What we’re about
Welcome to Fat Liberation London!
We are a friendly, inclusive group of fat people who wanted to find a safe space and loving IRL community who feel the same way we do about body image and fat liberation - so we started this meetup group!
This is all about connecting with people who have shared lived experience existing in a fat body, whether you are a small or mid-size fat person, or a large, super or infinifat. We have monthly coffee meet ups in an accessible, fat-friendly cozy space, and will be looking at getting people together for board games, drinks, book clubs focussing on fat writings, picnics, group tickets to fat-focussed events and more as we grow.
Community is so important and it can be so healing to find people who understand your experience and celebrate the unique complexities it brings to who we are. This is not a space focussed on changing who we are or our bodies, and with this in mind, we’ve got some guidelines for our space to help everyone feel safe!
NOTE: PLEASE READ GUIDELINES IN FULL BEFORE ATTENDING ANY OF OUR EVENTS!
In this group, we are:
- Fat-First. Fat Liberation London was created for fat people, by fat people. Our community therefore centres large fat+ bodies first. We use self-identifying terms that are common in fat spaces (i.e. midsize, small fat, large fat, superfat and infinifat), and ask community members in smaller bodies to be considerate of the fact that our community prioritises the most marginalised bodies.
- Rooted in community. We want to bring together people with a shared experience together to have fun and build relationships in a friendly, accessible and non-judgemental space.
- A safe space for intersectional identities and marginalised bodies. We aim to champion anti-racism, LGBTQIA+ inclusivity, accessibility for disabled and neurodivergent people, and anti-discrimination of all kinds. While it is an unlikely occurrence, please be aware that anyone creating unnecessary conflict or displaying malicious, prejudiced or discriminatory behaviour will be asked to leave our events. This is not a singles group! We're creating a safe space for fat people to come together in joyful friendship.
- Mindful of individual differences. We know that everyone will be in different places in their fat-liberation journey, and recognise that some discussion topics, events and venues may be more accessible to some than others. We ask our community to utilise content warnings for potentially triggering conversations that may come up in events. We also aim to provide as much information as possible about event spaces accessibility.
Upcoming events (4+)
See all- Fat Liberation Book Club: FEARING THE BLACK BODY by Sabrina StringsLondon LGBTQ+ Community Centre, London
### A Book Club that celebrates Fat Liberations politics, ideas and activism in a safe space.
We’re back for book club! This will be a monthly occurrence with regular breaks so there’s plenty of time to read the source material before coming along to an accessible, safe discussion with fellow fats and fat allies. If you’re new to fat liberation, curious about what it is or looking to see how it differs from body positivity, this is the place for you.
We’ll be exploring a mix of non-fiction, fiction, poetry, comic books and everything in between, with supplementary material from fat academics, essayists, tik tokkers, podcasters and more.
For this month's book club we’re looking at FEARING THE BLACK BODY: THE RACIAL ORIGINS OF FATPHOBIA by Sabrina Strings.
Grab your copy here.We are switching it back to non-fiction for April, a great opportunity for us to build on our understanding of the ways race and fatness intersect. This insightful book will take us into the past for an eye-opening and in-depth observation on the history of anti-fatness, anti-blackness and gender prejudice.
This is quite a dense text and expect this book club to be saturated with valuable and necessary discussion that we want to make sure we leave enough time for. So we've split it into two parts. We'll be looking at Chapters 1-4 for this month, and May's book club will look at Chapters 5-9, finishing the tome.
From Goodreads:
‘Sociologist Strings (sociology, Univ. of California, Irvine) explores the historical development of pro-thin, anti-fat ideologies deployed in support of Western, patriarchal white supremacy. Beginning in the aesthetic ideals circulated by Renaissance thinkers and artists and bringing her narrative up into the 1990s, Strings charts how white Europeans and Anglo-Americans developed ideals of race and beauty that both explicitly and figuratively juxtaposed slim, desirable white women against corpulent, seemingly monstrous black women.’
For information on how to obtain the audiobook version of this book, please contact us on Insta @fatliblondon or @fatclubbtn!We have found a new spot together for Book Club: London LGBTQ+ Community Centre, and as always, you can join online via Zoom.
The Fat Liberation London and Fat Club Brighton Teams x
