Fatphobia in the Queer Community

[00:00:07] Welcome to Queers Against Diet Culture, the podcast where we unlearn toxic food rules and reclaim our bodies. I'm Raya, a queer anti diet coach and your guide to healing your relationship with food and your body in a world that profits off our self hate. We're not here to shrink, we're here to take up space. So let's get into it. [00:00:27] All right, everyone, this one might be a little uncomfortable to talk about, because today we're going to talk about fatphobia. Not out there in the straight world, but right here in our own community. [00:00:39] Now, before we dive in, let's talk tarot. The card I pulled for today's episode is the Two of Wands. The Two of Wands is a card of vision, of possibility. [00:00:50] It's that moment where you've stepped outside of your comfort zone and you're starting to imagine what else could be out there. [00:00:57] It's not about taking action yet. [00:00:59] It's about seeing the bigger picture, realizing that there are multiple paths in front of you and starting to make choices that align with who you're becoming. [00:01:09] There's a sense of curiosity and expansion in this card, but there's also a little bit of tension, because when you start to imagine something new for yourself, you're also acknowledging that where you've been isn't where you want to stay. [00:01:22] So the Two of Wands asks us, what kind of future are you building for yourself? What vision are you holding? And what might need a shift for you to actually step into it? [00:01:32] For this episode, that feels especially relevant, because when we talk about fatphobia in the queer community, we're also talking about imagining something new. We're envisioning a future that's freer and more inclusive, or one where our worth isn't tied to thinness, desirability, or conformity. [00:01:50] The Two of Wands is an invitation to hold that vision, to believe that something better is possible, and to start shaping it one act of liberation at a time. [00:02:02] And real quick. Before jumping into it, I want to name something important. This conversation about fatphobia isn't about shame. It's about accountability and learning and healing. [00:02:14] Most of us didn't create these systems. We were just born into them. But we do have a responsibility to see them clearly and to try to dismantle them, especially when they harm the people that we claim to love. [00:02:27] We love to say that the queer community is super inclusive, that we're a safe haven for everyone who doesn't fit mainstream norms. [00:02:35] We're already a minority and a victim of oppression. So you'd think that we'd be accepting of all other queer folks. But if we're being honest, that's not always the case. [00:02:46] Because while we're rejecting gender binaries and heteronormativity, we often cling hard to another oppressive standard, the thin, fit, able bodied ideal. Fatphobia didn't just skip over the queer community. And the truth is, many queer spaces still center thinness as the default of desirability. [00:03:06] So today we're going to unpack where that comes from, how it shows up, how and what real liberation could look like if we stopped reproducing the same oppressive beauty standards that we say that we're escaping. [00:03:17] So before we get too far into how fatphobia shows up, specifically in queer spaces, I want to slow down and actually unpack what fatphobia is. Because a lot of people hear that word and think it just means, like, being mean to fat people or not wanting to be fat. But fatphobia isn't just personal bias. It's an entire system of belief and behavior that gives privilege to thin bodies and punishes fat ones. [00:03:43] And when I say system, I mean systemic. It's not just an attitude, it's an infrastructure. It's in healthcare, it's in hiring practices. It's in how chairs and airplanes and uniforms are designed. [00:03:58] Fatphobia is the idea that thinness equals worthiness, that discipline and self control make you a better person, and that fatness equals failure. And that belief is not accidental. It's historical. [00:04:12] So let's rewind a bit. Fatphobia has roots in racism and colonialism. [00:04:17] In the 18th and 19th centuries, white European societies started to associate thinness with things like purity, control, and moral superiority. At the same time, they racialized fatness, connecting larger bodies to blackness, to savagery, to lack of control. [00:04:35] Historians like Sabrina Strings, who wrote Fearing the black body, have traced this back to when European colonizers were trying to justify the slave trade and the exploitation of black bodies. They used body size as a way to say, see, we're disciplined and civilized, and they're indulgent and less evolved. [00:04:54] So fatphobia wasn't about health. It was about power. It