It’s like I don’t know that tumblr is short format or something
I keep writing responses and replies and posts about being an inbetweenie, and then deleting them and walking away because I feel like they are too whiney and entitled.
I feel like I sound like I am saying ‘but why won’t you let me plaaaaay! I’m fat tooooo!’ when what I mean is ‘my experience of fat is also significant, although in a totally different way. It hurts when people act dismissively, it is experience-denying and rude. But feel free, pleasefeel free, to point out if I’m being an arse and assuming things. I want to listen to everyone’s experiences because they are important. Having different experiences doesn’t mean we can’t be in this together’.
I feel like I am saying ‘well, do it yourself, not my problem’ when what I mean is ‘I cannot do anything about the amount or quality of representation of larger fats on the Internet. Inbetweenies being silent doesn’t make larger fats louder. But then again, I really want to make sure I shut up when it’s not my turn to speak, please tell me if it feels like I am talking over you. That doesn’t mean I, or anyone else, should be excluded from the conversation. Just that there are different times when it’s appropriate for us to speak.’
In the same was as being a male feminist means privileging female voices first, I feel that being a smaller fat means I need to privilege larger fats, listen to them first, respect their experiences, and support their bravery and fierceness. I often don’t fight the hardest battles, although I have my own, very real, battles to fight. I try to fight those battles, even when I could quite easily sit in silence and let the body shaming go, but the point is that I don’t have to. I benefit from each battle someone else wins. I am thankful of the people who HAVE to fight that battle every day, and I want to support those people in any way I can, which includes not making it about me.
Sometimes I can ‘pass’ as thin. The people who tell me ‘but you’re not fat!’ really believe it, even while they also think I’m probably lazy and eat too much chocolate or whatever. Recently, I sometimes don’t see myself as fat either, which is something I never expected. I certainly never expected to feel sad about that, but I do. It makes me anxious to be self conscious about being the fattest one in a group, thinking that everyone is silently judging me. And it makes me anxious to be self conscious to be the thinnest one in the group, thinking that everyone thinks I should go away. Finding a community and a world view that accepts me, and then feeling like I have to be super careful in case I make someone mad and lose it is scary. That is about me more than it is about other people. I SHOULD be careful about what I say. Because people deserve that care. I don’t know what it feels like to not be able to go somewhere because you don’t fit in the chairs, just like Marianne doesn’t know what it feels like to have people tell me that I’m SO CLOSE to being pretty. It doesn’t seem so hard to me to respect that difference. And we can learn different things from each other. It seems silly to me to shut myself off from learning things.
