Taking up space is a radical act of liberation for fat people, who face systemic discrimination wherever they go, including queer spaces.
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I always introduce myself as a fat, queer, and disabled person. People might find the first descriptor to be strange. Why do I feel the need to announce my body size? Because fatness is not merely a body size. It is the source of systemic discrimination, prejudice, and guilt. Oh, so much guilt!
When I announce my fatness, I declare my lived history and my present; I declare my politics—as British psychotherapist and writer Susie Orbach said, “fat is also a queer issue, and a racialized issue, and an issue of class—because fatness is inseparable from all other intersections of identity.”
Being fat is an indispensable part of my identity because it has coloured the majority of my experiences. It has subjected me to ridicule in schools, harassment at the doctor's, and embarrassment in all kinds of public places—from aeroplanes and trains with tiny seats and berths to rides at amusement parks that only accommodate certain body types.
“How dare he not fit neatly into the space allocated to him like everyone else?” the world seems to ask of me whenever I find myself in these situations.
My fatness fundamentally informs people's perception of my gender and sexuality. The value they assign to my attractiveness is a function of my body weight. They struggle to see me as a masc person because of my breasts, and my stomach and broad shoulders make it impossible for them to see me as femme.
Fatness is a condition so stigmatised that it has often been compared to queerness. In the introduction to Queering Fat Embodiment, Zoë Meleo-Erwin argues that fat bodies are “queer modes of embodiment in that they elicit great anxiety through the disruption of norms about how bodies are supposed to look and how they are supposed to function”.
A 2022 study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect found that fat children and adolescents are often at greater risk of being bullied than other children. Fat folx I interviewed for this article recalled instances of being harassed for being fat as some of their earliest memories.
“I have been fat all my life. I never realised fat could stand for ugly, until it was pointed out to me again and again,” said Innity, a Solan-based queer-neurodivergent biotech research student and an organiser who lives with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Over Whatsapp voice notes, they describe their earliest memories of realising that fatness was a ‘bad’ thing: “At weddings, aunties and uncles would come up to me and say, ‘kitni badi ho gayi hai’ [you’ve become so big]. As someone who doesn’t quite understand social cues, I thought they meant that I have grown in age. But my mom had to point it out to me that it wasn’t what they meant. They meant that I had become fat. She used to tell me that according to them, I had to lose weight to be considered ‘pretty’ in their eyes.”
To society, being fat means that you’re gluttonous, greedy, and lacking in self-control. This is a ridiculous over-simplification of a complex condition influenced by genetics, metabolic factors, and societal influences. This pejorative idea of fatness is deeply rooted in the slave trade—a way to make African people seem inferior to Europeans. Fat shaming is now so normalised in Indian society that we often use it as greetings, nicknames, and bring it up in casual conversations. Folx I interviewed for this article recall names like “bumper” and “buffalo” being casually tossed at them by their families and classmates.
Clearly, fatness can deeply affect how you are perceived by society at large. However, what surprised me was how fatness plays out in queer spaces, which are often hailed as safe, inclusive havens.
I always introduce myself as a fat, queer, and disabled person. People might find the first descriptor to be strange. Why do I feel the need to announce my body size? Because fatness is not merely a body size. It is the source of systemic discrimination, prejudice, and guilt. Oh, so much guilt!
When I announce my fatness, I declare my lived history and my present; I declare my politics—as British psychotherapist and writer Susie Orbach said, “fat is also a queer issue, and a racialized issue, and an issue of class—because fatness is inseparable from all other intersections of identity.”
Being fat is an indispensable part of my identity because it has coloured the majority of my experiences. It has subjected me to ridicule in schools, harassment at the doctor's, and embarrassment in all kinds of public places—from aeroplanes and trains with tiny seats and berths to rides at amusement parks that only accommodate certain body types.
“How dare he not fit neatly into the space allocated to him like everyone else?” the world seems to ask of me whenever I find myself in these situations.
My fatness fundamentally informs people's perception of my gender and sexuality. The value they assign to my attractiveness is a function of my body weight. They struggle to see me as a masc person because of my breasts, and my stomach and broad shoulders make it impossible for them to see me as femme.
