Christine Schoenwald

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.

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.

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 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.

As a fat person, the thought that I’m already taking up too much space and that it would be selfish to ask for more is always in the back of my mind.

Astrologers believe that the positions of the sun, moon, and planets at the time of your birth have a direct influence on your character — so why shouldn't they also have an influence on what you drink when it's time for wine?

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.

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

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.