Christine Schoenwald

I’m fat, but I have no fat friends. It’s not that all my friends are height-weight appropriate — it’s just that I can’t describe them as fat.

There isn't a competition between transgender women and cisgender women on who's the better woman. How you express your womanhood is up to you, as is whether or not you want to express it. It'd be better to widen the definition of a woman rather than limit it.

I’m riding my bike around a local community center on a Sunday morning.

Sexual assault doesn’t discriminate based on body weight, and none of us should take our safety for granted. My fat doesn't protect me.

One of the reasons that narcissists are so troubling is their lack of compassion and awareness regarding how their behavior affects other people.

We all want someone who will appreciate our curves, voluptuousness, strength, and beauty without fetishizing us. I’m fat, I’m fabulous, but I’m not your fetish.

When the formerly fat spoke of their hardships, I didn’t take them seriously. I thought that without the problem of weight, their lives must be perfect.

I’m a survivor — of fat camp. How terrible could a weight-loss camp be? Well, it was bad enough that I’m still dealing with its after-effects decades later.

Some of our happiest moments are those when we think that no one is watching: when we sing at the top of our lungs in our cars, or we dance down the frozen-food aisle of the supermarket allowing ourselves the freedom to let our inner child out. However, when you’re fat and the fat person’s representative, you don’t get any of those times of abandon because you’re always trying to lead by example and show that you’re the perfect fat person.