Fatness is a condition so stigmatised that it has often been compared to queerness. In the introduction to Queering Fat Embodiment, Zoë Meleo-Erwin argues that fat bodies are “queer modes of embodiment in that they elicit great anxiety through the disruption of norms about how bodies are supposed to look and how they are supposed to function”.
A 2022 study published in the journal Child Abuse & Neglect found that fat children and adolescents are often at greater risk of being bullied than other children. Fat folx I interviewed for this article recalled instances of being harassed for being fat as some of their earliest memories.
“I have been fat all my life. I never realised fat could stand for ugly, until it was pointed out to me again and again,” said Innity, a Solan-based queer-neurodivergent biotech research student and an organiser who lives with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).
Over Whatsapp voice notes, they describe their earliest memories of realising that fatness was a ‘bad’ thing: “At weddings, aunties and uncles would come up to me and say, ‘kitni badi ho gayi hai’ [you’ve become so big]. As someone who doesn’t quite understand social cues, I thought they meant that I have grown in age. But my mom had to point it out to me that it wasn’t what they meant. They meant that I had become fat. She used to tell me that according to them, I had to lose weight to be considered ‘pretty’ in their eyes.”
To society, being fat means that you’re gluttonous, greedy, and lacking in self-control. This is a ridiculous over-simplification of a complex condition influenced by genetics, metabolic factors, and societal influences. This pejorative idea of fatness is deeply rooted in the slave trade—a way to make African people seem inferior to Europeans. Fat shaming is now so normalised in Indian society that we often use it as greetings, nicknames, and bring it up in casual conversations. Folx I interviewed for this article recall names like “bumper” and “buffalo” being casually tossed at them by their families and classmates.
Clearly, fatness can deeply affect how you are perceived by society at large. However, what surprised me was how fatness plays out in queer spaces, which are often hailed as safe, inclusive havens.
I have always been masculinised because of my fatness. When I finally accepted and came to terms with my inherent masculinity, I felt like I could breathe better.
When I came out to my dad as non-binary, I remember him saying something along the lines of, “Is it because you have never looked like other girls?” To him, it was an innocent statement spoken without thinking, but to me, it opened the door to understanding how fatness queers gender.
Fatness destabilises the dominant ways of being, doing, and identifying gender. Fat women are unable to be feminine, due to their fatness; fat men are unable to be masculine, due to their fatness. Fat non-binary folx too have their gender identities “spoiled” by their curves and bulges.
Bengaluru-based Duha, a fat, queer, non-binary and polyamorous community organiser and researcher, was once asked at a queer event: “Is having boobs the reason why you express your fluidity and your non-binary identity?”
Already aware of the gaze of so many people on their body, Duha struggled to answer the intrusive question. “At that moment I felt so unsafe and vulnerable. It felt so disconcerting. People make these assumptions all the time,” they said.
Innity points out that these sort of assumptions can lead to a heightened sense of gender dysphoria. They recalled a conversation with a friend in which they fantasised about the possibility of cutting off their breasts. The friend assumed Innity was feeling insecure and tried to reassure them that a lot of people like big breasts and that they should be body-positive. “That is not how I want to present my gender identity,” they said. “I would rather not have boobs. I am not insecure about them because of my fatness, that’s a hurtful thing to assume.”
In queer spaces, as in cishet spaces, fatness is often met with fetishisation. AP, a queer, neurodivergent law student in Chandigarh recalls a party they once attended, during which they felt incessantly sexualised. “Every time I hugged the people, they would make a sly comment on my breasts. I remember a friend complimented me by saying ‘now that’s what they mean when they say anime titties.’”
They were wearing a low-cut top that day, but in AP’s experience, the sexualisation tends to transcend clothing choices. “Regardless of what I wear, I get the same treatment at different queer parties and events. It feels dehumanising,” they said.
AP’s experience is not an isolated one. Duha echoes the sentiment: “I have felt grossly fetishised for my body and my existence in homo-normative spaces. Fatness in queer spaces is seen as an abomination, it's seen as taking too much space.”
