The heteronormative patriarchy, uses “science”, and “medical research”, to establish cultural norms that fat shame women into squeezing into an ideal body type that straight white males think is attractive.

“Evidence”, is a tool that is often used to push hate. “Research”, is another tool invented by the patriarchy that upholds so called “evidence”. The combination of these two things leads to fat shaming and if the statistics are correct, genocide.

I have been told by a male (of course) doctor that at 5’6″ and 398 pounds I am considered morbidly obese. He started listing “health factors”, like diabetes and “gateway to a heart attack”, but by that stage I’d started proudly eating a chocolate eclair right in front of him and deliberately not wiping the cream from my chin. I will not be told by a male what to do.

But it’s not just doctors like him that need feminist education.

Last week I decided to go to a waterslide with my 11 year old niece. She fully supports my role in the Healthy At Any Size political movement and she herself currently proudly weighs in at 250 pounds. There isn’t any medical research to say that kids cannot have a jar of Nutella for breakfast. So if she wants it, why can’t she have it? I say let her have two if it liberates her as a proud young lipo-diverse woman.

At the waterslide I wanted to try the “death drop”. Firstly I was expected to climb 15 flights of stairs to a tower. This is where the problems started. The water park was designed with “body-typical”, people in mind that find it easy to climb stairs and there wasn’t any elevator. It took me around 45 minutes to make it to the top, but I did, because I felt it’s MY right as body-proud feminist to enjoy my slide.

When I reached the top the real horror for me set in. They only had “body-normative”, sized launch tubes. You see the idea of this particular ride is that you stand inside a plastic tube and the hatch opens under you and you fall 4 levels and then slide upside down and around a loop before plunging into the pool.

The ride attended smirked when he saw me. He said that the ride wasn’t suitable for “someone like me”, and that the only way down for me was via the stairs I’d come up. I said no that’s not going to happen and if he smirks again at me I will show him a very quick way down.

A loud verbal altercation commenced and he used his radio to call security. After five minutes of me telling him that he cannot refuse service to a person of size under Federal Title 9 laws I proudly walked over to the tube and decided to just get in without his permission. Permission is yet another sign of patriarchy holding women back.

I actually managed to squeeze into the tube and pulled the door closed with all of my flesh pressed up against the sides of the clear tube all around, but then I realized he controlled the button for the floor to open so I started yelling at him to press the button as I angrily banged on the plastic.

To my delight there was a cracking sound and the floor hatch decided to give way under me and the hatch completely fell through and safely floated off down the waterslide. But I still did not move.

My position was supported by my skin pressed against the perspex tube all around me and my feet were just dangling over a 4 storey hole. I started jigging myself up and down and lucky for me the sunscreen I’d applied acted as lubricant so I slowly jiggled down the hole and then enjoyed my ride. I finally felt free. Free as a feminist woman should be.

But then more body-normative problems ensued. I wasn’t able to get up enough momentum to complete the “loop the loop”, part and just slid backwards again and became stuck in the tube half way down.

I am not going to go into further details about what happened or how they got me out for my own mental health protections other than to say that a length of rope around my ankles and a kind feminist woman of color with an SUV which had a winch were involved.

Eventually however, I did make it down to the splash pool below and I was in tears of joy that I’d made it. A crowd had gathered and started clapping.

Sadly however, I soon realized that were not clapping for my victory as a woman. They were clapping for the success of the “rescue”. There are many hateful things that need to change, and that, is just another one of them.