was about creating hierarchies that placed whiteness, thinness, and control at the top. [00:05:04] Then, as capitalism developed, thinness took on new meaning. In industrialized society, your value was tied to productivity, so being thin became a sign that you were efficient, restrained, and hard working, while fatness got framed as lazy, gluttonous, or wasteful. [00:05:23] Basically, fatphobia became another way to measure people's moral worth and another Tool to control whose bodies were seen as good and whose were seen as a problem to fix. [00:05:35] And that legacy is still here in ways that we've learned to call health. Because, let's be honest, most of the time, when people say, I'm just worried about your health, what they actually mean is, I've been taught that being thin is better. We've been sold the idea that health and thinness are the same thing, but they're not. Health is really complex. [00:05:58] Real health is broken down into several different types. [00:06:02] It's genetic, social, environmental, emotional, intellectual. It's not something that you can just measure by looking at somebody. [00:06:12] And ironically, fatphobia itself harms health. When people are shamed at the doctor's office and they stop going to appointments, that's a public health issue. [00:06:23] When weight cycling and chronic dieting wreck people's metabolisms and hormones, that's a health issue. [00:06:30] When stigma and stress cause higher cortisol and inflammation, that's literally harming bodies in the name of health. [00:06:38] So fatphobia doesn't protect people. It hurts them. It's not a personal failing. It's a public system of control. And it shows up everywhere. It's in job discrimination, where fat people are paid less or passed over for promotions. [00:06:54] It's in media, where fat characters are rarely portrayed as full, complex humans unless it's part of a redemption story about losing weight. It's also in fashion, where larger sizes either cost more or they're hidden in the backs of stores, or they just don't exist in stores at all. It's in furniture, public transportation, gym equipment. They're all designed around an imaginary average body size. [00:07:21] None of that is accidental. It's design. [00:07:24] It's a built environment that literally tells fat people, you don't belong here. [00:07:30] But even if you don't personally discriminate, you've still absorbed fatphobia, because we all have. We were all raised in a culture that rewards thinness and calls it discipline, while shaming fatness and calling it failure. [00:07:46] So internalized fatphobia can look like feeling guilty after eating something you think you shouldn't have, complimenting somebody when they've lost weight, equating thin with healthy, or thinking, I'd love myself more if I just looked a little different. [00:08:02] And if you're thin, that fear of losing thin privilege keeps you compliant. It keeps you chasing a standard that keeps shifting. [00:08:11] For fat people, that same system forces constant apology, like, you have to earn your right to exist peacefully in your body. [00:08:18] And that's kind of the point, right? Fatphobia keeps People small, literally and emotionally. It keeps us too busy fighting our bodies to question why we were taught to hate them in the first place. [00:08:31] It keeps us exhausted, distracted, and hungry for approval, for belonging, for permission. [00:08:38] That's why I don't see fat liberation as a body image thing. [00:08:42] It's not self help, its resistance. [00:08:46] Because when we stop apologizing for our bodies, we start realizing how much power we've been giving away to the systems that benefit from our shame. [00:08:54] Fat liberation isn't just about everyone loving themselves. It's about dismantling the structures that made self hatred profitable in the first place. And when you zoom out like that, it becomes really obvious that fat liberation and queer liberation are deeply connected. [00:09:11] Both are about reclaiming autonomy over your body, your identity, your worth. [00:09:16] Both ask, what if I stop trying to make myself palatable to the systems that were never built for me anyway? [00:09:23] And that's where we start to shift from seeing fatphobia as just an aesthetic issue to seeing it as part of the same web that holds up white supremacy, patriarchy, ableism, capitalism, all of it. [00:09:37] Because the same system that tells queer people that their love is wrong is the same one that tells fat people that their bodies are wrong. And when we start to challenge one, we start unraveling all of them. [00:09:49] So now that we've talked about where fatphobia comes from, let's talk about what it looks like within the queer community. [00:09:56] But first, I just want to say that there are a lot of queer spaces that are incredibly accepting