Fat hasn't become a bad word because fatness is somehow inherently undesirable or bad--it has fallen out of public favor because of what we attach to it. We take fat to mean unlovable, unwanted, unattractive, unintelligent, unhealthy. But fatness itself is simply one aspect of our bodies--and a very small part of who each of us is. It deserves to be described as a simple and unimportant fact.

Photo: Wally McNamee/Corbis, circa 2009

What is Fat Liberation? 🐋⛓️‍💥

Fat liberation is a social justice movement that works against anti-fat bias, oppression, and discrimination. Fat liberation is a radical alternative to body positivity – a movement based largely in appearance that is often appropriated by the mainstream – and affirms the value of all people, regardless of their weight or health. Fat liberation understands anti-fat bias and discrimination to have strong roots in anti-Black racism, colonialism, and classism, and that anti-fat bias and discrimination are routinely practiced without recrimination. Fat liberation seeks to identify and alleviate systemic anti-fat bias and individual prejudice, and to unlearn internalized fat bias and oppression. Fat liberation is a struggle tied to other intersectional struggles against oppression, and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with struggles against racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ageism, ableism, and others. Fat liberation not only seeks to normalize fat bodies, but to celebrate them.

– fatliberation.org

Photo: Katie Loncke. Fat Rose, 2018

About Me 🪐

I'm a 24 year old blogger called @fatliberation (they/them), also known as @thaenad. I am a fat, queer, trans, and neurodivergent artist/activist. I am a fat liberationist and unapologetic feedist who openly speaks out about intra-communal stigma surrounding the marginalized identities that I hold. My experience battling deep-rooted childhood shame growing up as a sexual outsider has shaped my work in fat liberation and pleasure/autonomy advocacy from a distinct lens, and I am interested in empowering others to break free of ingrained anti-fat and sex-negative biases. Over the past five years, I have done years of extensive research in the field of Fat Studies. I have worked with four fat acceptance organizations since 2020 and currently serve as a board member of a fat activist non-profit in Chicago. In 2022, I helped design a course on de-stigmatizing body size for a CE program run by licensed clinical social workers and healthcare professionals, and in 2023, I organized and documented a scale-smashing protest to raise awareness of the harms of diet culture. In 2024, I drafted a design for a Fat Liberation Flag. Today, a large focus of my work integrates fat liberation and sex education. I have over a year of experience working a live hotline providing queer inclusive, comprehensive, and fat-positive sex education for teens and emerging adults. Offline, I spend much of my time building and strengthening in-person connections with my local fat kink community through the grassroots organization Abundance Chicago, which I founded solo in 2024. 🔗 My Links

My Writing 📝

(🚧 = in progress, 📃 = article)

📃 Anti-Obesity Drugs In Sociopolitical Context

📃 Fat Rights? Fat Chance! A History of Fat Liberation In The United States From 1967-1974

FAT MYTHS MASTERPOST

FAQ: An overview of my writing integrating fat liberation and the feedism/fat kink communities

Anti-Fatness is Systemic.

Diets Don't Work.

Guide to advocating for yourself at the doctor's office

Fat Genital Maintenance Guide + Accessible Sex

#Fat Sex Ed

Beginner fat liberation resources for eating disordered individuals

My Projects 💭

Fat Liberation Flag

🚧 The F Word: A Sex & Fat Positive Podcast

🚧 Fat-Positive Organizations Database + Interactive Map

Lived experiences with medical gaslighting: survey trends

SMASH YOUR SCALE! Live Protest

Fat LGBTQ+ Reading List

Fat Liberationist Films

Fat Bodies in Horror

“FAT DYKES RULE” at the New York City Dyke March, June 2000

Extra Resources 🔗

Fat Liberation Manifesto, 1973

Health at Every Size Principles

NAAFA's Campaign For Size Freedom

What's Wrong With 'The War on Obesity?'

Weight Science: Evaluating the Evidence for a Paradigm Shift

Long‐term Effects of Dieting: Is Weight Loss Related to Health?

HAES Health Sheet Library

Printable Self Advocacy Cards for Healthcare

Fat Friendly Health Professionals List

Weight Neutral Providers Spreadsheet (USA)

ASDAH Healthcare Provider Listing

Non-Diet Providers for Eating Disorder Recovery

Fat-Positive and Anti-Diet Parenting Resources

Fat Travel Resources

Eating Disorder Support

The Fat Protestor

Photo: Marge Dean. Members of the Fat Underground, 1979

Books 📚

Science & Health:

Health at Every Size by *Lindo Bacon PhD

Body Respect by *Lindo Bacon PhD and Lucy Aphramor PhD, RD

Secrets from the Eating Lab by Traci Mann PhD

Anti-Diet by Christy Harrison MPH, RD

The F*ck-It Diet: Eating Should Be Easy by Caroline Dooner

Decolonizing Wellness: A QTBIPOC-Centered Guide to Escape the Diet Trap, Heal Your Self-Image, and Achieve Body Liberation by Dalia Kinsey, RD, LD

Weight Bias in Health Education: Critical Perspectives for Pedagogy and Practice edited by Heather Brown, Nancy Ellis-Ordway

