A fat person should not feel so embarrassed by her body that she's ashamed to move it in front of other people.
Fat people, like gay people before us, come out of the closet!
The fresh air and sunshine and fun things we can do with our bodies is amazing once we get over the fear of other people's judgment. And it's not just a health benefit for ourselves. We can change the world. Sure, I can exercise inside my own home where no one else can see me. But when more fat people get out and say, "Hey, I'm fat AND I'm healthy" and feel confident enough to swim and dance and move our bodies in pleasurable ways for the whole world to see, it can create a cultural shift in attitudes toward fat and health.
I'm thrilled now to read this excellent post by Anna Mollow on Bitch Magazine entitled Fat Liberation is Totally Queer. The whole essay is fantastic, but this part especially resonates with me:
“Being fat is a choice, and being gay is not," respondents to my article maintained. Being fat is not a choice, but being fatphobic is—and it’s a choice I’m so glad I did not make when I began falling in love with my partner many years ago. Even if fatness were a choice, many fat people love their bodies and would not want to change them.
This week, the Supreme Court made it clear that “skim milk” marriages will not do. Neither will fat-free, or fatphobic, feminist and queer movements. After all, isn’t fat liberation what feminism and queerness are all about: loving ourselves and each other without regard for what mainstream culture defines as “normal,” “healthy,” or “beautiful?” If I had chosen not to challenge the anti-fat prejudices that I, like everyone in our culture, had been taught—if I had failed to see how gorgeous and sexy fat women can be—I would have missed out on the love of my life. Fat liberation is totally queer, and embracing this cause must be one of our movement’s next steps.
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