Title (as given to the record by the creator):  FaT GiRL Letters
Date(s) of creation: August 1996
Creator / author / publisher: FaT GiRL
Physical description: 2 pages, each with 3 columns of text
Reference #: FG6-002-003-Letters
Links:  [ PDF ]

FaT GiRL Letters

Birthdays, Michigan, and Mothers 

Dear Fabulous, Beautiful Babes at FaTGiRL, 

Here’s my check for a subscription and your first four back issues. Sunday is my 25th birthday, and this is a present to myself. Wow! I don’t think I’ve ever given myself a more useful or self-loving birthday present! I’m also enclosing $10 to continue the work — I wholeheartedly agree with the woman in issue #5 who said that you folks are in the business of saving lives. 

April, I just wanted to say that meeting you at Michigan was an inspiration. You are a beautiful, powerful womon, and it was uplifting and empowering (not to men­tion HOT!) to watch you strutting your stuff around the land while several thou­sand tongues dragged on the ground after you! … ANYWAY, FaTGiRL’s presence at Michigan was perfect and much-needed … Michigan is one of the few places where both queer and fat women can go and be fully ourselves and fully SEXY for one week out of the year, and your presence there can only further ensure the full inclusion of fat chycks in the all-around babefest! I hope FaTGiRL becomes a permanent fixture at the Festival! 

Michigan this year was such a galva­nizing experience for me. I guess I didn’t really know until I was sitting there in the fat workshop ranting how fucking ANGRY I am about fat oppression and the bullshit attitudes of some thin women. It was a big eye-opener for me to find that I have all this politicized rage to express intellectual­ly, when on the inside I still feel so much self-loathing so much of the time. It was kinda funny (and kinda sad, too) — the day after I got home my mom called and asked how the festival was — so I told her. She started in on the crap about fat being a chronic disease and I said, “Mom, that’s like saying being Jewish or having brown hair is a chronic disease!” Her response was, “Well, you’re just in denial. You’ll get over it.” I said, “Mom, I’m sorry, but fuck you!” Then I was like, oh shit! I just said fuck you to my mother!! I later apologized, but I had been so overwhelmed with anger that it just came out! What a new and dif­ferent experience to be righteously PISSED at fat-phobia, rather than internalizing it until it starts to poison me with self-hatred. In any case, if my mom is worried about my health, I am at least as worried about hers because she has been a compulsive dieter all her life. I mean, she gets up every morn­ing and writes her weight down to the quarter of a pound in lipstick pencil on the doctor’s scale in her bathroom! I wish my mom could read FaTGiRL, if only she could be able to get past the pictures of fat women fucking each other (please leave and increase their number — I read yer zine for ME, not my mom!!!). 

Anyhow, you and your zine are rad, rad, RAD!!!! You women are doing vital, healing work in the world, and being utterly fabu­lous while you do it! I especially want to congratulate you on the bi-dyke dialogue that seems to be going on in your pages — I hope to see this topic increase in upcoming issues. Thanks for having the courage to include fat bi women in the queer women’s community, which many of us turn to as the only one which will (sometimes) accept and take us seriously as fully sexual beings. I also LOVE all the hot butch­femme material you publish — keep it up and give us more!!! I believe very strongly that we fat femmes need to support each other in a world (even, sadly, within the queer community) that tells us we can’t be sexy and beautiful and desirable (and all you strapping butches, fat and thin alike, better be listening too!). Y’know, I recently read the book Nothing To Lose by Dr. Cheri K. Erdman. While I thought it was pretty good (and, surprisingly enough, not altogether ignoring of us other-than-mainstream types), it didn’t go far enough for me. The book’s focus was on fat acceptance — I want to be BEAUTIFUL! All you fat femmes out there know what I’m talking about! Let’s talk to each other- let’s use the pages of FaTGiRL to come out as the hot thangs we are! 

Love and gazillions of hot, wet kisses,
Kathy
Cincinnati, Ohio 

Fatphobia in the Bedroom 

Dear FaT GiRL & Her Beautiful Vixens, 

I needed someone to talk to, to tell about what happened to me on Thursday. My girlfriend and I have been together for three years and over that time we have been sepa­rated on numerous occasions, due to the fact that she is American and I am English. Anyway, I am fat — big breasts and big tummy. We tried to have sex on Thursday night when my girlfriend turned to me and started to cry because she said that she is turned off by my size — waist 36, breasts 36DD. Every negative image I had of myself was height­ened, my hurt and anger at her was completely lost to my deep humilia­tion. Of course she was immediately apologetic about how she did not mean it. But shit, where do I go from here? All my life my family has ridiculed me about my weight. I des­perately tried to keep on liking and loving myself but faced with mass media stereotypes, the cruelty of others, and my total lack of self esteem, I failed. Your magazine is the only thing that gave me hope and continues to give me hope. I am still trying to work out what to do about the situation between my girl­friend and me. I am sure many of you are screaming for me to dump her sorry arse, but three years is a long time and I do still love her — I think. I want to be proud of my size and myself. I think all the women you have pictures of are incredible, big and beautiful and so sexy. Through reading your magazine I begin to feel normal and that I am a great person whatever the hell the size of my breasts or stomach are. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

—Nathalie, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Sondra Says: Whatever you decide about your rela­tionship with your girlfriend, know that what she said to you and how she said it speaks volumes about her and nothing about you, your desirability, worth, or beauty. You are right. You should be proud of your size and yourself — you obviously have much reason to be. 