Fat Politics:

Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia by Dr. Sabrina Strings 

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness by Da’Shaun L. Harrison

What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About Fat by Aubrey Gordon

Thickening Fat: Fat Bodies, Intersectionality, and Social Justice edited by May Friedman, Carla Rice, and Jen Rinaldi

Queering Fat Embodiment edited by Jackie Wykes, Samantha Murray, and Cat Pausé

Fat Activism by Dr. Charlotte Cooper

Fat Politics by J. Eric Oliver

The Fat Studies Reader by Esther Rothblum (Editor) and Sondra Solovay (Editor)

Fat Shame by Amy Erdman Farrell

Fat and Queer: An Anthology of Queer and Trans Bodies and Lives edited by August Owens Grimm, Miguel M. Morales, and Tiff Joshua TJ Ferentini

Self Acceptance:

The Body is Not an Apology by Sonya Renee Taylor

Things No One will Tell Fat Girls by Jes Baker

Eating in the Light of the Moon by Anita Johnson PhD

Fat! So? Because You Don't Have to Apologize for Your Size by Marilyn Wann

Happy Fat by Sofie Hagan

Fat Girls in Black Bodies: Creating Communities of Our Own by Joy Arlene Renee Cox, PhD

You have the Right to Remain Fat by Virgie Tovar

*ASDAH's Statement on Lindo Bacon

Pre-diabetes was rejected as a diagnosis by the World Health Organization (although it is used by the US and UK) - the correct term for the condition is impaired glucose tolerance. Approximately 2% of people with "pre-diabetes" go on to develop diabetes per year. You heard that right - TWO PERCENT. Most diabetics actually skip the pre-diabetic phase.

There are currently no treatments for pre-diabetes besides intentional weight loss. (Hmm, that's convenient, right?) There has yet to be evidence that losing weight prevents progression from pre-diabetes to T2DM beyond a year. Interestingly, drug companies are trying to persuade the medical world to start treating patients earlier and earlier. They are using the term “pre-diabetes” to sell their drugs (including Wegovy, a weight-loss drug). Surgeons are using it to sell weight loss surgery. Everyone’s a winner, right? Not patients. Especially fat patients.

Check out these articles:

Prediabetes: The epidemic that never was, and shouldn’t be

The war on ‘prediabetes' could be a boon for pharma—but is it good medicine?

Also - I love what Dr. Asher Larmie @fatdoctorUK has to say about T2DM and insulin resistance, so here's one of their threads I pulled from Twitter:

1️⃣ You can't prevent insulin resistance. It's coded in your DNA. It may be impacted by your environment. Studies have shown it has nothing to do with your BMI.

2️⃣ The term "pre-diabetes" is a PR stunt. The correct term is impaired glucose tolerance (or impaired fasting glucose) which is sometimes referred to as intermittent hyperglycemia. It does not predict T2DM. It is best ignored and tested for every 3-5yrs.

3️⃣ there is no evidence that losing weight prevents diabetes. That's because you can't reverse insulin resistance. You can possibly postpone it by 2yrs? Furthermore there is evidence that those who are fat at the time of diagnosis fair much better than those who are thin.

4️⃣ Weight loss does not reverse diabetes in the VAST majority of people. Those that do reverse it are usually thinner with recent onset T2DM and a low A1c. Only a tiny minority can sustain that over 2yrs. Weight loss does not improve A1c levels beyond 2 yrs either.

5️⃣ Weight loss in T2DM does not improve macrovascular or microvascular health outcomes beyond 2 years. In fact, weight loss in diabetics is associated with increased mortality and morbidity (although it is not clear why). Weight cycling is known to impacts A1c levels.

6️⃣ Weight GAIN does NOT increase the risk of cardiovascular OR all causes mortality in diabetics. In fact, one might even go so far as to say that it's better to be fat and diabetic than to be thin and diabetic.

Dr. Larmie cites 18 peer reviewed journal articles (most from the last decade) that are included in their webinar on the subject, linked below.

if you don't know, OCD compulsions exist as stress release valves. those of us with OCD struggle with extreme (see: life-altering/ruining) anxiety brought on by intrusive thoughts. we enact/participate in (or: surrender to) compulsions which temporarily relieve this anxiety.

this could be as simple as:

intrusive thought: i forgot to lock the door before going to bed compulsion: getting up to check the door is locked

sounds simple and easily managed, until you're getting up every hour. every ten minutes. until as soon as you let go of the doorknob, the intrusive thought is already demanding you check again. until it's 5 AM, you haven't slept, and you're in tears still holding the doorknob.

in these ways, the compulsions which are supposed to relieve our anxiety take over our lives.

which is why, as much as many people just beginning to understand their OCD don't want to hear it, the only proven way to successfully treat & overcome OCD is to disobey the compulsions & rituals. ideally with gentle buildup over time, but which does sometimes mean going through every stage of a panic attack that feels life-ending simply because you're forcing yourself to stay in bed and not check the door.

anyway. One of my fav OCD education nonprofits, Made of Millions, defines avoidance: Avoiding objects, places and people that are related to the nature of your intrusive thoughts.

