eBar.com – by Cynthia Laird
Community leader and performer Heather MacAllister died Tuesday, February 13 in Portland, Oregon after a three-year battle with ovarian cancer. She was 38.
Ms. MacAllister’s passing was announced by the NoLose Web site, an organization that describes itself as dedicated to ending oppression of fat people.
Ms. MacAllister, a former San Francisco resident, was the founder and artistic director of Big Burlesque/Fat-Bottom Revue in the city, the first burlesque act exclusively featuring large-sized performers. Ms. MacAllister had an anthropology degree from Eastern Michigan University, and worked for the Triangle Foundation, Michigan’s statewide LGBT civil rights organization.
Ms. MacAllister was an advocate for the transgender population and also for the rights of fat people. She helped to inspire the anti-size discrimination law passed in San Francisco in 2000. She was proud to have helped coordinate a summit bringing mainstream conservative Muslim and Arab organizations to the same table as radical gay rights organizations in order to show solidarity against the civil rights offenses that occurred post-9/11.