A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline Charlotte Cooper 1 A Queer and Trans Fat Activist Timeline In 2010 I proposed and facilitated people. And it's about me and the a workshop at the NOLOSE things I do. gathering in Oakland, California, where a timeline was collectively Many thanks to: all the workshop produced. This zine is a product participants, Bildwechsel, Deb of that workshop, although I hope Burgard, ESRC Fat Studies and that it has a life far beyond that Health At Every Size Seminar particular time and place. participants, Kay Hyatt, Simon Murphy, NOLOSE, Rebel Bellies, This is a zine about a movement, Bill Savage, Villa Magdalena K, ideas, experiences, a workshop, Cookie Woolner, Alexis Yalon, a conference, zines, histories, people who encouraged me, and places, collective memory, queer trans fat activists community, critical reflection, everywhere, past present and cultural imperialism, dialogue, future. texts, feminism, archives, many things, and stuff I haven't Charlotte Cooper considered too. It's also about fat April 2011 people, queer people, and trans Hamburg and East London 2 What's in this zine? 1. An explanation. 2. A zine version of a timeline that was made at a workshop. The original timeline was drawn by many people in coloured pens on a roll of wallpaper, it is very long when unfurled, and looks like this: 3 Who made this zine? My name is Charlotte Cooper, I the genre, and a few that aren't, live in London, in the UK, and am such as my gang, The British though don't feel much Chubsters. attachment to that nationality. I am queer, from a working class In 2012 I hope to graduate with a background, white, middle-aged, PhD in Sociology, having and have a load of higher produced a thesis about fat education. I have poly activism. relationships and am sort-of femme. I've written a couple of books, the most relevant one for this project I have been a fat activist for over is called Fat and Proud: The twenty years and consider myself Politics of Size. I also blog about a DIY cultural producer in terms fat at of zine- and film-making, being in obesitytimebomb.blogspot.com. bands, other activities typical of 4 Why did I make this zine? 1. I like fat activist histories histories in different countries, there is currently very little One of the things that interests documented material available me very much about fat activism on fat activism. My hope is that as a social movement is that it the more fat activists document stretches back at least four what we do, and share that decades. It may have deeper documentation, the more people historical roots from different engage with it, the more there is places, but I'm talking about the to engage with, and the richer documented stuff that is and more diverse the movement accessible to me as a Western becomes. Anglophone. 2. I wanted to document fat Not many people know about fat activist history in a specific activism, and fewer still know time and place about the movement's various histories. This means that as new I had the pleasure and privilege generations of people get of attending NOLOSE in 2010. involved with fat activism, they This is a "vibrant community of are cut off from what went before, fat dykes, bisexual women, and don't have the advantage of transgendered folks and our learning from that past. It also allies, seeking to end the means that people who did fat oppression of fat people!" activism in the early days of the NOLOSE manifests mostly as a movement are overlooked when, sort of annual conference that in my opinion, they should be takes place in various locations in celebrated and remembered. the US, and the 2010 gathering happened in Oakland, California. I see part of my fat activism as making what are often hidden I knew that some older fat historical fat activisms explicit activists would be going and I and known, and acknowledging thought it would be a good the work that came before me, opportunity to get people talking which inspires me greatly. I also about history and herstory (look it see my work as encouraging up if you don't know what it people to document and archive means). I also thought it would their fat activism; to make their be interesting and fun for people private worlds public. Despite rich of all ages at the conference to 5 co-construct a historical misrepresented by people who document together. do not understand their nuances, and then reissued and handed I wanted to be clear that we back to the originators as fact. would not be producing a This is a misuse of power. Fat definitive fat activist history. I activists in the US should create know that some fat activists have their own histories and engage tried to do this and I consider it with histories outside their own an impossible task because no- experience, but their position in one can create things without a relation to those histories should context, histories are always be acknowledged, and no one's bound by the time and place in perspective should be presumed which they were recorded, the to be universal, least of all those person or people who do the coming out of the US. recording, and the people who have access to those histories, or In co-constructing the timeline I interpret them. I think history has was very careful to reiterate that a lot in common with fiction. this is a document produced by a There's never going to be a group of about 50 mostly fat single, neutral, comprehensive, lesbians/dykes/bi women and factual version of events. Some trans people who attended a people will disagree with me, but workshop at NOLOSE 2010. It this is where I'm coming from. also reflects my historical and present-day interests in fat I am also troubled by the way activism. It is not The History of that some fat activist historians, Fat Activism, or an attempt to particularly in the US, presume to represent facts; it's more about speak for people everywhere, sometimes fuzzy memory, even though they ignore or are collaboration and community. ignorant of fat activism that happens in other parts of the 3. I wanted to create cross- world. It bothers me that different cultural critical dialogue about cultural relationships to fat and what it is to document fat activism are unacknowledged, or activism and what it means to repeated uncritically, such as the construct and interpret fat truism that "fat is okay in other activist histories cultures" where that Other is rarely articulated and often I don't know much about permeated with racism. I see this historiography, the study of how as a form of cultural imperialism, histories are put together, but I where diverse perspectives are think the timeline that the group 6 at NOLOSE co-constructed is a transgressive women rather than useful object to generate Bears, who have a different discussions about fat activism political trajectory. I also mean amongst people of different feminists, by and large. backgrounds, and to invite thoughts and comments about A significant part of fat activism who makes history, and how it has been and continues to be can be interpreted. I talk more concerned with assimilation, about this in the section about showing just how normal fat Bildwechsel below. people are. Given this trend, I don't want any of the movement's As well as the truism "In some queerness or gender non- cultures fat is okay," I've also conformity to be erased, as I come across "Fat was acceptable have seen happen to some work in the past". I think this is a duff made by fat dykes in the UK. The historical reading, and generally timeline was constructed by relates to a moment in standard queer and trans fat people, and Western art history where a few everything it documents is about painters produced pictures of or affects this group too. fleshy women. A full discussion of what that means will have to 5. I wanted to make a zine be played out elsewhere, my point is that the past is as I have published work in many multiple and contingent as the different ways, but self-publishing present and I really want to talk zines is still one of my favourite about this in relation to how means of making my ideas people might look at historical fat public, not least because it gives activisms. me full creative control of what I produce. I've made physically 4. I wanted to document the small zines in the past and now I indispensable and undeniable want to have a go at something contributions by fat queer and chunkier, and experiment with trans people to fat activism making accessible zines, which is why this one is available in audio From the very earliest fat format too, and as a download. activism, fat queer and trans people have been an important I also wanted to make a zine out presence in the movement. of the timeline in order to make it When I say queer I really mean it more than just one object, to as an umbrella for lesbians and make it multiple objects that dykes and questioning and people could have and reflect on 7 and read and share in their own I like the way that zines are ways. A zine is something that ephemeral, it's kind of playing can be archived in many places with the idea of history as too; it will never replace the something permanent.