out of soaking up some sun in Lesvos. Still, the furthest I got (while everyone else was half-nekkid around me) was having an unskirted swimsuit and taking my arms out of the straps to sun my shoulders. I felt OK about it, though. It was progress.

But then one night a full moon and a generous helping of Tsipouro worked some midnight mermaid magic on my inhibitions. Walking back from an evening out, a group of us caught a whim and made a mad dash for the water, stripping off and hooting all the way, until we were all butt-nekkid and cackling in the Aegean. It was a glorious moment of freedom and joy that I will never forget. (Nor will I forget that our partners got saucy and made off with our clothes, forcing us to search for them on the beach in the dark, still nekkid.)

Badge well-earned!

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Picked the Wrong Battle – but at least I fought!

When I moved away from the liberal, fat-accepting bubble of Portland, Oregon, I had ZERO tools in my emotional toolbelt to deal with the amount of side-eye I was getting EVERY DAY. Moving from a city of 600,000 with an intense car culture to a walking/public transit city of 8 million was a shocker. I don’t think people realize what a buffer a car can be and how much it shields you from awkward interactions with the cranky strangers spooning you on trains.

Shortly after I moved to London, my partner and I went to Italy for a holiday. The staring there was much worse, especially in the fashion-centric areas like Florence and Rome. I was hyper-aware of my surroundings and feeling raw and exposed. At one point, a man and his son spent an entire 45 minute train ride blatantly pointing and laughing at me from across the aisle. It gradually wore me down to a dark place. My partner asked me why I didn’t fight back and I said that it honestly hadn’t occurred to me.

I decided it was time to speak up and the next day as we headed out to board a train for Pompeii, I puffed myself up for the inevitable. Walking down the platform, I noticed a man leaning over a railing and staring. He watched me, unblinking, from the moment I appeared until we were directly in front of him. Furiously, as we started to pass him I turned my head and said “YES???” in a “Can I HELP YOU WITH SOMETHING” tone. His response was a slow, sexy, appreciative “Yeeeeeesssssss!” Incredibly Gross Misogyny aside, that’s pretty damn funny. I finally put up my dukes and the guy I challenged was a lover, not a fighter. 😉

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Dude didn’t even hang up his cell phone!

I’d just had a wonderful afternoon with another fat friend, talking about fat feelings and social justice and mental health while we sat alongside the Thames River and then took a stroll in the sunlight along the SouthBank towards St. Paul’s. I was feeling blissed out from all the warmth and connection and experiencing that kind of healing that only really comes from sharing stories and affirming one another’s existence.

And then an angry little dude in a business suit pulled his cell phone away from his ear long enough to spit at my feet in a crosswalk and yell at me to “Jesus Christ, get some goddamn exercise!” before going back to his conversation.

I just kept walking to the other side of the street, sort of taking in what had happened and figuring out how to process it. I turned around to look back across at him. He’d just kept walking, no turning around to look back.

The thing that bothered me most was that he felt so entitled to abuse me on the street that he hadn’t the slightest bit of shame about doing it into the ear of whomever was on the other end of that cell phone. Granted, angry little men like him probably don’t keep the best company, but I think some stubbornly naive part of me imagines that people who lash out at others in blatantly cruel ways at least have the good sense to be vaguely ashamed of it. Not so with this angry little man.

The badge-worthy moment in this, however, is that what struck me in the moment was his lack of shame — and not the shame he tried to make me feel. That shame never came at all.

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Taking the space I need

When I first moved to London, I was unprepared for the crush of the daily commute. The sheer number of people here is astounding and space is at a premium on trains and busses. Seats are small and stuck right together. Ventilation isn’t great. People can be stinky, cranky, loud, rude, and volatile. I’ve seen more than a few fights break out on train platforms at rush hour.

I fit in a single seat but there’s not a lot of wiggle room. And like any formerly-bullied fat girl, I was hyper-aware of that awkward feeling of having the only empty seat on the entire bus be next to me. For the first couple of years, even when I got on a completely empty bus, I would habitually crush myself up against the window, hunch down, fold up my arms, and try to make myself as small as possible. It was physically uncomfortable and emotionally stressful and frankly ridiculous given the aforementioned fact of an EMPTY BUS.

Over time I started watching others — manspreaders, people who sit on the outside seat and fill the other with their bags, youth who hang their legs over the sides — so many entitled people feeling zero shame about taking up not just what space they literally need but also as much space as they possibly can — without apology.

I thought about the moral judgments that get placed on me for simply existing in the body I have, no matter how thoughtfully – and how none of that applied to people who intentionally made it as difficult as possible for other people to be comfortable. And then I thought – to hell with it.

I will take the space I need. No more, no less. Kindly, respectfully, but without apology.

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Like, I’m not even going to tell a story – I just deserve this by default.

Going to the doctor is a complete pain in the ass for fat people. Pretty much we all just deserve this badge for practicing good self-care and medical self-advocacy in a biased, stigmatising medical system.

If you go to the doctor when you need to, you deserve this badge.

If you go to the doctor preventatively, you deserve like ten of these badges.

If you’ve ever been fat-shamed instead of listened to, you deserve this badge. If you’ve ever been pressured about surgeries you don’t want, you deserve this badge. If you’ve ever gone in with a chest cold and come away with a diabetes test, you deserve this badge. If you’ve ever been misdiagnosed because your doctor blamed everything on your fat, you deserve this badge plus probably a settlement.

Keep taking care of yourself, fellow fat folks! And I’ll do the same.