Fat And Queer

AASECT Book Award for General Audience 'A joy to read' ESSIE DENNIS 'A beautifully written collection' JUNO ROCHE We're here. We're queer. We're fat. This one-of-a-kind collection of prose and poetry radically explores the intersection of fat and queer identities, showcasing new, emerging and established queer and trans writers from around the world. Celebrating fat and queer bodies and lives, this book challenges negative and damaging representations of queer and fat bodies and offers readers ways to reclaim their bodies, providing stories of support, inspiration and empowerment. In writing that is intimate, luminous and emotionally raw, this anthology is a testament to the diversity and power of fat queer voices and experiences, and they deserve to be heard.

To be fat in a thin-obsessed gay culture can be difficult. Despite affectionate in-group monikers for big gay men–chubs, bears, cubs–the anti-fat stigma that persists in American culture at large still haunts these individuals who often exist at the margins of gay communities. In Fat Gay Men, Jason Whitesel delves into the world of Girth & Mirth, a nationally known social club dedicated to big gay men, illuminating the ways in which these men form identities and community in the face of adversity. In existence for over forty years, the club has long been a refuge and ‘safe space’ for such men. Both a partial insider as a gay man and an outsider to Girth & Mirth, Whitesel offers an insider’s critique of the gay movement, questioning whether the social consequences of the failure to be height-weight proportionate should be so extreme in the gay community. This book documents performances at club events and examines how participants use allusion and campy-queer behavior to reconfigure and reclaim their sullied body images, focusing on the numerous tensions of marginalization and dignity that big gay men experience and how they negotiate these tensions via their membership to a size-positive group. Based on ethnographic interviews and in-depth field notes from more than 100 events at bar nights, café klatches, restaurants, potlucks, holiday bashes, pool parties, movie nights, and weekend retreats, the book explores the woundedness that comes from being relegated to an inferior position in gay hierarchies, and yet celebrates how some gay men can reposition the shame of fat stigma through carnival, camp, and play. A compelling and rich narrative, Fat Gay Men provides a rare glimpse into an unexplored dimension of weight and body image in American culture.

Cultural anxieties about fatness and the attendant stigmatisation of fat bodies, have lent a medical authority and cultural legitimacy to what can be described as ’fat-phobia’. Against the backdrop of the ever-growing medicalisation, pathologisation, and commodification of fatness, coupled with the moral panic over an alleged ’obesity epidemic’, this volume brings together the latest scholarship from various critical disciplines to challenge existing ideas of fat and fat embodiment. Shedding light on the ways in which fat embodiment is lived, experienced, regulated and (re)produced across a range of cultural sites and contexts, Queering Fat Embodiment destabilises established ideas about fat bodies, making explicit the intersectionality of fat identities and thereby countering the assertion that fat studies has in recent years reproduced a white, ableist, heteronormative subjectivity in its analyses. A critical queer examination on fatness, Queering Fat Embodiment will be of interest to scholars of cultural and queer theory, sociology and media studies, working on questions of embodiment, stigmatisation and gender and sexuality.

Simon Doonan knows that when it comes to style, the gays are the chosen people. A second anthropological truth comes to him midway through a turkey burger with no bun, at an otherwise hetero barbecue: Do the straight people have any idea how many calories are in the guacamole? In this hilarious discourse on and guide to the well-lived life, Doonan goes far beyond the secrets to eating like the French—he proves that gay men really are French women, from their delight in fashion, to their brilliant choices in accessories and décor, to their awe-inspiring ability to limit calorie intake. A Gucci-wearing Margaret Mead at heart, Doonan offers his own inimitable life experiences and uncanny insights into makes gay people driven to live every day feeling their best, and proves that they have just as much—and possibly better—wisdom, advice, and inspiration beyond the same old diet and exercise tips. So put down that bag of Pirate’s Booty and pick up this fierce and fabulous book. From slimming jaunts through Capri in the evening to an intrepid “Bear” hunt (if you have to ask, you have to read this book and find out for yourself), Gay Men Don’t Get Fat is the ultimate approach to a glamorous lifestyle—plus, you are guaranteed to laugh away the pounds!

Long nights, empty stomachs, and impulsive cravings haunt the stories of I'm Not Hungry But I Could Eat. A college grad reunites with a high school crush when invited to his bachelor party, a lonely cat-sitter wreaks havoc on his friends' apartment, happy hour French fries leave more than grease on lips and fingers, and, squeezed into a diner booth, one man eats past his limit for the sake of friendship. Exploring the lives of bisexual and gay Puerto Rican men, these fifteen stories show a vulnerable, intimate world of yearning and desire. The stars of these narratives linger between living their truest selves and remaining in the wings, embarking on a journey of self-discovery to satisfy their hunger for companionship and belonging.

The book provides a critical examination of discrimination based on sexuality, gender, and body size in Canadian physical education. It illustrates how students with queer bodies--whether lesbian, gay, trans-gendered, or overweight or fat--cope with homophobia, transphobia, and fat phobia in physical education. Drawing from qualitative interviews, the book reveals how students are marginalized because they do not conform to taken-for-granted ideas about healthy or athletic bodies.

Follow the journey from A to Vegan of one of the world’s biggest(!) vegan bloggers and learn what the V-word really means – and why it matters. Fat Gay Vegan is exactly what he says in the name – he’s fat, he’s gay and he’s vegan. But for a word that's grown so popular, what does being vegan actually mean? Veganism has grown hugely in the last decade, but is surrounded by questions of ethics, of community, of celebrity food fads and spurious health claims. For the last seven years, Fat Gay Vegan has been a voice that cuts through the fuss and the fads. Now, he brings together his story with those of others to answer to the questions both vegans and non-vegans alike might have: • Why should I be vegan in the first place? • Does not being vegan mean I'm a bad person? • What should my friends and family do... and are they bad people? • Do I need to be a gym bunny to be worthy of veganism? (answer: no) • Can I still eat junk food if I’m vegan? (answer: definitely yes!) In Sean’s own words: When a wave of realisation swamps you and you come to learn how incredibly simple and sensible choosing veganism is, you’ll have me sitting up there in your head like a friendly, fat uncle whispering, “I knew you could do it.” The day will arrive when you proclaim, “Hey, if that fat gay guy can do it, so can I!” Packed with personal stories and non-preachy advice, this is a compassionate, no-nonsense guide to veganism from one of the community's biggest celebrities.

Queer. Muslim. Arab American. A proudly Fat femme. Randa Jarrar is all of these things. In this "exuberant, defiant and introspective" memoir of a cross-country road trip, she explores how to claim joy in an unraveling and hostile America (The New York Times Book Review). Randa Jarrar is a fearless voice of dissent who has been called "politically incorrect" (Michelle Goldberg, The New York Times). As an American raised for a time in Egypt, and finding herself captivated by the story of a celebrated Egyptian belly dancer's journey across the United States in the 1940s, she sets off from her home in California to her parents' in Connecticut. Coloring this road trip are journeys abroad and recollections of a life lived with daring. Reclaiming her autonomy after a life of survival--domestic assault as a child, and later, as a wife; threats and doxxing after her viral tweet about Barbara Bush--Jarrar offers a bold look at domestic violence, single motherhood, and sexuality through the lens of the punished-yet-triumphant body. On the way, she schools a rest-stop racist, destroys Confederate flags in the desert, and visits the Chicago neighborhood where her immigrant parents first lived. Hailed as "one of the finest writers of her generation" (Laila Lalami), Jarrar delivers a euphoric and critical, funny and profound memoir that will speak to anyone who has felt erased, asserting: I am here. I am joyful.