When I was at high school in a small town in England, pretty much the worst insults you could possibly have leveled at you were "fat" and "queer". As both, I suffered a double-whammy. And as a teen, I felt ashamed of both. As an adult, I've totally accepted that I dig girls and indeed built much of my career on talking about queer issues. But the fat thing? At five foot one inches tall, I've yo-yoed between just under 100 pounds and just over 200 pounds. I've dieted, binged, starved. I've felt beautiful and big, thin and hollow, huge and wobbly, slender and graceful and every possible permutation in between. I've also loved and admired many, many bigger women in my time. Why am I so confident about my sexuality, so into big chicks myself and yet so confused about how I should feel about my own weight? And why are so many other queer girls I know just the same, torn between fat pride and fat shame?

(Regarding art for this piece we used photos of women with healthy attitudes about body image. No other implication is intended by their inclusion.)

9. "You'd be so pretty if you lost a few pounds."

Whoa, backhander!! Watch me not run and catch it so I can lose those few pounds, because fuck you. This one assumes that I somehow automatically subscribe to mainstream body ideals. How do you know that I do? And if I do, how do you know that I'm not having real trouble losing weight and feeling shitty about it? It's not a compliment, don't say it.

8. "I know this great diet... You enter an isolation chamber for a year and someone blows hot air through a hole in your head every three weeks."

I did a great diet like that once. My periods stopped for a year and I had no energy to even worry if anyone thought I was attractive because I was so goddamned ill.

7. "I'm so fat."

No, you weigh 120 pounds and you somehow think that trying to show solidarity by telling me you also worry about your weight is helpful. Just don't, sweetie. Please. We both have eyes.

6. "I only date fat girls."

Yay, fat fetishists! No fat girl in her right mind is going to fall into the arms of a chubby chaser. Sorry. We don't want you to love us just because we have tummy folds, we want you to love us because we're us. Sure, people often have a type, of course they do. But when it gets into the realms of ONLY wanting girls BECAUSE they're fat and no other reason, then it's a bit creepy.

5. "You have such a great personality!"

Oh, that old chestnut. The fat girl clown. Society dictates that fat girls aren't attractive, so we have to have some other valid role to occupy to that people will like us and we don't have to sit on the margins of society eating Dunkin' Donuts on our own in the dark.

4. "Don't you worry about your health?"

Nobody ever seemed to ask me this when I was starving myself. It's true that weighing 200 pounds was probably not fabulous for me either, but why weigh in (ho ho) to criticize one end of the spectrum and not the other? To be honest, unless you're pretty big, a few extra pounds isn't going to hurt you a lot more than going on the latest raw kale diet for three years. Don't forget crash-dieting can cause longterm damage too - to bones especially.

3. "Hey, try this of mine on, I'm sure it'll fit!"

Just let me get my Harry Potter invisibility cloak and we'll see. Again, you have eyes. I have eyes.

2. "If you were thinner you could get a man."

I love this one. You're dating a girl, you're fat, ergo you are only doing it because you can't get a man. Heard it all before. Do these people know how hard it is to pull girls?! Sheesh.

1. "You're not fat!"

I am. And you know what, maybe that's OK.

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