Compassionately fat: an autotheoretical exploration of queer bodies

ABSTRACT

The concept that queer scholars hold a shared responsibility for all queer people forms the driving inspiration for this exploration at the juncture of queerness and fatness. We advocate that cultivating compassion can be a way for queer fat people to engage in new relations with their embodiment that reflect the tenets of fat social justice. Drawing from fat activists of color and fat studies scholars, our relationships with our bodies are political. Within queer men’s communities, hegemonic constructs of queer men’s bodies privilege muscular bodies that are lean with very little fat. In this article, we advocate for compassion as an approach to queer fat activism. Compassion is a social construction and social beliefs, values, and knowledge shape not only how compassion is practiced and enacted but also who is able to receive compassion. We cannot ignore how cis-heteronormativity and fatphobia influences the way compassion is understood and practiced. In this dual autotheoretical work, we will explore the meanings of compassion within the context of fat activism as queer men. Our approach combines practices of self-narration with critical theory, and thus unites the authors’ bodily experiences through creative means with philosophy. We relate, through storytelling, our experiences of queerness and (non)compassion with fat studies scholarship for the purpose of advocacy and social transformation.

KEYWORDS:

• Compassion
• fat studies
• gay
• queer bodies
• autotheory
• Buddhism

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt no funding for this work.

Notes on contributors

Phillip Joy

Dr. Phillip Joy (he/him) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Applied Human Nutrition at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Phillip’s research areas are critical dietetics, queer theory, LGBTQ studies in nutrition, and arts-based studies. Phillip holds a PhD in Health from Dalhousie University. www.phillipjoy.ca.

Adam Davies

Dr. Adam Davies (they/them) is an Assistant Professor of Sexualities, Genders, and Social Change in the College of Arts at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Canada. Adam’s research areas are critical masculinity studies, queer theory, LGBTQ studies in education, sexuality education and sexual health, and critical disability studies. Adam holds a PhD in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development and Sexual Diversity Studies from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.