Ask Volunteer Ellie Anything!

[Heather]

Good morning, and happy Pride! I'm Heather, the founder of Scarleteen and one of our co-directors, and I'm here today to moderate a conversation with Ellie! Ellie is a fat, autistic, trans & non-binary queer person in Chicago, where I also live! Their pronouns are they/them and they identify with the ace spectrum and kink community. They are always excited to talk about queer issues, sexual stigma, kink/fetish, asexuality, and body liberation!

Let's get things rolling! Ellie! Can you talk a little about what you do at Scarleteen, and if there's anything you're extra interested in being asked about?

[Ellie]

Thanks for the intro, Heather! I’m a volunteer at Scarleteen and I answer questions about sexuality and relationships on the boards section of our website, and also respond to users one-on-one in real time using our chat feature. I’m so excited to be here for the AMAs! I’d love to be asked about anything written in up there in my description - but especially LGBTQ+ topics because today we are celebrating pride!

[Heather]

How about we start today by talking about how your own identities are part of the work that you do at Scarleteen, as well as part of what brought you to work with us in the first place?

[Ellie]

Great question. I’m a queer, trans & non-binary person on the asexual spectrum. I’ve known I was queer since early on in high school, and I’m lucky to have grown up in a town with quite a few other queer people and learned that I was queer myself from hearing about their experiences. I was also able to find safe spaces through the internet, especially when my family wasn’t as understanding. I want to be able to provide that same sense of understanding to users at Scarleteen! I was frustrated by the lack of sex education, specifically queer sex ed, that I received from school, and it has been a passion of mine ever since I started to find the tools to learn about sexuality and queerness for myself. When I saw that a volunteer position was open at Scarleteen, I leaped at the opportunity!

[Heather]

As the person whose excited face you saw when you interviewed to volunteer, you know how happy I am that you did!

Can you say some more about your experience of both how it feels to find those safe spaces, and how it feels to provide them for people?

[Ellie]

Aww

Yes! For me, it felt a lot like a missing piece clicked into place. I finally had the words to describe my experience, and it felt so reassuring to hear from folks who felt the same way as I did. For example, I remember dressing up as a boy every chance that I got, Halloween, school plays, even playing as boys on video games, when the rest of my AFAB (assigned female at birth) friends never played a different gender. I became dysphoric in high school without knowing what the feeling was, I just hated having long hair. When I figured out that I didn’t have to subscribe to the gender binary, it was like a weight was lifted off of my chest. I had words to describe who I was, and learned that other people experimented like I did and it made me feel so much less alone. It gave me the tools to come out to my parents, and while they may not have understood it, that didn’t shake me because I at least knew that there was a community out there of people who recognize the self that I see. So, whenever I speak to a queer person at Scarleteen, I remember how it feels to be SEEN by someone and providing that for others is the most rewarding experience!

[Heather]

I love all of that. I also envy you! In my era, the best we had for gender options was "androgynous" and that came with a very tacit expectation, almost a requirement, that you had to look that way in every aspect, a thing out of reach for anyone whose body had any kind of curve to it. I love what we can offer to users in this respect at Scarleteen, and love even more that we have so many more frameworks for all of it than we did when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s.

Speaking of bodies, do you want to talk a little about the intersection of fat activism and the kind of sex education and support we offer at Scarleteen, and what that looks like from where you're sitting?

[Ellie]

Yes, absolutely! When I found out that Scarleteen was a fat positive organization, I was over the moon about it because unfortunately, that’s a very hard thing to find! For users who may not be familiar with fat liberation: Fat people experience systemic structural oppression, and weight loss is not the answer to address this problem. It’s been proven that dieting is not sustainable long term (yes, most people gain the weight back and then some after 3-5 years because our bodies are designed to survive famine!) and is the leading predictor of eating disorders. Fat liberation is a movement that does not blame fat people for their own oppression, but instead calls for society to be restructured to end size discrimination and create an inclusive, equitable society for people of all body sizes. As you can imagine, since our society is so averse to fat bodies, there are LOTS of issues when it comes to sexuality and fat bodies. We are deemed unattractive by society, so we are taught to be grateful for any attention that we get, which causes us to be vulnerable to abuse. Of course there are lots of people out there who are very attracted to fat people, but feel embarrassed by it, so there is a culture of sexualizing fat bodies but not wanting to be seen with us in public. There’s accessibility issues, stigma around fat hygiene, we are only just scratching the surface. Being able to navigate all of this begins with having these conversations. And that’s exactly what we do at Scarleteen. If you’ve got a question about fat bodies or fat sexuality, I’m your dude!!!

[Heather]

One really wonderful fact about Scarleteen is that waaaaaaay back at the start of everything, the person who helps me most with it was the brilliant and wonderful fat activist (and one of my oldest friends) Hanne Blank. I love everything you've said here, and I know Hanne would, too. One of my favorite things about the fat activist movement is how much it has also always included quite a lot of sex education!

If you had to come up with three favorite things about sexuality and fat bodies, what would those be?

[Ellie]

That’s so wonderful! And totally! Fat people have been told that we don’t deserve pleasure, especially pleasure from food, and so one of my favorite things is when fat people don’t deny themselves the pleasure that we have always had a right to access in our bodies! When fat folks are able to release shame and reconnect to their bodies in a sensual way, it’s so beautiful. There is so much of our bodies to explore - literally! Places to grab and squeeze, softness that envelops, movement like waves. We don’t hear positive things about our bodies often, especially in the context of sexuality, so I just wanted to put it out there, that we are not attractive in SPITE of our bodies, but attractive because of our bodies! Another thing that I love about the fat liberation movement is its focus on body autonomy, which is something we deeply value as sex educators!

[Heather]

Thanks! I love these answers! Particular high-fives to bringing up the fat liberation and progressive sex ed intersection of bodily autonomy!

How about talking a little about your experience as an ace-spec person providing sex education?

[Ellie]

Thank you!

Sure, I think it’s a pretty unique experience! The confusion and shame I grew up with while having a kink, but no interest in sex in the traditional sense, caused a lot of inner turmoil for me because I felt like there was something deeply wrong with me. The trauma I experienced navigating that stigma and those feelings alone in shame and secrecy is what eventually led me to be so passionate and interested in sexuality! I may not have had the same experiences as many people here, but I am 100% a sex nerd. I’m so fascinated by how diverse sexuality is for everyone, and if I can help someone know that there’s nothing wrong with them, then that’s all I could ever ask for!