Thank you for writing this! This is something folks in gay communities really need to watch for. Body shaming is maybe our most pronounced weakness, the most important way we hurt ourselves and each other.

Fat shaming is the most obvious example, but we often skinny shame too. We often make unreasonable demands of our own bodies, then we project those demands onto others.

I'm a very small person, and while I was young, I had "twink" appeal that made me fairly popular. I didn't really understand that, it was just a thing that was.

Until I wasn't young anymore and resembled nothing so much as a middle-aged nerd. Suddenly, I wasn't so popular . And now that I'm in my 60s, well, ... Body issues are ...

I wrote the other day in an article that at my age I wouldn't feel comfortable or maybe even welcome in a queer club. And that's a shame!

We need to do better accepting ourselves.

When I was young, my partner was a big guy. Well over 6 ft and heavy. He didn't have a gym bod, he had a dad bod, back before anybody even called it that. He wasn't fat, though he had a few extra pounds around the middle. Nevertheless, he did get some disrespect sometimes.

But he was a very joyous person, and he never let body shaming get to him.

One thing he did was hang out a lot with a club called Girth and Mirth, which met at our LGBT community center.

This was in the '90s, and while that club still exists, I don't know their reputation anymore. At the time, they were exceptionally body positive. Some people sometimes complained about fetishizing, but the people I knew who attended their events were not fetishizing one another. They were just having fun, and sometimes hooking up, in a shame-free zone.

Clearly, we still need such organizations!

Just as we all need to be kind to ourselves and each other.