Christine Schoenwald

I grew up in a fatphobic household — one that was created by my mother’s fear of getting and staying fat.

"Throwing tons of time and energy into dieting instead of working on my novel."

I know there are far worse injustices happening in the world, but getting weighed in front of people smacks of fat-shaming, and feels incredibly invasive.

“You’re fat and ugly,” I’d hear, or, “Look at your stomach, it’s disgusting!” This wasn’t a neighborhood bully taunting me on my way to school — this is what I said to myself all day long, well into adulthood.

My swimsuit phobia started in middle school — that breeding ground of body shame and fear. One minute I’m a kid excitedly putting on my pink two-piece and running into the ocean, the next, I’m avoiding any place where people are known to live in their swimsuits and I might be forced to wear one.

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 still went to the painful place of being fat-shamed and decided that was why he had refused to kiss me. The pain never fully went away.

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

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

Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa are nearly here. So, what do you do when your family doesn’t celebrate any holidays whatsoever?