It Gets Fatter!

Dear friends, followers, and supporters,

It pains us to inform you that Jackie has decided she can no longer organize with the It Gets Fatter collective. Transitions are always hard, but this one is especially so because it has happened so quickly and in such a difficult manner.

We want to make it explicitly clear that Jackie would like the collective to be disbanded and that for us to continue organizing as this collective is going against her wishes. However, we feel that this space we have collectively created is truly magical for queer & fat people of color, and we are not sure that putting it to rest makes the most sense right now.

We don’t think It Gets Fatter belongs to any of us. It belongs to the collective of people who have shared this space with us, to everyone who has sent us a submission, everyone who has emailed us to share their struggle with body shame, everyone who has attended our events, everyone who has promoted and supported us, and every person of colour who has seen themselves in the stories that have been shared through this collective. We want to acknowledge that.

We have made a number of commitments to organizations and collected donations from people to attend NOLOSE, and we will of course be upholding those commitments. This means the IGF project will be operative until those commitments are fulfilled, and we will make a decision about the state of this collective at that time.

In the meantime, we want to thank you all for your support, generosity and love. Our lives have been changed and uplifted by the ways in which you have held this space with us, by your stories and by your presence. If you have any feedback, input or ideas on how to move forward, please send us an ask or email us at itgetsfatterproject@gmail.com.

In love,

Sara & Asam / IGF

Hiii folks!!

This weekend Sara & Asam will be presenting two (2!) sessions of our brand new “Queer Desirability & Fatness” Workshop!! We are so so so excited to be part of this amazing conference and can’t wait to take up space as fat people of color!

If you will be attending the conference we encourage you to come check out either one of our sessions (or both!). We will be presenting on Sunday, May 19th, in session 1 & 2. Here is a little blurb for our workshop:

Fat doesn’t have to be a bad word. Let’s breakdown fatphobia 101 then delve more deeply into issues of queer & fat desirability. For many of us, it doesn’t get better, it gets fatter! Instead of hating ourselves (& our bodies) or clinging to false platitudes about how much better it might get in some vague far off future, we want to celebrate ourselves and our bodies the way they are now. We will create a safe(r) space for fat queers of color and their allies to talk about the importance of rethinking queerness and desirability through the lens of fat positivity. Through various interactive activities, we will look at the different ways fat (queer) bodies of color are impacted by class, racism, sexism, ableism, transphobia & queerphobia, and how fat bodies undermine normative *and* queer modes of desire.

You can find the full conference programme here.

Thanks for all your love,

It Gets Fatter!

riotsnotdiets:

When I was 21 I studied abroad in Rome for three months as part of my university’s Italian language studies program.  Because I was studying Italian language and culture, I was assigned to live with a host family (instead of in campus housing), which in my case meant a cantankerous little old lady named Paola who spoke almost no English… which would have been fine (I was there to learn Italian, after all!), except that Paola thought she was SUPER FANTASTIC at speaking English, which usually meant that all of our conversations ended in her screaming at me (in Italian) that I didn’t understand anything.

But Paola is a story for another time.  This is about my fat.

When I first arrived at Termini train station, I met up with the rest of my cohort and, one-by-one, we were picked up by our families.  When Paola laid eyes on me, she smiled big (or was it a grimace?  I can hardly remember) and said “Ciao Margitte!  Come stai?” (hello, how are you?) and then immediately said about five other things that were well above my Italian 101 knowledge.  She helped me cram my (laughably oversized) bags into her teensy car, and we zipped off to her apartment in San Giovanni.  After a traumatizing experience with her elevator (it wouldn’t fit the two of us with my luggage), she showed me to my room and I took a nap. 

I awoke three hours later to the smell of delicious Italian cooking.  Paola excitedly ushered me into her itsy-bitsy kitchen and sat me on a rickety chair in front of my dinner.

Which consisted of three plates of food.

THREE plates of food.

Now I had learned that it was customary in Italy to eat a lot of food at dinner, but Paola herself only had one plate.  Not wanting to be rude, I smiled, said “Grazie,” and proceeded to try and eat as much of the food as possible.  At a plate and a half in, I just couldn’t eat anymore.  “Mi dispiace, ma non ho fame.”  My Italian was pretty shaky, but I basically said that I was sorry but I wasn’t hungry.

“Mangia!” (eat!), she insisted.  But I couldn’t, and Paola was shocked.

“Ma… come mai sei cosi grassata*?”

“Grassata” was not yet in my vocabulary, so I couldn’t answer.  She just kept asking, over and over, “but how come you are so….?”, growing increasingly aggravated with my puzzled looks.

Then came the hand motions.  “GRASSATA!!!” She exclaimed, making a curvy shape with her hands while giving herself a double-chin and sucking in air to make her face look bloated.  She then grabbed her chunk of her belly.  “Grassata!” 

I finally realized what she was asking, but went to get my dictionary just in case I was imagining things.  Horrified, I found out that I was right—she really had decided that asking me why I was fat was an appropriate topic of conversation (*the actual Italian word for fat is “grassa”… “grassata” literally means “greased” but is often used to describe fat people, from what I understand).  I shrugged and said “Non lo so” (I don’t know) and tried to leave it at that. 

Over the next few days, Paola badgered me about why I was so fat, growing more and more frustrated when she realized I didn’t eat a whole lot and that I was fairly active.

One night during that first week, I had a friend (who just so happened to be vacationing in Rome at the time) over for dinner.  This time, Paola decided to ask Lauren why I was so fat.  Was I lying about my eating habits?  Did I really exercise?  Lauren and I were, I think, equally horrified at this line of questioning.  Then Lauren had the bright idea to take out the dictionary and look for the word “thyroid”.

“Tiroide!” I exclaimed, pointing to it in the dictionary. 

Amazingly and suddenly, Paola was satisfied.  All was right in the world, because it finally made sense to her WHY my fat body was so fat—because I had a bad thyroid.  (In later years I would come to find out that I did not actually have said problem with my thyroid, but that is also another story.)

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Hi Tumblr!

The It Gets Fatter Project, a body-positivity project started by queer fat people of color for fat people of color, is now offering workshops in Toronto & Montreal!!*

We know that there are so many young people in our cities who access community services, attend after-school programs and other community groups that would benefit from a Body Positivity workshop. Most people today have never even been told that being fat is okay. The main goal of these workshops is to begin to destigmatize the word “fat,” deconstruct the messages and images that teach us to be ashamed of our bodies, to discuss our own experiences with fatness and to talk about ways we can build a healthier model of body positivity and self love. If you run and/or are a part of a group that you think could benefit from the work that we do, we encourage you to book a workshop with the It Gets Fatter Project!!

We are currently offering Body Positivity 101 workshops, but are also looking to develop workshops on more complicated issues like fat desire, fat trauma, and the relationship between queerness/race/class/ableism and fat bodies.

We organize all of our work within an anti-oppressive and anti-racist framework. If you’re interested, please contact us to discuss fees!

If you are interested in booking a workshop, please email us at itgetsfatterproject@gmail.com.

Big Big Love,

Jackie, Sara & Asam

XOXOXO IGF

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*Of course, we would love to come to your city and present these workshops for you (NYC, anyone?!?!?). If you have the budget for such things, talk to us and maybe we can make it work!!