If you were to stand in my room and look around, you would notice one thing stands out above the rest. I do not own a mirror and the only mirror in my apartment as a whole rest on the wall above the bathroom sink. It is just large enough to view my face each morning as I brush my teeth and to wash each day off as I prepare to fall asleep. I have never been one for mirrors because I have never felt positively about what reflected back at me by way of my body. I, as a young man, was overly aware that I was big. My clothes were often designated as husky, my feet seemingly felt like they were out of view. I often garnered looks or sneers from classmates, taunting me out of the darkness of their hearts.

Flash forward 25 years, I have grown into a young adult who realizes the worth in himself as a person and in his body striving to be healthy in both body and spirit. At the tender age of 25, I stand over six feet and proudly carry approximately 240 pounds, though consistently trying to maintain a healthier body image and body weight.

Growing up this way has seemingly shaped many ways in which I live my life, and how I viewed myself then verse now. The young child that once stood in front of a mirror felt disgusted by what reflected back. In pictures, videos, and in memory I have seemingly never viewed myself fondly. I have hated the way I stood, the way I talked, the way I walked, and many other self-deprecating things about myself as a person. As I have grown, however, and experienced more people with opinions I did not ask for and people with support I never knew I needed, I have come to realize that those negative perceptions are holding me back from loving myself. By no means am I advocating for not taking care of yourself, but who are we to determine how each man and women must look? If someone wanted us to all look the same, he would have created us so during The Big Bang.

I have never been a text book definition of a normal individual. Born hard of hearing, born 11 pounds and 12 ounces, tall, overweight, gay, etc., the list goes on. I never felt like I could just blend in with the rest of the crowd. All the reasons I stood out amongst others were all the reasons I wanted to blend in with the crowd, to be able to float through each passing day without questions or glares from people around me. With time, experience, and the realization that someone is always going to be disrespectful…I have come to realize that if others are to view me positively, it starts with me. I remember the first time I was taunted by a romantic interest for my weight. He had just dumped me in the parking lot of a D’Angelo’s, and the next morning proceeded to tell me to join a gym in what would have been a Twitter war if Twitter was a thing back then. He would have come at me, and I would have clap backed and it all would have been quite the scandal. Today, body shaming is a regular occurrence on social media because we hide behind Instagram usernames and Twitter handles in which we can spew vile hatred towards people.

One cannot emphasize enough the burden of those words, because it was my first introduction to body shaming based on sexual orientation and identity. Back then, I felt invalidated because of the notion that he, my ex-partner, no longer felt me sexually attractive when yet I stood there still attracted to him. This notion that I am better than you because of what I have verse you do not, is rampant today in American culture. In this day and age (or 2010 if we are going to date it), you had to insult someone to his or her face if you wanted to shame them. Today, you simply log into Grinder or Scruff where you see yourself invalidated by someone you do not know. “No fats, femmes, Asians!” “No fats, Latino’s, or Asians!” These are two of many examples in which you see discrimination rear its ugly head in a group of individuals whom are already marginalized by a larger part of American culture.

This bullshit, quite frankly, has got to stop. To invalidate others is not our civil rights as people, it is not the right of anyone to contribute to the notion someone is less than because they are not what you want. I do not care how sleazy the dating app or the place physically, there is no need to forgot common practice of manners in simply saying thank you for the interest, but I’m not interested. It is easier said than done, for sure. I myself, embarrassingly so, have failed to display this common practice of courtesy. I pledge to do better, as should we all. We all know the joke in Mean Girls, “I don’t hate you because you are fat, you are fat because I hate you.” It is a humorous line within a movie meant to show girl world how disgustingly cruel they are to one another, but the impact is transferrable to the LGBT community. How many men have written you off because you do not obsessively count calories, abs, sit up, planks, or god forbid you do Cross Fit, your PR in deadlifts (which I am not sure is a thing, but you get the point here). In the Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity, a two-part study found that out of a group of gay men ages 18-78, one-third of 215 experienced anti-fat behavior. While one obviously has attractions, the nature of this behavior is particularly alarming because it creates a culture of if you do not look like I do, you are not worthy.

Our history as LGBT Americans is vastly ignored and undereducated to our youths, but it is filled with marginalized men and women coming together to demand respect for a community of people already rejected by society. I, as a millennial, truly have not educated myself on this history as I should because I live in a world where gay men shame me on dating apps and young men with various body types ignore me in the bar/club. Where did the sense of community go? Men walk around in t-shirts such as this one featured in Out Magazine (not idolized, for the record). Where did the essence of freedom we were fighting for, and are still fighting for, suddenly evaporate to? Our fathers died at Stonewall, died serving the people in public office in their waning moments, fighting for our right to be seen as equal amongst men and women outside of the LGBT community, and here we stand calling each other fat, ugly, or disgusting.

The shape of one’s body is not what is disgusting, it is the behavior in which we address one another. People of all marginalized groups, deserve more than an upbringing in which looking in the mirror causes them shame or embarrassment in his or her body. Look at the man or the women in the mirror, ask yourself is this really the look you want for yourself as a person? Tall and fit with a striking smile and a personality uglier than dirt? It is not what I want for myself, and I refuse to settle for it from anyone else.