Fat person hiking: power and privilege on the trail
Content warning: disordered eating
I am currently on my first solo hike in a long time.
I decided to hike today because I just needed to get away from everything, to breathe a little heavy. I normally wouldn't have come to a popular trailhead on a weekend (it's Saturday), but I just kept putting it off and today is the first day that I could get out on the trail.
My relaxing hike isn't quite going as planned. It is so crowded and the people are the worst. They stare at me. I try and be kind and smile, say hi, but most of them just ignore me.
Now, I know I stand out - I am a fat person with shaved head hiking on a trail at a popular rich person vacation destination.
I try not to let the stares affect me. I tell myself stories about how they ignore me because they are busy and worried about their own lives, but I know I am just trying to convince myself. I feel invisible.
I have been thin and I have been fat. I have looked rich and I have looked poor. I have performed femininity and I have not given a shit what gender I look like I am to the world. The fact is - the less I try and fit a standard of what people want me to be, the shittier the world treats me.
I can still remember what it felt like to be thin and feminine and walk around in the expensive work out gear I always wore. I felt invincible, like no one could touch me.
I wasn't more confident then than I am now. It took a lot of self confidence to start actually being myself. To stop starving my body just to fit in. To stop dressing just to gain social value.
I am more confident than I have ever been, but how people treat me still bothers to me.
Fat people I follow online and many "well meaning" people in my life tell me to just not give a fuck. Let people stare.
Give them something to look at- a fat, queer person hiking who doesn't give a fuck about their judgements.
But that's not where I am. I care about how I am treated. I am sensitive to the stares and people ignoring me still hurts.
I feel jaded. I don't want to be kind to people anymore because I don't know how they are going to treat me in return.
So I stare back just to make them feel as uncomfortable as they make me feel. More often than not, they just turn away when they realize and I dislike myself for becoming what they are.
It is a vicious cycle, but I just don't know what to do with my anger about how people treat me anymore.
I usually end up just avoiding people in general. I go hiking on weekdays. I shop for groceries when no one else is there.
The only thing I know to do is to keep looking for my community. The community that will celebrate my cute fat ass hiking down the trail.
The people that will see me on a trail and say, "Hi, you look cool, let's be friends!" Maybe I am living in a fucking dream world, but I really need to believe that those people are out there.
Let's be friends! Have you noticed differences in how the world treats you based off how you present yourself? If people stare at you, how do you navigate it?
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