Gays and fatties.

Today is National Coming Out Day, a day where we are supposed to put aside our differences and honor the fact that at the base of humanity, we ultimately all have the same desires: to be accepted, to be respected, and most importantly, to be loved.

With those principle values in mind, I want to talk to you about an issue that is directly parallel to the struggles of being anything but heterosexual in a straight society: being anything but skinny in a fat-phobic society. 

At this point, I hope you have come to realize that the thinness obsession in our culture is not only perpetuating hate, both of ourselves and others, but it is also completely unrealistic and senseless.

Don't believe me?  This should sum it up:

First of all, that model definitely works out and she most certainly does not eat everything she wants, because it is her JOB to look like that.  I'm going to repeat that because I think this point is SO important.  It is a model's JOB to look the way she does.  She is paid huge amounts of money to spend 8 hours in the gym every day with a personal trainer and to have a nutritionist and personal chef craft the perfect meals necessary to look the way she does.  And as if that's not enough, she's photoshopped by experts to remove any lasting imperfections that even an intense regime of caloric deprivation and extreme exercise couldn't get rid of.

If you lived the life of a Victoria's Secret model, I guarantee you would look like one too.  And I can also guarantee that you wouldn't like it much and would eventually find that the sacrifices models make to look the way they do would not be worth the payoff of being a size 2.

Secondly, beyond that, why would you not accept that some people are built skinny and some of us are built to carry a little extra weight?  Why is that so inconceivable to you?  All people are not created equal, and neither are all bodies.  Being skinny doesn't mean you have an eating disorder and being fat does not mean you are lazy and glutinous.  I work out 7 days a week and eat incredibly healthfully, and I'm still carrying a good deal of extra weight.  Why, you ask?  Because I am a descendant of the line of Irishmen whose bodies survived the Potato Famine by learning to hold on to every extra calorie they could get.  Does that make me a bad person?  Of course not, just as it doesn't make you a bad one either.

Having a body that differs from "normal" does not mean that there is anything wrong with you.  Feeling bad about being different doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you either; it means that there is something seriously wrong with our society that we are not willing to accept anyone who deviates slightly from what we are taught is the norm. The truth is, there is no normal.  We are all different and no amount of fat-shaming or gay-bashing is going to change that. 

Regardless of your feelings about gay rights, if you are anything more than supermodel thin, you have experienced the exact same feelings of hatred and exclusion that gay men and women experience every day.  It's time we put our differences aside and with that, put an end to both the body-hatred and the baseless prejudices that are hurting every single one of us, every single day, whether we know it or not.  Life is hard enough as it is- instead of upholding these insane standards which we can't possibly live up to, why don't we simply our lives and try to learn compassion for both ourselves and the others around us who are struggling to be accepted just as much as we are?  I don't know about you, but I would much rather work towards that goal than towards getting into a pair of Heidi Klum's jeans. #