of everyone, no matter their size or their skin color or the way that they dress. [00:10:07] But there are also a lot of queer spaces that aren't nearly as accepting as they claim to be. And those are the ones that I'm referring to here. But let's start where fatphobia shows up the most visibly in desirability politics. We've probably all seen it, or at least heard about it. Those dating app bios that proudly say, no fats, no femmes. [00:10:29] Those words carry the weight of every oppressive system that queerness is supposed to challenge. Misogyny, fatphobia, racism, all rolled into one. In gay male spaces, being thin and muscular often becomes the price of admission, a way to prove worth and desirability. [00:10:48] In sapphic spaces, you might hear, I'm just not into bigger girls or c entire communities centering thin androgynous bodies as the default queer queer aesthetic. It's like the community that's supposed to celebrate differences still has this unspoken rule about which bodies are considered beautiful and which are just tolerated. Here's the thing though, queer culture and body image are deeply connected. [00:11:15] Our bodies are how we express our queerness. They're how we signal identity and attraction and belonging. But because we're all raised in a world that equates thinness with desirability and power, those same ideas sneak into queer spaces disguised as preferences. We don't call it fatphobia, we call it having a tight. We say, I'm just not attracted to that, when really we've just been trained not to be. [00:11:43] And listen, attraction is complicated. No one is saying that you have to force yourself to date anyone. But if all of your preferences perfectly align with what society says is valuable. The thin, white, able bodied, conventionally attractive, it's worth asking where those preferences came from. [00:12:02] Because we've all been programmed to see some bodies as lovable and others as disposable and unlearning. That programming is queer liberation at work. Fatphobia also shows up in the way queer bodies are policed, even within the community. [00:12:17] Think about how certain queer aesthetics get praised while others are ignored or mocked. Or how larger masc people get called sloppy while thinner ones are effortless. Or how fat femmes get desexualized or fetishized. They're rarely seen as complex, desirable people. Even within trans and non binary spaces, there's often this pressure to look a certain way to be read as valid. For transmasc folks, that might mean trying to get leaner or more muscular. [00:12:46] For trans femme folks, it might mean trying to shrink yourself and control your weight. [00:12:52] And that's where I think compassion has to come in. Because the goal isn't to shame anyone for having internalized fatphobia. We've all absorbed it. It's everywhere. The goal is to notice it, to get curious about it. So ask yourself, who benefits from me believing this? What do I gain from holding onto these beauty standards? [00:13:12] What would it mean to imagine desire differently? To make space for softness, for abundance, for bodies to take up space unapologetically? [00:13:23] Because queerness has always been about expanding what's possible for love, for bodies, for gender, for joy. Fat liberation is a part of that expansion. Maybe the problem was never our bodies. Maybe the problem was a system that profits off of our self hate. [00:13:41] And when we start to unlearn fatphobia in our own communities, we create spaces where everyone can belong. We make it safer for trans folks who don't conform to body expectations. [00:13:52] We make it safer for fat folks who are tired of being treated like a project. [00:13:57] We make it safer for all of us to exist without having to earn our worth through pain or shrinking. And that's the future that I want queer spaces to hold. One where rebellion isn't just about who we love, but about how fiercely we love ourselves and others. [00:14:14] So let's zoom in a little bit closer. We've talked about how fatphobia looks in queer spaces, in dating, in aesthetics, in community culture. But now let's talk about what it actually does to people. For fat queer folks, it's not just about being excluded from a date or a brand campaign. It's about being excluded from a sense of belonging. It's the exhaustion of being hyper visible and invisible at the same time. [00:14:41] It's the sting of hearing your friends preach self love while still talking about cheat days or needing to get back on track. It's realizing that even the communities that saved your life might still judge your body. [00:14:55] And when you've spent your whole life chasing that sense of belonging, that kind of rejection doesn't just sting, it shapes how you see yourself. That can be devastating. It tells you that your queerness might be