58 Comments

This is a whole book. I wish I had something that would give you joy, something to thank you for sharing yourself here. Please just accept my gratitude.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

Ditto

Expand full comment

I feel exactly the same way.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

I have never identified with anything written about bodies and weight and self image more than this. Thank you thank you thank you for publishing this.

Expand full comment
Feb 16·edited Feb 16Liked by Brandon

This is stunning. I've read and enjoyed your substack for some time but this moved me to finally comment. As a marginal gay (thanks for that) who is also a resident physician prescribing lots of people semaglutide - so thought-provoking. I have to reread it and send it to my friends. I feel really moved in particular by your sharing what your experience has been like in clinic. It makes me sad that you were pressured to start a medication -- and makes me think more critically about how my interactions with patients may bring up feeling of judgment, rejection, or powerlessness in our fatphobic society. It sounds to me like you are taking care of yourself thoughtfully and well, even if not always perfectly smoothly or happily. I hope your doc is cheering you on, and if not, please take some kudos from this random internet MD. (PS- You may be interested to know that the diabetes society guidelines will likely be changing in the near future. The first line non-insulin medication will probably be semaglutide rather than metformin. Semaglutide in general is being viewed as a bit of a wonder drug at the moment- it's good for kidney disease and heart disease and weight loss and probably for everything else too!! Personally I'm skeptical that it's a panacea, but we will certainly see what happens. The idea of who 'deserves' ozempic for what reason is a fascinating one, will have to chew on that.)

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

Amazing, per usual.

Even using Bumble BFF for me, I’ve found that I’m now like oh, let me actually do the yoga and soft drugs and book clubs and theatre shows that people I want to chat with do so I can have something to chat about too. I don’t know how I feel about it yet but soo la voo (it’s TikTok for c’est la vie).

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

Really beautiful and honest. Forgive me if you're not into musicals, but I thought of A Strange Loop's dating sequence a lil while reading this.

Expand full comment
author

I know that musical VERY well, haha.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

You are loved and lovable. Thank you for your vulnerability and insight as always.

Expand full comment

I laughed, a lot. Dating apps are the bane and you didn’t even get to the explicit ones. The gay-black experience and then the gay-fat-black experience in metropolitan twink territories is worth a novel and a half.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

Loved reading this! Uncanny how you kinda captured so many parallels in my own life at the moment. I recently started mounjaro and I’m fat, black, gay, and a new type-2 diabetic. The end of your essay is staying with me and now I’m interrogating parts of my own experience

Expand full comment

The Bravo gays would love a word😆🤧

Expand full comment
author

I love them, but I do not love their favorite shows. 😭

Expand full comment

Beautiful read. Couldn’t stop thinking about Laymon’s Heavy. Thank you your vulnerability.

Expand full comment

I really liked this entry. I cried on the train the other day because a man said I need to move my big butt out of the way, and because another guy on the street said to me, "Hello, big lady." As I've gained weight the comments on my body start coming more often. It's been making me think about weight loss seriously, for the first time in my life. Not for my health, but to stop the comments. I don't know! It's difficult to be neutral on your body when no one else is.

Expand full comment

I think of this A LOT. Like I know the problem is how we view/judge/blame/ostracize fat people and fatness. And still, since those are things that happen to me which means they are things I fear happening to me which means I often think I should just do the {unhealthy} thing and lose the weight ... even tho I also know that the weight never stays off.

If it's not on your radar, I recommend the podcast Maintenance Phase, which does help.

Expand full comment

Seconding Maintenance Phase which I finally started last week and want to share with everyone. Unlearning that internalized fat phobia is the work of a lifetime. I’ve also grown quite ambivalent about my body but there is diabetes in my family on both sides so I have to be very careful (and I’m often not). Sigh.

Expand full comment

I'm not sure if you are listening in order or picking and choosing, but there's an episode from last year about sugar that might be really helpful as you think about diabetes ...

Expand full comment

I wish I could find myself sitting next to you during your one cup of afternoon coffee, just an old lesbian chatting with a brilliant writer. The ice breaker could be a quote from the interview with Oakland poet Brontez Purnell that I just heard yesterday on KQED radio. He, too, was talking about weight loss and jogging around Lake Merritt. And his response to people remarking that he’s lost weight? He says he always responds: “Thank you. I’m suffering.” Anyway, there are these brief moments in society when people organize to change the whole system and it works for a short and very memorable moment. Then we go right back to demanding everyone just fix themselves.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

Beautiful and brave. Do you know Da'Shaun L. Harrison's book "Belly of the Beast" about anti-fatness as anti-Blackness? Highly recommend. Good luck with the Peloton. I am a highly sedentary gay who just gave up my YMCA membership.

Expand full comment
Feb 14Liked by Brandon

I don't have anything as lyrical to add after reading this gorgeous writing, and yet, wanted to thank you for sharing something so tender that is made so hard by so many.

Expand full comment

really loved reading this and hearing your experiences. it is personal and political and back to personal and social. the messaging about fat is so loud and has been for my whole lifetime. trying to hear your own self think and feel about it is hard. this felt like a noble attempt.

Expand full comment
Feb 15Liked by Brandon

Brilliant, brutal, brave.

Expand full comment