Last month, when I took a trip to the doctor’s office for a pelvic exam, I chose to document the experience through an Instagram story. As a feminist and a sex educator, I figure it’s my duty to de-stigmatize such banal (yet sometimes terrible) routines as Pap smears and STI testing. And what better way to do that than to feature a picture of my feet in stirrups and a doctor’s head between my legs prominently on social media? Truth be told, considering most of my friends and followers share my interests and politics, I didn’t think this story would be revolutionary. I’m far from the first person to record such an event. But then something I didn’t expect happened: a flurry of OMGs and thank-yous flooding my inbox.

Not because I was proudly discussing sexual health, but because I had caught on camera the moment that I asked the nurse not to weigh me. “It has never occurred to me that I could request not to be weighed,” internet stranger after internet stranger told me. “Being weighed at the doctor is so triggering to my food and body issues!”

I had no idea the simple fact that you still have bodily autonomy—even when in a doctor’s office—would be so mind-blowing to people. But the more I thought about it, the clearer it became. People, especially those who are marginalized, are taught to respect authority, no questions asked. And if you are, for example, a woman—especially a woman of size—then you are living with a legacy of bodies like yours having been mistreated by the medical field for generations. It’s hard to say “no” when you’ve been socialized under oppression to be pleasant. It’s harder when you’re pushing back against an institution. But doing so is possible, and for me, it's been a helpful way to look after my mental health.

I started refusing to be weighed at the doctor’s office five years ago.

Before that, for years, I would allow them to weigh me and keep the number to themselves. But one day, I took a trip to my general practitioner because I felt a relapse coming on, and I needed resources for controlling it. See, in 2008, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder—atypical anorexia, meaning that I had all the symptoms of anorexia but my weight wasn’t below a normal range. And while I’m mostly recovered most of the time, a particularly difficult bout of stress or anxiety can send me right back to skipping meals and obsessively squeezing the practically non-existent excess fat on my body.

At the time of this appointment, I had just started graduate school and moved to a new city, and I felt the temptation to restrict coming on strong. That day, despite the fact that my papers must have stated that I was in to discuss my eating disorder history, the nurse told me my weight. I’d made a big to-do about not looking at the scale as she weighed me, and yet, when we got into the examination room, for no reason whatsoever, she announced the number. I promptly burst into tears.

Since then, I’ve chosen to avoid the experience altogether. Very simply, as I’m being guided to a scale, I ask, “Could I not be weighed today, please?” Most of the time, my request is met without a problem. Sometimes, because medical personnel are so used to acting within guidelines and protocols, I receive pushback. I understand that. There are plenty of reasons why knowing a person’s weight can be useful, but usually, an exact number isn’t necessary. At those moments, I try to meet them halfway: “I can estimate how much I weigh for your records,” I tell them, or “I haven’t gained or lost a significant amount of weight recently.”