100 Women We Love: Class of 2006

by Winnie McCroy

July 9, 2008

Tags: 100 women we love, go magazine, ilene chakin, jd samson, jenny shimizu, julie goldman, kim stoltz, leisha hailey, lesbian, lesbians, portia de rossi, rosie o'donnell, tegan and sara

Beth Ditto
Fat, fabulous and fantastic are all descriptors that the Gossip’s lead singer Ditto embraces. This Olympia, Washington indie rocker is proud to be a lesbian and a spokesperson for large and lovely women. She attributes her big, soulful singing style to being raised Southern Baptist and Pentecostal, and admits that as a child, she was heavily into singers like Mama Cass and Gladys Knight. She has unabashedly called skinny chicks like Britney Spears “hideous,” and says of fat women, “You know what’s funny is they treat it like a minority, but it’s actually the majority and I always wonder why we haven’t gotten it together….[When] I went out [in] Olympia, I met people who were part of a bigger movement—no pun intended—but a bigger movement, and it was really one of the most powerful things in my life.”