Women At Large - A Photo Gallery by Laurie Toby Edison.

I came across a  photographer's website + blog this morning via Google's Web Alert I have set up for the term "gastric bypass" + "weight loss surgery." 

Loving Our Bodies from the Inside Out

I wasn't sure as to what on her web page triggered the link to her site, but when I visited her pages, I found this.  (Not Safe For Work.  Could be misconstrued as something else.) 

When I opened the first page, I was immediately saddened. 

I really shouldn't - this is someone's art, her photography, but I couldn't help it. 

I immediately saw myself and many of my peers, there, in her photos. 

The photographer says, "I show the disappeared, I make the invisible visible."

I dug into the blog, and found the piece that Google sent. 

It's a part of notes for a speech from a "fat activist", Heather McAllister:

"I have long held the position that there is never a good enough reason for someone to get weight loss surgery. And I can’t say that I’ve changed my opinion on that. But there are people I know personally who have had largely positive experiences with the surgery, and I can’t ignore that reality. In trying to answer this very complicated and highly charged issue for myself, where I’m at right now is here: If we hold that it is never ok to get WLS, then we as a movement have failed our sisters and brothers who do choose surgery. We haven’t done a good enough job of providing another option for “supersize” people who have every imaginable pressure on them to have this invasive, expensive, dangerous, and typically unsuccessful procedure. And I am concerned that a lot of the criticism of people making a choice to have surgery is coming from people for whom WLS is not a serious concern, specifically, “average” or “mid-sized” fat people. If we continue to refuse to listen to the personal truths and stories of people who have had or are considering bariatric surgery, we are truly failing as activists and more importantly as human beings. I can and am extremely critical of WLS and at the same time I need to make myself open to hearing about the experience of people who are much fatter than I have ever been and why this feels like an option to them. And I need to do it without an attitude of condescension and judgment. I don’t have to support the decision in order to support the person. It’s tricky but it’s possible and it’s crucial. This issue is only going to get more important and we have got to stop hiding our heads in the sand and not talking about it, and creating an atmosphere of hostility around people speaking their own experience."