Those Pesky ‘-isms’! Learning About Them and Looking Back 

Dear FaTGiRL(s,) 

Thanks for putting out such a swell bunch of info (and smut!). I just devoured your #5 having never imagined something like it before yesterday. 

I’ve been dragging all manner of phobias up to my consciousness for several years now and learning to look at and deal with my own ‘-isms’ little by little. 

Your intelligent and cool maga­zine has kicked my butt hard in a way I’m real glad to have been kicked. I fell instantly and hard for a big, strong fat gal a couple of years ago — coupled up for a while then drifted (abruptly) apart for var­ious reasons. Only now can I see and own up to some body issues I have — with my body and hers. 

I am not particularly fat and have never bought into the diet crap but am victim to “standards” some­times even while thinking I don’t buy in. I have to admit I do in some ways, at some times. Like bitching about my weight to someone I find incredibly attractive and sexy who weighs 100 pounds more than me. How stupid am I? Can I think before I speak? I’m determined to learn. I’m glad to have a resource like yours to help me combat the world of “beauty”/ “normal” (blah blah). 

The work you’re doing is real important. I wish my big, beautiful sister were still alive to find the supportive forum that might have shown her a way to accept and love herself rather than the bulimia she practiced (and kept secret until her death). 

I love you and thank you, [name withheld by request] 

PS. Enclosing $30 for a subscrip­tion; consider the extra $10 a dona­tion to keep up the good work. 

FaTGiRL 101 

Hi FatGiRL, 

I just wanted to thank you for your cool publication! I am teaching a class on Body Image at UCSC and was thrilled to have one of my stu­dents bring in FaT GiRL! We are in the midst of studying queer women who are not only comfortable with their bodies, but actually like them! Again, thank you! 

Gina 
Santa Cruz, CA 

Political Aspirations 

I just read my first issue of FaT GiRL (#5) and I just have to say that I loved it! My size is something I’ve struggled with for many years, and for a while now I’ve been comfort­able with myself … but haven’t taken it any farther. Recently I’d been thinking that I wanted to get more political about fat, and I wasn’t quite sure how to begin. Quite fortu­itously I was in my local women’s bookstore (New Words Bookstore, Cambridge, MA) and saw FaT GiRL there. Of course I immediately bought it, not even realizing there was all this wonderfully slutty stuff inside as well. I’m really glad there is, not only because it’s great to read, but because that way I can get my lover to read the magazine as well, and maybe she’ll take in the political stuff, too. She is a wonder­ful fat butch woman who is only just beginning to become conscious of how she feels about her body and what that means for her self-con­cept … I’m hoping I can introduce her to Fat Liberation. 

I don’t know what I will do with my excitement about FaT GiRL or my awakening political consciousness — I just hope I can find something BIG and LOUD to do and not wimp out. It’s great to know you’re out there. 

—Christine

Hey Christine! Whatever you decide to do, tell FaTGiRL about it or send a picture. We can’t wait! Same goes for all you other Fat Dyke Activists, too!

FaT GiRL

FaT GiRL is a zine for and about fat dykes. 
FaT GiRL seeks to create a broad-based dialogue that both challenges and informs our notions of fat dyke identity. We encourage dialogue based on our lived experiences as fat dykes, recognizing that our lives are various and multifaceted. 
FaT GiRL is produced by an eclectic collective of fat dykes. We come in all shapes and sizes; from diverse ethnic cultures and different class back­grounds. 

FaT GiRL is a political act. 
We want your participation! 

Currently FaT GiRL is: April Miller, Bertha Pearl, Laura Johnston, Margo Mercedes Rivera, Selena, Sondra Solovay, Susannah and Oso
Logo by Fish. 
Web Site by Max Airborne 
Publicity: Meredith Tanzer 
Accounting: Judy 
Bookkeeping: Ann Williams 
Front Cover: Charlotte Cooper 
Back Cover: Pandoura 
Special thanks to: 
Max Airborne, Judith Black, Jennifer Brooks, Pandoura , M. G. Cimino, Christie Johnson, Terry Sapp, Hadas Weiss, and Ann Williams. 
Subscriptions: Send $20/4 issues, $5/sample and a signed age statement to the address below. 
Stores: Our terms are 60/40, you pay shipping. Get FaT GiRL direct or from Last Gasp, Fine Print, Armadillo, or AK Press. 
Ads: Business cards- $40, quarter page- $75, half page- $150. Send your ads ready to scan. We can shrink to fit. Call about design rates. 
Submissions: We accept original work by women that is rel­evant to fat dykes. Please include a S.A.S.E. with your stuff. We like written submissions that are typed. We love submissions that are on disk, especially Mac disk. We are always on the lookout for art!!! 
Please don’t ever send us your original copy of anything. Include a brief bio with your stuff and model releases for your photos (we can send you these if you need them). 
Deadline for #7 is November 10 1996. 
Look for #7 in Winter ’96-’97. 
This issue (#6) copyright August 1996 FaT GiRL Publishing. All rights belong to individual artists. 
FaT GiRL may not be sold to minors. That sucks. 
FaT GiRL
2215-R Market St. #197
San Francisco, CA 94114
selene@sirius.com 

is a political act­
Be a part of it!