accepted, but only if it comes in a body that doesn't make anyone uncomfortable. And that message runs deep. [00:15:15] It shapes how people move through the world, how they dress, how they eat, how they show up in photos, even how they date within their own community. [00:15:24] It starts to chip away at your ability to feel safe within yourself. [00:15:30] We don't talk enough about the grief that comes with that. The grief of feeling othered within your own family, of misfits. [00:15:36] And sometimes the way we cope with that grief is by turning it inward, by policing our own bodies, making ourselves smaller, literally and emotionally, to take up less space. [00:15:48] You end up with people who are already navigating oppression like racism, transphobia and homophobia, now internalizing another layer of shame about their body size. [00:15:58] That's not just a self esteem issue. That's chronic stress. It's trauma. [00:16:04] And this is why fat liberation is emotional work, not just intellectual work. It's not enough to understand that all bodies are good bodies. You have to also feel it. You have to rewire the nervous system that's been trained to expect rejection. And the truth is, healing from fatphobia, especially as a queer person, isn't about learning to love your body overnight. It's about creating safety within yourself again. [00:16:30] It's about realizing that your body isn't up for debate. It's about remembering that the problem was never your body. It was a system that benefits from keeping you insecure. [00:16:40] So when you start to release the shame, the control, the comparison, you start to make Space for something new, for neutrality, for pleasure, for ease, for kind of a quiet self trust that says that I don't have to prove anything. I get to just be me. [00:16:59] And that's where liberation begins. [00:17:03] So you might be wondering, where do we go from here? How do we heal from this? [00:17:08] And that's what this next part is going to be. Liberation. Liberation isn't just about dismantling oppression. It's also about reclaiming pleasure. But when we talk about liberation, we can't just stop at gender or sexuality. We have to include body liberation too, because fat liberation is queer liberation. It's saying no to the same system that told us that we have to hide who we are. Fatness, queerness, disability, neurodivergence, they all disrupt the same norm. The idea that there's one right way to be human. [00:17:41] And when we start seeing all of those differences not as things to fix, but as sources of power, everything starts to shift. [00:17:48] We can spend our whole lives fighting systems that tell us that we're too much, too big, too loud, too visible, and we should fight them. But if we forget to also cultivate joy in the process, we end up recreating the same deprivation they taught us. And just to be clear, fat joy is not about ignoring pain. It means refusing to let pain be the whole story. It's about taking back ownership of your narrative and remembering that your body has always been worthy of joy, even when the world is telling you otherwise. So maybe that can look like dancing without waiting for your body to change, or. Or maybe wearing an outfit that makes you feel hot even if no one else understands. Or having sex without apology or eating something delicious and realizing that you didn't have to earn it. [00:18:37] That's liberation in motion in those small everyday moments of reclaiming what diet, culture and fatphobia try to steal. [00:18:46] And I think this is something queer people especially can understand. We've always had to invent new ways of being free, and we've always had to recreate joy from scratch. [00:18:56] Look at pride born from protest and survival, but now it's bursting with color and music and love and self expression. We turn resistance into celebration. We turn pain into art. [00:19:12] We turn shame into visibility. [00:19:17] Fat queer joy is the same kind of alchemy. It's taking all of the bullshit, the comments, the rejection, the diet, culture, conditioning, and saying, I am not shrinking to try to fit into this world anymore. [00:19:31] Liberation also means finding or creating spaces where your body isn't up for debate, where you can be seen without being othered. [00:19:40] So that might look like taking a pole dancing class where there are other people who look like you. [00:19:46] Or following creators who celebrate body diversity. Or surrounding yourself with people who love you unconditionally. People who don't treat your existence like an act of bravery, but just normalcy. Because you shouldn't have to be brave to exist in your body. You should just get to exist. [00:20:05] But since we live in a world that still hasn't caught up, joy often becomes a practice. Something intentional, something that