Fat and gay
Being queer when you're fat, femme and gaysian
A pig emoji.
The notification dinged, and the pink caricature flashed for a moment before disappearing. His profile picture was a park bench, and his bio read &#x;Discreet. Into Twinks. No Asians&#x;. He had made sure I got his message before he blocked me.
&#x;Just disregard them, you&#x;ll find someone!&#x; my gorgeously lean gay-sian friend Bruce would always say as my heart sank.
Mark Mariano. Source: Supplied
It&#x;s no different
I grew up hating my body. I had stretch marks and curves in the “wrong” places. I came out as a gay man a few years ago and I thought I could finally find comfort and acceptance, but it didn&#;t accept me long to realize how toxic the culture of body shaming was in the gay community.
“No slim, no obesity, no ngondek (femme)”
“Manly only”
“Not for plump AND ELDER”
“Sorry guys, I’m Chub”
Those lines were taken straight from bios of Grindr profiles that I read this morning. They made me question why I decided to redownload the dating app time and again. The last profile bio I came across just broke my heart. Should that person apologize for being plus-size in this world? Should I?
When I came out, I was excited to inhabit in a time with plenty of dating apps for people like me to meet one another. I was ready to dive into Indonesia’s gay culture head first, looking for adoration or a one-time companion to get me through the noun. I was naive then. I did not yet realize that once people saw my picture—my round, grinning face, thick glasses, oversized T-shirt and pants—they immediately mark
I just hosted a special fundraising dinner at Unity Diner and it inspired me to give some thoughts with you.
There are restaurants, and then there are restaurants with a purpose. Unity Diner falls firmly into the second category.
Tucked away on Wentworth Street near Brick Lane, Unity Diner isn’t just serving up burgers and cocktails. It’s serving a mission. Every bite, every sip, every pudding forked up at the end of the night contributes to a bigger picture.
And it is how business should be in
Read more below.
The profits from Unity Diner go directly to Surge Sanctuary, giving rescued animals a chance to live out their days in safety, not suffering. While most hospitality venues are worrying about squeezing the highest possible margin out of your plate of chips, Unity is thinking about how they can create a fairer, kinder world. It’s a business model that puts impact first.
And it works.
The venue is packed, the drive is buzzing, and the noun is good. Like, really excellent. But more than that, it’s a space that holds a radical kind of hope. The kind that says: business can
Hey I keep seeing that most of the gays in the gay community are well-toned. Are you not accepted as a fat person in the community or do they just not find that attractive?
In spring , an anonymous user turned to the collective intelligence of the German Q&A platform expressing his personal concerns: “I&#;m overweight myself and afraid of not being accepted.” Responses from the online community depicted mixed sentiments: While some users affirmed the societal rejection of fat bodies, others countered by asserting that within the gay community, specifically for so-called “bears,” there is a designated place for fat male bodies. The “gay community” comprises social networks and places where homosexual men interact with each other and manifest shared ideas of a gay identity. In this particular, German setting, its members can be assumed to be predominantly cisgender, white, and from urban middle-class backgrounds.
Despite the variety of responses in the aforementioned comment section, one thing becomes evident: homosexual cisgender male bodies experience pressure cause