Ana, a fat, queer clinical psychologist living with multiple chronic illnesses and complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD), points out that while the sex lives of queer people are already subject to all sorts of myths and assumptions, for a fat queer person living with a chronic illness or a disability, the stigma is even more heightened. As Danita H.Stapleton, Sekeria V.Bossie, Angela L.Hall and Lovett O.Lowery write in Human Sexuality, “Fear, ignorance, and misconstructions have resulted in people with disabilities being viewed as asexual beings.”
“They find the idea that people like us can enjoy sexual intercourse appalling,” Ana said. She avoids indulging in certain sexual acts now because they were ruined for her either by former partners who judged her body adversely or fetishised her queer identity.
On the other side of the spectrum, as a fat and disabled person who is asexual, I feel like people are constantly curious about my sex life or lack thereof. I have heard people joke that I shouldn’t have sex because “you will get tired within 5 minutes” or if they’re being even more dramatic, because “you will die.” Sometimes, a part of me is grateful for my low libido and lack of interest in sex, which prevents me from being in a position to test these hypotheses too often.
The representation of fat people in queer media is both informed by and feeds into the dislike, malice, and discomfort towards fat bodies seen in real-life queer spaces.
“I am tired of seeing queer media with only thin, pretty people,” said Ana “When I was a baby gay, I used to look at pictures of pride parades and even there I used to only see thin people leading the charge. It made me feel like I would never fit in there.”
Given the disproportionate association of queerness with thin bodies in the media, the politics of attraction in the queer world is heavily loaded against fat people. “Queer people often constantly seek out their thin counterparts. This is something I have seen in so many people I know,” said Ana. “In the community, if you’re fat and not conventionally attractive, it not only limits your dating experiences but exposes you to ones that are severely traumatic.”
When Ana was in college in Bhopal, she got on a dating app for the first time after a breakup. And she soon saw a pattern emerge in the matches she was getting: it was either gym bros with a fetish for fat women or women who were her size or bigger than her.
“I was a deeply insecure person, who often altered her selfies and made her face thinner,” Ana recalled. “It was a different era. The movie The DUFF was out, and I distinctly remember the person I was talking to calling herself the DUFF [designated ugly fat friend].”
Experiences like these lead to the birth of so many insecurities in fat folx about attractiveness and sex that acts of pleasure are transformed into something much more forbidding.
This is my life and the lives of many other fat people who are queer and chronically ill. The situation is dire for us. And yet, hope persists. When I asked fat folx about their hopes for a changed society, their answers evoked immense warmth in me.
For Duha, liberation can only be achieved by taking up space. “I don't think we can hope without fighting for radical change,” they said. “If we don't take up space right now, then we are lagging in achieving a fat-positive society.”
As fat queer and disabled folx, we often find ourselves in spaces that are simply not made for us. They're physically and socially inaccessible, and filled to the brim with judgement. When we talk about taking up space, we mean it literally and metaphorically. It is time for fat folx to stop trying to shrink themselves and hold their breaths all the time. It is time for us to speak out against the prejudices that we face every day and make ourselves heard. It is time for us to create spaces where we can come together and share our grief and hold each other up. My hope for us is to be visible, no matter how much it makes others uncomfortable.
Fat folx face a unique set of challenges and ‘lose weight’ is far from being the solution to these problems. To me, the answer is community.
I dream of a community of fat, queer, and disabled folx. A community that offers no judgements and expects no justifications, that rallies to protect anyone who has been exposed to fatphobia, that passes around contacts of fat-friendly doctors, and collates lists of anti-chafing leggings and plus-size clothing brands.
That little slice of liberation is my hope for fat folx everywhere.
Hemakshi (he/they) is a fat, queer, neurodivergent writer and teacher of psychology. As someone living with multiple disabilities, they try to inject an anti-ableist, anti-fat bias, and queer vein of thought into everything they pick up.
Visvak (he/they) is a writer and editor based in Goa.
Jose (she/they) is a non-binary illustrator from Kerala whose work highlights personal stories marked by gender, body experiences and their south-Indian heritage. While not lost in their sketchbook, they can be found devouring all things camp and horror.
Ankur Paliwal (he/they) is a queer journalist, and founder and managing editor of queerbeat.
