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I came out as fat 17 years after I did as bisexual – but I’ve experienced more negativity and internalised shame for my size than my sexualityBella FitzPatrick is the executive director at IGLYO.
A few years ago I came out as fat.
This may sound odd, as obviously I am fat. It is something you can see by looking at me. But coming out means not planning on doing anything to change it.
It is being unashamedly and unapologetically the size you are. When well-meaning family members tell you you’ve lost weight, it is responding: “I hope not!”
I have been both fat and queer for as long as I can remember. I came out as bisexual at the age of 10, and as fat 17 years later – but I absorbed far more negativity and internalised more shame around the latter.
It has taken me a long time to give up on the mentality that I would start swimming, buying nice clothes or cut my hair short once I lost weight, that my life would then begin. It is no way to live. Life starts when you accept yourself as you are, flubber and all.
Working in LGBTQ+ rights, it has shocked me that even in my very progressive bubble of human rights defenders, I have had to convince people I experience discrimination based on my size. There is also a lack of understanding towards the issues fat people face. It is not just about fat jokes being made.
Fatphobia is often misconstrued as a purely interpersonal issue; someone yells at you on the street, or you might get fewer right swipes on a dating app. The ways in which fat people are discriminated against at a wider societal level can be overlooked and dismissed.
There are 4 I’s of discrimination. These are ideological; like the idea that being gay is wrong, institutional; which involves limits to protections like marriage, interpersonal; such as suffering bullying and harassment, and internalised; when discrimination causes an internalised shame that can impact physical and mental health.
People often seen fatphobia as interpersonal and internalised discrimination, but find it hard to recognise it at ideological and institutional levels.
The reason for this is simple; the very idea that being fat is bad and immoral is so ingrained in our society, we all - consciously or unconsciously - believe it. You cannot see an ideology as discriminatory when you yourself adhere to that belief.
But if these concepts are not challenged within our community, we will continue to perpetuate them.
Fatphobia impacts the LGBTQ+ community in an institutional way. There are weight limits put on transgender people to access gender-affirming care. Surgeries are frequently put off due to the risks associated with a higher weight. There are also weight limits associated with adoption and IVF - two of the main ways LGBTQ+ people build their families.
I come from a place of immense privilege; I’m white, a native English speaker and I have lived in both Ireland and Belgium, both of which are mostly safe for LGBTQ+ people. But in travelling extensively for work, I have experienced far more street harassment for being fat than queer.
Being queer is a huge part of who I am, but navigating the world while fat has had a larger (pun intended) impact on who I am.
Intersectionality has become a popular word in LGBTQ+ circles, but I am yet to see the experiences of fat queer people being centred, or the real discrimination we experience being recognised.
Being considered an epidemic, a global burden, or something that needs to be eradicated will undoubtedly have an impact on you.
And just as the LGBTQ+ community is not defined by its hardships, neither is my fatness - which is joyous and lovely, no matter how much the world doesn’t want it to be.
I wait, hungrily, for the LGBTQ+ community to contend with the ways fat queer people experience discrimination - and become celebratory of the fat bodies among us.
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