The trajectory of fat liberation: where did we start? Where are we now?

ABSTRACT In 1989, slightly more than three decades ago, Laurie Toby Edison opened her darkroom, and our work of creating fine-art photography and accompanying text showcasing the beauty and power of fat women began in earnest. The result of this work was Women En Large: A Book of Nudes, published in 1994. We situate the trajectory of fat liberation between that time and now. Our framework describes how fat activism over the past three decades has opened up expansive possibilities for fat people (primarily but not exclusively fat women) on the margins of society. These new options can include easier paths to find fat community, far better clothes, and certain limited social changes. The medical establishment has so far proved almost completely intractable to change, and social media platforms continue to spotlight conventionally thin – and often impossibly thin – beauty ideals. Because of these two seemingly immovable factors, the expansion of the margins has not successfully affected the central experience of fat oppression. It is somewhat easier, and potentially much less lonely, to be fat in 2021 than it was in 1991, but fat people remain a substantially marginalized and socially excluded group. Fat people with intersectional oppressions (BIPOC, disabled, and many more) continue to experience complex multiple axes of exclusion. We use a mix of academic and personal sources, and the article is illustrated with Laurie Toby Edison’s photographs of fat nudes.