My body is a map. Not the political kind, with a compass rose and lines of longitude, but a physical one, with mountains you can touch and tributaries you can dip your fingertips into. I love this body as more than a mere shell. For eighteen years, this body was often all that I’ve had. I love my dimples, I love my big brown eyes, I love my crooked widow’s peak. But even more so, I love the parts I’ve been trained to hate. I love my stretch marks, I love the cellulite on my thighs and how it bounces when I walk, I love the double chin I have when I laugh. It took me so long to fall in love with this body after spending years trying to destroy it. Twelve years old with a blade to my thighs, thirteen years old bent over a toilet with my finger down my throat, fifteen years old I stopped eating and became a success story. But is there any success in bargaining life for a beauty standard?

Since coming to Dickinson, some days I feel the world around me answers “yes.” I quickly learned my place as a fat girl, and that is there is no place for me anywhere. I am told that I am “thick” by half-drunk athletes who see me as an easy target. “Easy”- I’ve heard that exact language toward me from one of Dickinson’s valued students. Because I am fat, I must not respect myself. Because my belly sticks out and my thighs touch, I am begging for my thighs to be touched. Wearing a dress and doing my makeup does not mean “I love this body” on Dickinson’s campus- it means “I know that I’m larger than the other girls, so I will take whatever attention I can get.” Or, at least, that’s what I gather by the rude comments from the group of girls walking behind me the other day, or the gross conversations I overhear between boys in the Hub.

Here, “fat” is a bad word. I am “thick,” I am “curvy,” I am “a big girl.” But why can’t I just be fat? What is wrong with admitting the reality that I am larger than everyone else? I jiggle when I walk, my thighs rub together in skirts, and my toes look like fat little sausages I choose to stuff into Doc Martens every day. These are the things I admittedly love about myself, but Dickinson pushes it under the rug because “there are plenty of guys who go for personality.” In a conversation with another student about some personal troubles I have been having, this student suggested I “eat better and exercise.” He was nearly shocked when I told him I have been vegan for two years and follow a workout regimen. I realize that this behavior is not exclusive to Dickinson’s campus, but prior to arriving, I had anticipated a bit of liberation for body positivity. I am very disappointed that a campus that prides itself so heavily on progress remains so incompetent on a subject that means the world to some students.

Here’s what shocks the student body- I am not interested in losing weight. I maintain my weight and I am so madly in love with myself. Nearly every time my size is mentioned in conversation, is it not in the terms of concern for my health. It is in the terms of beauty standards that suggest this campus is too small for my body. Dickinson, I suggest you make some room, because I will walk with my hips swaying and I will simply smile and say “excuse me” if I bump into you, because I deserve every inch of space my fat body takes up.