Being Fat, Gender, Body Neutrality, and Decolonization by Anya Tassy
Over the past year, I have gone through a metamorphosis. My perspectives have changed, horizons have broadened, I have learned a lot not only about myself but about social justice, fat liberation, queer liberation, the intersectionality of systems of oppression and more. At the beginning of my journey, I thought it was going to be easy, but to no real surprise, it wasn’t. No one told me how hard it was going to be to decolonize the lens I view the world with. Despite all of the trials and tribulations, I would not change any aspect of my journey.
Part of the unlearning journey I had to embark on involved my body, the way I viewed myself, the way I viewed fatness, and how that affected my gender. Before my journey started, I disliked my body and hid it, I was unhappy identifying as a woman, and I still viewed things through a colonized lens. Today, I am a confident, self-loving, self-accepting, fat, queer, non-binary being. Being able to live that truth is what makes the journey worth the mental turmoil and process of unlearning in all aspects of my life.
The following is a culmination of what I have learned and my experience:
The gender binary and fatphobia are rooted in and enforced by racism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and colonialism. These systems are intersectional, they all feed off of one another. I did not break free of insecurity, self-hatred, and anti-fatness until I decolonized the lens in which I view the human body, until I decentralized my body as an object, until I came to terms with my gender identity. I had to unlearn thin, cishet, whiteness as the normal/standard.
I started my journey towards self-acceptance and self-love with body positivity but soon learned that body positivity still emphasized physical appearance as a component of self-worth. I couldn't understand that I was comparing and expecting my body to look
like, and be a part of, a standard that I would never fit into, not only my body but my identity as well.
After some time, I learned about body neutrality. Body neutrality directly challenges the idea that your appearance determines your worth. Instead of viewing the body as an object and making judgments about it, I realized that the way my body looked had nothing to do with my mind, consciousness, intelligence, and gender. Additionally, being fat no longer held a negative connotation, it just became an adjective. Body neutrality helped me nungender my body which led to my coming out as non-binary.
Body neutrality (and other paths of unlearning) led me to discover the origins of the standards we are held to today and began a domino effect of decolonization. I no longer hold myself to a standard of cishet, thin, whiteness. Despite all of this, I am still learning and expanding my perspectives everyday. By breaking out of the gender binary box, embracing body neutrality, and not paying attention to standards created/enforced by racism, capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy, and colonialism I have accepted (and love) my body, my gender, my fatness, MYSELF.