Image from Postsecret.com
This post about my new identity as an ex-fat femme and the implications of being a former fat femme appears originally at The Femmes Guide, where I am a contributing writer. It fits in nicely here, so I thought I’d share it with you, also.
In a recent discussion amongst ourselves we came to the conclusion that we need more diversity in our group of contributors. I believe it was stated something along the lines of us all being white, with advanced educations, and with the exception of one (me) identified as fat femmes. I still fit though. I’m an ex-fat femme.
Not long ago I came out, not as a queer femme, but as an ex-fat queer femme. I started talking about this recently with friends, how life has changed for me, especially as a femme, being thin. I’ve been informed that the rules have changed and I now have to learn how to navigate my way through society as a thin woman, which means (and my friend really did say this) I’m not supposed to use the word fat anymore. Really? Is that true? Is it like the “N Word”? Maybe it’s the equivalent of calling myself queer, but not wanting someone else to call me a queer? I don’t know.
Let me give you some background. In February of 2007 I went to the doctor. I had a baby at home with a midwife in 2005. I hadn’t seen my weight since 2005. I knew I was fat, but I didn’t expect them to say, “270 lbs. today”. I immediately began to cry and cried through my entire initial consultation with a physician I had never met. She must have thought I was nuts. Well, kind of. I was there for refills on my antidepressants.
I cried and cried and cried and came home and cried some more. 2 7 0. Two hundred and seventy pounds. I felt sexy. I still felt like other people found me to be sexy. My delicious husband never let on that he didn’t enjoy my body or find me attractive. Our former girlfriend was a yummy size 18 and never once did I find her anything but perfect in her skin. Yet the numbers resonated in my head. Of course I knew I was fat. I could only buy clothes at Lane Bryant or go with the limited selection of “plus-sized woman” options in a mainstream department store that were sinfully ugly. I remember feeling like it was a punishment for being fat - either pay exorbitant prices at Lane Bryant or wear the ugly fat lady clothes.
Something fundamental changed that day, and I can’t tell you what it was. It wasn’t about being healthy. I know, it should be. It was something else that I hope to be able to pinpoint by writing about this topic. I strictly couldn’t process that I was 30 lbs. shy of 300 lbs. and I am only 5′ 4″.
Fast forward to today - it is August, 2007. I weigh 140 lbs. I’m a size six. Life is very different and apparently the rules of engagement have changed. I’m going to try to figure them out, and hopefully you’ll help me by just giving me a place to write about it here. I want to, for example, write about how uncomfortable it makes other people that I’ve lost weight and they haven’t, or how people now worry I’m anorexic because I am so self-disciplined.
This post would go on forever and a day if I were to talk about each of those 130 lbs. that I’ve lost and all the work that went into each one of them - physical and emotional. Everybody wants to know the secret. There was a rumor where I used to work that I had gastric bypass surgery (how else could she have lost all that weight?). I didn’t. I would have, but the process seemed so complex and complicated.
Here’s what I did, in a nutshell: I changed the way I thought about the world. I changed the way I thought about myself. I changed virtually every element of who I am except for the core values I hold and my red hair and freckles. I journaled every day. I found ways to enjoy exercise (a totally unique concept to me). I did it the good, old-fashioned way and threw in a bunch of yoga, visualization techniques, meditation and neuro-linguistic programming. I’m far from finished. I don’t just mean the last 20 lbs. I want to lose. I mean in the way I see myself now and how that is different from how I thought it would be.
So what do you think? Is fat a naughty word we ought not say unless we ourselves identify as fat? Does it count that some days I feel fat? Can I still support the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance or is it patronizing? [On a side note: I do think it's funny that in their own Cafe Press store their largest size is XL]. Does being thin make me more feminine than when I was fat? I feel more femme than ever, to be honest. Is my friend right? Am I limited to using {BBW, volumptuous, curvy, overweight, larger, bigger, and plus-sized} when all I want to say is fat?
7 comments ↓
Ok I am backwards from you. I spent much of my life as a size 2, then I had babies. I am 5′3″ and I weigh right now 180. Now, granted, that isn’t 280…I am still fat. I don’t think that it is a big deal for you to use the word fat. But that is IMO. I think that if you are refering to yourself it is ok. If you are refering to, lets say me, I would be fine with it. I know that some think it is rude, but I think it is life. In truth, those of us who are overweight/fat know what it takes to be healthy but we choose not to do it. It is a choice. If you want to say fat I say go for it…Lollie
I think any word is what you make it. Vagina Monologues taught us to embrace the word “cunt.” On Scarlet Lotus’ blog, she very much embraces the word “fat.” I can call myself fat without feeling shame about it. I feel shame that I am not in the best shape of my life, but if I were the same size I am and still in great shape, I would feel no shame. I think it is the thin-centric American society that has shrouded the word “fat” with such a stigma.
And for what it’s worth Miz Catalina, I think you are gorgeous how you are, and I would have thought you were gorgeous when you were 270 pounds as well!
Thank you TYTM - I think you are very sweet to say that. Well, when I was fat, I felt very much okay with calling myself fat. I took a certain pride in that I didn’t own scales and refused to be weighed for the doctor to look at the owie on my finger… So I think I embraced the word not just as a label, but a true description. To me it was just like saying I’m white instead of Anglo-Saxon or Caucasian. All the other options seemed like euphemisms for what I just felt was fat.
Honestly, I think that in general, the only reason why a thin person uses the word fat is to point out that someone is fat - herein lies the problem - it can be a really derogatory term - instead of stupid bitch, you call someone a fat bitch. I heard that more than once. Now I’m just a stupid bitch. OR, it could just be a description - I’m describing my friend “Mary” to a potential suitor, and so now do I say my friend Mary is fat or that she’s {choose a politically correct term}? According to my friend, I should use a different term. Even if *she* herself identifies as fat, I shouldn’t.
Make sense? It doesn’t make any sense to me at all. Thus, my intention to think this through and figure it out.
Wow! I’m so impressed by how healthy you sound!
Thanks for this great post. Although never ID’d as “fat,” I lost some weight over the past few years–not a lot but I did go down a few dress sizes. I feel great about myself but have noticed that some feminists/queers who would never negatively comment on a woman’s “plus” size feel entitled to make remarks about my size, implying that I’m too skinny. (I’m a size 6 too.)
I see what you’re friend is getting at, but I don’t think the analogy with the n word quite works. I think the situation here is more analogous to queer. I’m perfectly comfortable with someone who is not queer using that word even if they don’t ID as queer as long as he/she is an “out” queer ally. I don’t think you’ve betrayed fat liberation by chosing to be thin, just like I don’t think that queer/bi people who chose to partner with “the opposite sex” (I use the term precariously) have betrayed queer politics and/or their queer friends.
That said, it does sound like, although you feel that your subject position has not changed in certain fundamental ways, others will and do see you differently. Even you acknowledge that in order to lose the weight (an amazing accomplishment!), you changed the way you thought about the world and about yourself.
It seems like the challenge is to acknowledge that you ARE different while still being true to your femme (feminist?) politics.
Good luck, and come visit me sometime on my blog!
…so much to consider…
Thanks for the nice comment. I want to write more, but honestly it’s 1:52 and I can’t think clearly. I’ll be back :)
And I just clicked your blog, so I’ll see you there!
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