Let ME eat Cake!

Off Our Backs, Nov/Dec 2004 by Guiste, La Nell

Different! That's how the people in the small town I grew up in would have described me. I was an innovative, outspoken child. For example, the Wiggle Writer pen I got for Christmas in 1983 conveniently doubled as my first vibrator. 1 was eight. As a teenager. I learned to speed read by skimming my mother's romance novels for the juicy parts. In high school, an arrogant football coach (also my woodshop teacher) bet me 1 couldn't complete 10 proper push-ups. Unable to tell if he made the comment because of my weight, or the fact that I'd worn a dress that day, the remark earned him a slap in the face, and a slammed classroom door. My best friend's father received similar treatment whenever he used racial slurs in front of me.

After being the token fat girl in a class of just eighteen graduates, coming out queer in the year 2000 was painfully comfortable. Without trivializing the struggles of so many queer women that have paved the way before me, I have to say that revealing my interest in women was very simple. In fact, I was probably the last to acknowledge it. My family and friends all supported me when my first girlfriend and I moved in together. For the most part, society embraced me as a Caucasian, feminine-looking, bisexual woman living in the progressive Pacific Northwest. However, the same society that embraces my choice to love women as equally as men, scoffs at me when I choose to have seconds on dessert. Coming out as a size positive, self-loving, belly-bearing, woman was an entirely different feat.

Like most of us fat girls, as a kid I had ample support from adults who encouraged me to lose weight. First, there was the school cook who congratulated me for eating a diet of iceberg lettuce and watery ranch dressing for an entire week. In fifth grade, I routinely skipped school on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As a perfectionist student, I hated being made an example of every time I couldn't complete warm-up exercises in PE class. God, I hated relay races involving those little blue plastic four-wheeled scooters. My ass was never small enough. Finally, I can remember a weekend where my best friend's mom refused to feed me anything but apples and oranges while she dragged me off to a greasy diner for their early morning breakfast. She said the diarrhea was just my body's way of cleaning out my system.

Growing up in a small town, I learned the hard way that word travels fast. When I reported to my school counselor that I'd been sexually assaulted by a classmate, I thought I was doing the right thing. It was the correct thing at least until I heard whispers from classmates and adult townspeople saying, "She's just a fat girl who wants attention."

Just out of high school, I was diagnosed with type II diabetes. Finally, I figured out why half my senior year was spent trying to wake up. It turned out that I wasn't just a fat lazy attention whore who couldn't apply herself. Truth be told, I wasn't lazy at all. Even while I was battling an undiagnosed disease, I worked an entire summer as a janitorial aide in my school. I made more money than my mother, picking up crusty jock straps in the boys' locker room just so I could eat dinner.

I grew up dirt poor and food became my solace in an unforgiving small town. Carbohydrates were my prize. When I was in high school, clothing manufacturers hadn't yet clued in that fat girls would buy attractive clothing given the choice. I sure as hell wasn't going to spoil myself by buying a pair of pants that looked exactly like the ones in my grandmother's wardrobe, so instead I spent my paycheck on food. Frozen pizzas were cheap and they tasted better than government cheese and food bank peanut butter.

Did my eating habits as a child cause my diabetes? My doctors tell me no. Did the undiagnosed condition coupled with poor eating habits contribute to the medical issues I have now? Absolutely!

However, this doesn't mean that I give friends or strangers the right to lecture me about how much sugar or fat is in the piece of peach cobbler I'm eating. It never ceases to amaze me how many people feel compelled to mask their own prejudices by initiating scare tactic conversations with me. I don't want to hear about how many digits Sally's diabetic grandfather lost because he wasn't taking care of himself, or how his quality of life deteriorated after a kidney transplant. Just because I'm not eating how Sally thinks I should, doesn't mean I'm making perpetually unhealthy choices. Just as my sexuality is not open for social commentary or on display for anyone's viewing pleasure, neither is my appetite, diet, or seeming lack thereof. Many ignorant people assume that being a bisexual woman is all about crazy carpet munching and jumping into the bedrooms of every married couple in your circle of friends. Similarly repulsive assumptions can be made about people of size, and what they put in their mouths. Even individuals who truly are battling an eating disorder can have their determination crushed by unsolicited advice. You never know where someone might be on their journey toward self-confidence.