I Am a Fat and Queer Pageant Queen and I Deserve to Be Here
I am a fat, queer, non-binary, mentally-ill, tattooed pageant queen. I am a survivor of revenge porn. And I deserve to be here.
I first realized that I was living as a fat person in America when the size XL at the Forever 21 in New York City that I frequented before catching my train after work became too small to fit over my thighs. The first time I ventured into the plus-size section was not an act of rebellion— it was a moment of immense shame and realization that this was not a fluke. The sizing was not misleading and I was not bloated. I was fat. I am fat.
I’m angry that the first time I recognized my fat body was in relation to capitalism and fast-fashion. I’m angry that these institutions led me to believe that my worth was as heavy as my body was thin. I’m angry that I believed them.
The average American woman has a Body Mass Index of 29.6. This is a loaded statement. There is no “average” American woman; every woman is built differently and has different experiences that lead to her size. Socioeconomics and mental health highly contribute to one’s ability to consume food that frequents Instagram fitness feeds. Maintaining an influencer-approved lifestyle is impossible for an individual balancing multiple jobs who cannot afford fresh produce.
The Body Mass Index (BMI) is a deeply flawed and inaccurate representation of a “healthy” weight. And conflating health and physical weight is an inaccurate way of measuring a person’s well-being.
I may be fat, but I am more mentally healthy than I was when I was an average or below-average body mass. One reason why I’ve gained weight is due to medications that regulate my mental health. Without these medications, I would be dead. I would rather be fat than be dead. This is not a controversial statement.
Another reason why I am fat is because I do not prescribe to a culture that polices what I consume. I eat what I can, when I can, when my body needs to. This is health. This is enough.
While the Body Mass Index is an inaccurate and flawed measure of health, it is still the most widely used and publicly accepted standard of measuring fitness. For the sake of accessibility, I will continue to reference BMI throughout this essay.
As previously mentioned, the average American woman has a BMI of 29.6. According to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, this number is considered overweight. According to this standard, any BMI above 29.9 is considered obese.
My BMI is 39.9. I am 5 feet tall. I weigh roughly 200 pounds.
Society has draped and drowned the word “obese” with so much negative stigma that associating the word with my weight has always been challenging to swallow. But I am forced to remember my younger self, who, at age 14 was skin and bone and barely alive at the size that society deemed the most beautiful.
According to BMI, a healthy weight based on my height would be between 97–127 pounds.
105 was my middle school weight when I suffered from anorexia and body-dysmorphic disorder. When, in seventh grade, I ate and slept so little that I developed neurological tremors and tics that required CAT scans to rule out that I did not have Tourettes syndrome. I still remember eating the olives out of the cafeteria salad to withstand my breakfast and lunch. This is the weight that BMI tells me I must be to be healthy.
According to HuffPost, the BMI of the average Miss America is 18. While the size of the average woman has increased over time, the weight of the average Miss America has drastically decreased. It is not a shock to know that my weight is over double of what the BMI for an average Miss America is. I have seen what the winners look like. But I also know who I am. And that makes me unafraid.
In 2018, Miss America 2.0 removed the swimsuit portion of competition. It’s important to note that removing the swimsuit portion of scoring from Miss America allows contestants of all sizes more space to compete for the job of Miss America. A job that should not require one’s physical appearance or physical fitness to be measured in any capacity.
But it still has not paved the way for fat folks to stand on stage at Miss America. And it certainly has not allowed for visibly fat, tattooed, queer, non-binary, mentally-ill, survivors of sexual violence to have a voice.
In February 2020, I decided to honor my younger self by competing in a local preliminary for the Miss Connecticut Scholarship Organization. I had one week to prepare. I reminded myself (whose body has been exposed and exploited on the internet) that this may be the most naked I will ever feel. On the day I showed up, I was fatter than every contestant. I was the only contestant with visible tattoos. I was the only contestant who publicly used they/them pronouns and identified as queer. In my interview, I talked about wanting to die— even after being advised against it. I did it anyway. And I won.
I cannot say that these factors alone caused me to win. But— being honest about who I am made me feel like a winner even if I had not won at all.
When I was 14, I lost weight to be perceived as physically fit and traditionally beautiful by those who do not know me. I covered self-harm scars with bracelets. I concealed my identity. I stayed silent about the violence I was enduring at school. I was meek, I was quiet, I was small.
Now, it is my goal to embody everything that I hated about my younger self. And in doing so, I have become what has been coined by Anne Helen Petersen as the “unruly woman”. Too fat. Too slutty. Too loud.
It is not lost on me that the moments in my life when I have taken up the most space have also been when I have been the fattest. But fat is rich in experience. Fat is an echo. Fat is me, with megaphone in hand, leading a march against my abuser over the Brooklyn Bridge, riddled in permanent ink and scars on my skin, quaking the bridge with my fat body that is most definitely breaking the Body Mass Index. Fat is my family marching beside me. Fat is the noise that we make.
I admit that fat has also been a disguise. A way to remind myself that I am so different now than I was ten years ago that nobody will search for my naked body online. And that, too, is hard to swallow.
I have been told that because of my identity, I do not deserve to be here. That I do not deserve to be Miss Connecticut, or Miss America, or be ALIVE, because I am too much of what is too different. That I am too much of what should be hidden away. But that is exactly the reason why I know that my existence is necessary.
I am not trying to be revolutionary. I am not trying to “shake the system” or cause uproar that leads to social unrest. My existence is political. My existing in spaces that were not created for me inherently shifts the paradigm towards social good. I am not standing on stage, naked, demanding a dismantling of historic systems (If I was- that would be totally okay. But I’m not). I am only being honest. And, in being honest, it’s important to recognize that there are millions of young folks who look like me, identify like me, and have lived like me who do not have the platform or the opportunity to publicly voice their truths. So I will voice mine, and hope that that makes some sort of difference:
I am twenty-three.
I am FAT (And that’s okay).
I have severe depression and suicidal thoughts for which I take multiple medications that keep me alive. I also have obsessive-compulsive disorder and anxiety.
I also have polycystic ovarian syndrome. The PCOS, the mental illness, and the general disdain towards diet culture have made me fat. But I am here. I am alive. And if being alive is being fat then I am damn proud to be both.
My naked body was posted online when I was a young teen. For that I have post-traumatic stress. I am coping with that trauma every day.
I am a survivor of an eating disorder and a grossly fatphobic and sexist mindset that led me to believe that my worth was based on my size.
(Hint: it’s not).
I have over thirty tattoos which I have utilized to decorate the body that I used to hate. And I think that that is a beautiful thing.
I am queer. I am non-binary. I believe in limitless love and self-exploration, and that every person is wholly deserving of every good thing.
I am radically political, unapologetically loud, and I refuse to be quiet.
This is a reclamation. This is a reminder. That I deserve to be here. That I have fought to be here. And you deserve to be here, too. Let us not shame ourselves into silence, or reject ourselves into reclusiveness. Let us not fix ourselves into fixation that we are not enough. We are here. We were born for a reason. Let that reason expand with our weight, let it break with our footsteps as we shake the floors of the house we grew up in. Let us be here. In this moment.
And let that be enough.
