What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat

by Aubrey Gordon

In spite of overwhelming evidence from mainstream sources that body size is largely out of our control, nearly every concern troll I’ve asked shares one simple belief: that fat people choose to be fat. As a queer person who grew up and came out in the 1990s, I find the contours of this argument are familiar, and they echo ones I’ve heard before. Parents of queer and trans kids don’t want their kids to come out because they’re concerned about their safety. Straight people aren’t homophobic; they’re just concerned about queer and trans people contracting HIV. Homophobic faith leaders love the sinner but hate the sin and believe that queer people will recruit unsuspecting straight children who will then choose a homosexual lifestyle. With a couple of decades of hindsight, many of us can now see these for what they were—smokescreens for straight people’s discomfort with queer people, and their fear of having to accept something they’d so long feared or derided.