Avoidance is especially common among people with more 'taboo' intrusive thoughts, often violent or sexual intrusive thoughts.

Say your intrusive thought isn't about what you've failed to do (i.e. locking a door), but what you might do (i.e. cause harm). If you're up somewhere high, what if you jump to your death? What if you push someone else to their death? If you drive, what if you crash—accidentally, intentionally? If you hold a baby, what if you accidentally drop it? What if you experience a fit of uncharacteristic madness and throw the baby at a wall? If you spend a lot of time around your pet cat, what if you develop an attraction to the cat? Every time you pet your cat, you focus very hard on your body to see whether it's 'responding' inappropriately to the touch.

Avoidance becomes the ritual which your OCD promises will keep you safe from these and other catastrophes. You can't jump or push someone if you never go anywhere up high. You can't crash if you don't drive. You can't harm a child if you're never near one. You can't realize in horror you're attracted to your pet cat if you never pet it.

Quickly, your world shrinks. No more sitting out on your friend's apartment balcony on a nice summer evening. Don't go anywhere you might encounter—and thus harm—a child. Parks, museums, grocery stores, move theatres, walking down your own street are now off limits. Not that you can get any of those places. You don't drive anymore, remember? And you can't take the bus; there's kids there. You can't hold a job anymore either, by the way—no way to get there. Home is no comfort either. You miss snuggling your cat while you watch movies. But you keep her in other rooms, to protect her from you.

This is what avoidance looks like. And it starts small. You think you'll just cut one little thing out of your life—a sacrifice you can accept—and slowly but surely you lose the whole world.

This is why OCD recovery advocates are against embracing avoidance-based coping mechanisms. Unfortunately, many people don't realize avoidance is an OCD compulsion.

ERP (exposure response prevention) for these compulsions would look like standing on a deck. Kissing your cat on its head. Going to read at a bench by a playground. Driving to the store. Etc.

Just some things to consider if you're starting to think about (or already working on) overcoming OCD! It is possible.

STOP: This post is not for people without OCD to Morality Posture about violent and sexual intrusive thoughts. If you don't know the difference between intrusive thoughts and genuine desires, that's not my problem. Read up on OCD and its more 'taboo' themes on your own time, and stay out of the comments.

cant transfer yourself to wheelchair? now u have to schedule carers every time u might want to move from chair to bed or toilet, have to staff these shifts, sacrifice your alone time/comfort/independence, teach them how to safely transfer u, remind them every time, purchase and maintain expensive equipment etc.

can't pee or poo in the typical way? have to do lots of steps for catheter use or bowel program or ostomy care. have to take special meds. have to travel with medical equipment, wipes, etc in all your bags now. have to buy and store it all too. have to deal with all the ableism from people about this too

she got angry and said "then they need to pick a different word". and so you need to pick a different word.

don't think this is exclusive to public spaces like the mall or the park or whatever either. she has a tablet and access to the internet, just the same as you do. she can read, write, and make her own decisions. she has a husband.

I worked at what's called a level 2 intermediate care facility, the people in our care had needs that exceeded what could be met in a group home environment. I was told that, in order to qualify to live there, you had to have "a primary diagnosis of either mental retardation or cerebral palsy and an IQ under 70".

most of the people I served will never speak so much as a single word. so many of you could not even spare them a single thought, hundreds of people chimed in to speak up and make it about anyone else.

this is about my friend who was born with hydrocephalus, he's supposedly blind but you can tell he can see enough to track where you are. when you call each other retarded, I don't think about how I'm autistic, I think about how he's not supposed to be able to understand spoken words but I once heard him laugh at a joke.

he'll laugh if you scratch under his chin. his mom thinks he would have ridden dirt bikes, if...

it makes me angry that I have to spell this out for you. I used the slur because I wanted it to be completely unambiguous who I was talking about. the modern term is "intellectual disability", but I thought surely if I just said the fucking word itself everyone would know I didn't mean autism and ADHD, right?

of course not. everyone forgets about them. everyone.

when i was practically housebound by pots and many days getting out of bed was difficult, i went thrifting on a good day and bought myself a few pairs of nice, matching pajamas. i picked out a few pairs of underwear and socks and put them all together and designated them strictly for daytime wear. i didn’t wear them to bed except for naps.

when i woke up I got dressed in the underwear and pajamas and socks and those were my clothes.

spending all day in bed or on the couch in dayclothes like jeans was uncomfortable, but i did hate waking up in my sleepclothes and wearing the same ones all day. my days and nights already ran together miserably, and i wanted to get dressed and feel put together and nice when i had a little bit of energy.

getting dressed in pajamas as dayclothes vastly improved my mental health. i cannot recommend it enough.

and yes, when i had the energy to drive down the street to pick up food or to the pharmacy etc. i went in my pajamas because they were most comfortable for me they were my dayclothes, even if other people didn’t think so. of course sometimes when i went out i had to put on standard dayclothes if i were entering a situation where people’s opinions of me did matter (dr. appointments etc.) but mostly i lived in my day pajamas.