Fattening Queer and Trans History: Histories of British Fat Liberation as Queer Activism

History in the academy, for better or for worse, is often defined by “turns” i.e. new frames of analysis that shift the ways we think about our discipline. Is it now time for a “fat turn” in queer and trans histories? To help answer this question, my talk focuses on histories of British fat liberation in the 1980s and 1990s and its varied entanglements with lesbian feminism and queer activism. In doing so, I elucidate the interconnectivities of fat history and queer and trans scholarship not as mutual exclusivities but as partners in disturbing fixed identities. 

Carlie Pendleton (they/she) is a fat, white, genderqueer, pansexual historian. They are in the final year of their PhD at Goldsmiths, University of London, researching histories of fat queer activism in modern Britain. Their PhD is supervised by Dr Justin Bengry and Dr Erica Wald. They are an Early Career Member of the Royal Historical Society, a Convenor for the IHR History of Sexuality Seminar, and a Junior Fellow in the Centre for Fat Liberation & Scholarship. They also work as a Graduate Teaching Fellow at King’s College London. Their research is funded by a doctoral studentship from the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts Southeast England (CHASE).