we build muscle for. [00:20:14] And sometimes that practice looks like grief. [00:20:18] Grieving the years you spent hating your body, grieving the experiences you didn't allow yourself to have because you thought you didn't have the right body type for it. That grief is sacred too, because once you feel it, you can finally make space for something else, for something lighter. [00:20:37] The way I like to think of it is it's not about fixing your body. [00:20:41] It's about fixing your relationship with your body and fixing your relationship with food. Because that's a crucial part of this too. [00:20:48] It's realizing that you were never broken to begin with, that your body was never the problem. The lens through which you were taught to view it was the problem. [00:20:57] And once that clicks, even for a moment, you start to move differently in the world. You start to speak with more ease, take deeper breaths, say yes to things you used to avoid. You start to understand that embodiment isn't a destination. [00:21:15] It's a practice of coming home over and over again. [00:21:19] And when you start to reclaim that space, when you start to feel joy without apology, you also start giving others permission to do the same. That's the ripple effect of liberation. [00:21:31] When someone sees a fat queer person laughing loudly or loving openly, or living fully speaking, something in them softens. They realize that maybe they don't have to earn their joy either. [00:21:42] And that's how the collective shifts. [00:21:45] Not just through discourse or activism, but through embodied joy. [00:21:51] And I want to name something else here too. [00:21:53] Fat liberation isn't just for fat people. It's for everyone. Because the fear of fatness is what keeps everyone trapped in body shame. [00:22:03] Even thin people, including in queer spaces, are often stuck in this endless anxiety about staying desirable, staying valid, staying fit. Enough. [00:22:13] That's not freedom either. [00:22:16] When we dismantle fatphobia, we create room for all bodies to exist without fear. We make queerness more inclusive, more loving, more human. [00:22:28] So maybe liberation looks like taking a deep breath and letting your belly rise without pulling it in. [00:22:34] Maybe it looks like wearing the crop top. Maybe it's going out dancing. Even when your brain tries to convince you to stay home. [00:22:42] Maybe it's just existing fully without waiting for permission. [00:22:48] Every act of joy in your body is an act of defiance. Every laugh, every kiss, every stretch mark, every jiggle. It's proof that they didn't win. [00:22:58] You did. You're still here. [00:23:01] You're still living, loving and showing up. [00:23:05] That's liberation. [00:23:08] And as we start to close out this episode, I want to circle back to the tarot card for this week. [00:23:13] So earlier I pulled the Two of Wands, the card of possibility, vision, expansion. [00:23:20] Now that we've talked about fatphobia in the queer community and the harm it causes, but also the joy and liberation that comes from rejecting it, I think the Two of Wands fits perfectly. Because this card is all about that moment of choice, the space between awareness and action. [00:23:38] It's that point when you realize you can't unsee what you've seen. [00:23:43] You recognize the system that tells us which bodies are worthy and which aren't. [00:23:48] You've started questioning who those systems actually serve, and now the Two of Wands asks us what we're going to do with that awareness. [00:23:58] This card reminds us that imagining a freer, more inclusive world is the first act of rebellion. [00:24:06] It also reminds us that that vision alone isn't enough. We have to take steps towards it. [00:24:12] So as you move forward, maybe take this card as your reminder. You're standing in a doorway between the world that exists and the world that you're helping to create. [00:24:23] So as we sit with that, I'm I want to invite you to take this reflection a little deeper. If you like to journal, here are a few journal prompts to sit with this week. You don't have to have all the right answers. Just let whatever comes up come up. [00:24:39] 1. What part of my body story am I still holding on to, even if they no longer serve me? [00:24:46] 2. What boundaries do I need to protect my body image from harmful spaces or conversations? [00:24:52] And 3 imagine your future self has already stepped into full body acceptance and joy. [00:24:58] What choices did they make to get there? How did they unlearn the old stories? [00:25:09] Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Queers Against Diet Culture. Don't forget to rate, subscribe and share this podcast. Until next time. Remember, carbs are not the enemy, and neither is your beautiful body. See you next week.