Serena Williams can’t win.

A victor in 23 Grand Slam tennis matches, arbiter of women’s fashion and advocate for equity in Black women’s maternal health, Williams has spent a career swatting back criticism — whether it concerns her boldness, her braids or her Blackness.

Now out of the game, living her best life as a happily married entrepreneur and mother of two daughters, Williams is again taking heat. This time, it’s for unveiling a taut physique and announcing she achieved it through taking a GLP-1 drug, the class of injectable weight-loss medications that Oprah, Kelly Clarkson and Amy Schumer have all admitted trying.

Williams announced her 31-pound weight loss with a photo of her in a sleek, white top holding the syringe she uses to inject the medication. She is also a spokesperson for Ro, one of many telemedicine companies that delivers the medication monthly to those with prescriptions. Her husband, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, is on Ro’s board and is an investor in the company.

Williams could have said nothing about her changed body, like the many celebrities who have demurred when asked if they were taking weight-loss medications. She no doubt noticed that the Internet has chastised a few famous people who have admitted using them as taking “the easy way out.”

Instead, Williams shared her truth. She confessed to People magazine that her struggles to stay fit began after she gave birth to daughter Olympia, now 8, and accelerated after she had her second daughter, Adira.

“I never was able to get to the weight I needed to be no matter what I did, no matter how much I trained,” she explained. “It was crazy because I’d never been in a place like that in my life where I worked so hard, ate so healthy and could never get down to where I needed to be at.”

Such an honest admission resonated with women who do not possess Williams’ physique but know this struggle well. That category does not seem to include some columnists and “body image experts,” who immediately picked up their rackets to swing at Serena.

“Serena Williams’ GLP-1 partnership marks a disturbing cultural turning point,” blared body image writer Alex Light in The Independent, the online British newspaper. Actress Jameela Jamil tweeted about the dangers of GLP-1, perhaps out of concern that Williams or anyone else taking these medications are not consulting their own doctors. In The Guardian, deputy U.S. sports editor Bryan Armen Graham harrumphed that Williams’ admission was “personal struggle framed as stealth marketing.”

“To many of her admirers, this was more than a sponsorship deal — it felt like a diminishment of her athletic legacy, a suggestion that all the titles and training were still not enough in a society where appearance trumps achievement,” Graham said.

He continued: “The woman who once crafted a superpower from her double burdens — of being born a woman and being born Black in America — has chosen to reinforce the very culture that sought to erase her.”

I’ll leave it to the sports editors to opine about what they think a Black superstar athlete’s “burdens” are. I am among the 8% of Americans who use the same type of medications, though I’m not an athlete, fashion icon or multimillionaire. I and millions of others do it for the same reasons she does. We want to feel better about our bodies.

The debate over Williams’ use of a GLP-1 drug appears to be about our disappointment in her. Her body was good enough to win; why should she fall victim to a society that demands she be thinner? But Williams is no one’s victim. She wants things to hurt less, so she can do more. She’s on a GLP-1 so she can be even more amazing, fierce and inspirational.

The message that some are taking away from her brave announcement is, well, if she needs the medication, what hope is there for the rest of us?

Everybody is different. I’m 53 years old, and I’ve gained and lost 40 pounds at least four times. It’s been easy, and it’s been hard. And then, when I turned 51, I had a complete hysterectomy and went into menopause immediately, and it became impossible.

My doctor is regarded as among the best in Baltimore for weight loss, a longtime Johns Hopkins physician who’s written two books on the topic. When I first started seeing him, he suggested that I take a GLP-1 medication immediately. I hesitated. We tried other things. I started taking the GLP-1 six months ago. I’ve lost 46 pounds. I have another 35 to go. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner.

We talk about these medications eliminating the “food noise,” that voice that tells you to eat chips and cookies when you don’t need them. It is a voice that obsesses about when you will have your next meal, what it will be, and how many calories you can afford to expend on it. It is a constant calculation that crowds out more pressing concerns. GLP-1 drugs do silence that. They’re not cheap. I believe a less-broken health care system would cover them, but I will pay the $500 a month as long as I need to.

Side effects include vomiting, nausea, diarrhea and loss of appetite. Mine were awful when I tried Ozempic, but they’ve been manageable on Zepbound. If they ever worsen, my doctor has recommended over-the-counter remedies. I’ve decided they’re worth the benefit.

Critics will deride Serena Williams’ campaign. She’s used to that. But to me, what she’s done complements the medication she’s endorsing. She’s reducing the “shame noise” for people who have turned to these shots because nothing else worked for them.

I’ve never been ashamed to say that I take a GLP-1, but neither have I shared it broadly, until now. I know that taking care of my health makes me a champion, too — for my two daughters. The better care I take of myself, the more likely I will be around to see them conquer the world.