15.
Having to hear: “are you sure that’s what you want?”, “ya know someone with a (insert fruit here) body shouldn’t wear this and that”, “oh but we don’t have your size (without even knowing your size)”, “it doesn’t fit? But you can buy it for when you loose weight!” . Or have people look at you like you’re an alien when buying something (specially lingerie or more revealing outfits). The awful experience of having jeans that would fit on the waist but don’t fit on your thighs, or having to escavange for clothes your size and seeing people just go by the store just picking stuff. Don’t even get me started on thrift shopping, it’s so hard to find cute stuff on bigger sizes.
16.
Once, I was in a very well know shopping in Buenos Aires, where I live. I say this because there are laws in place to stop shops to charge an extra or discriminate. That said, I was browsing for a friend who is tiny and had grabbed a shirt to buy. A woman apparently wanted the same shirt and so the shop employee took the article from my hands, telling me “It won’t fit you” and promptly sold it to the other woman. The manager was nowhere to be found and they refused to call her. Never bought there again.
17.
I’ve been flat out told to leave a shop by a person who said “we have nothing that will fit you.”
18.
I’ve been plus size my whole life according to US measurements. In high school in the late 90s, I couldn’t find any clothing I was comfortable wearing that was trendy or fit my personality. For the longest time my mom bought me clothes out of the ad section from Parade magazine (think cheaply made jeggings with pleats and elastic band waists with material that appears to resemble denim). I was bullied a ton for my clothes, and my dad, who travelled a lot for work, got a ton of European teen plus size mail order catalogues. I was successful, and my parents eventually found Lane Bryant online and then learned it was at our local mall. When my mom and I went to this store where there was legit plus-size fashionable clothing I could try on in person, I burst into tears of happiness on the way home (with an entirely new wardrobe in the backseat). As a plus size kid, I could never express myself through fashion like my peers did, so learning that I could express myself and be taken seriously when I stood up to bullies helped me be confident.