FAT WOMAN WEARS BIKINI - "I AM PROUD OF MY BODY"

“Me: ‘Next summer, I'm going to wear a bikini.’

Them: ‘What a great goal! What are you doing?

‘I said I was going to wear a bikini. I didn't say I was going to lose weight.’

Them: Face melts off like they're staring into the Arc [sic] of The Covenant.”

Trout, who goes on to explain that she ordered her “fatkini” in March in order to beat the rush that caused it to sell out last summer, describes the various ways people expressed their surprise at her audacity: concerns about her health, wonderings aloud about whether or not her wearing a bikini would “glorify obesity,” and worries over her discomfort.

 “If I venture into the water in a bikini, the sight of my melanin-deficient Michigan belly might attract beluga whales” Trout says.

She ignored all the advice, of course, and ventured out on a chilly, early summer day to the shores of Michigan’s Copper Harbor, wearing her new floral two-piece. And when she did it, she notes, the world did not come to an end. 

Since that afternoon, Trout tells Yahoo Shine, “I’m just not as shy now about my body. I wore my bikini and nothing happened, so my weight must be a bigger thing in my mind than it is in reality.”

Trout wraps up her piece this way: “The reason these people do not want to see a fat body in a bikini is because traditionally, that garment is something a woman earns by proving herself attractive enough to exist. If fat women begin wearing them without shame or fear, what's next? Will they have self-esteem? Will they demand respect? Then what will keep them in their proper place? How would conventionally attractive people judge them?

“As a society, we need to be more honest in our discussions of others' bodies. If we can't avoid those totally unnecessary conversations, then we should at least admit the truth to ourselves: That this has nothing to do with health, and everything to do with the control we believe is our right to exert over others.” Amen to that, sister.