There is, as you can imagine, a lot of planning that goes into writing a book. I’d spent a couple of years on my book proposal, chapter outlines, and story mapping before I wrote any of Greedy Guts, my memoir, and I didn’t expect to encounter any surprises when the writing process would actually begin. After all, it’s mainly memories with some theory and thoughts woven through – what can actually shock you about how you think about your life so far?
Towards the end of the book, I shift the narrative (spoiler alert) from one that has been negatively affected by fatphobia to one that has been positively uplifted by the fat liberation movement.
One of the key experiences to this point of view was performing at Fat Pride, a stage takeover at Manchester’s Pride festivities in 2021 that has remained a part of the lineup since its inception at the 2020 digital celebrations. Fat Pride is exactly what it says on the tin – an event to acknowledge and raise a drink to the fat experience. Not just that, but to revel in fat positivity, and to do so specifically by getting a group of fat performers on stage to go-go dance to the tunes of a fat DJ for an audience of whoever wants to attend an event as explicitly straightforwardly body positive as the name and programming presents.
I got involved in this event through knowing its organisers, Joe and Niall, who had worked for Manchester Pride previously and pitched, curated and produced the stage takeover at the event. We were friends from going out in Manchester’s queer scene as well as from lengthy chats about fat lib over coffee. I was honoured to be invited to take the stage and shake my tits as part of the party, and the experience is one I’ll always hold close to my heart.
In writing about the sticky summer evening where I danced for hundreds on a stage in a car park just off Manchester’s infamous Canal Street, I wanted to use the chapter to explore how fatness and queerness have intersected for me and throughout history. I detailed the before, during and after of the Fat Pride event while also discussing the impact of fat queer celebrities on the creative consciousness. From Sister Rosetta Tharpe to Divine to Beth Ditto and beyond, this piece in Greedy Guts was all about the indelible intersection of queer and fat identities.
The leader of punk band Gossip and LGTBIQ+ activist opens up about her philosophy on joy and winning GLAMOUR's Women of The Year International Talent Award.
While exploring what Pride itself met – both LGBTQ+ and fat iterations – I found myself more and more drawn to anti-assimilatory queer theory. Summed up artfully by RM Barton for Wussy mag, “Queer anti-assimilationists seek alternatives to existing norms; specifically, alternatives that challenge heteronormativity and the prescriptive moral and ethical codes that are enforced on society from the top down. They recognise that conformity is a social construction and make the point that it is also a political weapon.”
I considered eschewing the need to be appreciated or even accepted by society a radical but comforting notion, as well as one that I could apply to my fatness even more than my bisexuality. I was enthralled by the idea that my body’s inherent otherness wasn’t something I needed to fight for a space in society for but rather a positive in and of itself. What could be more empowering for someone repeatedly coming to terms with a culture that openly despises her existence than embracing being reviled?
Faced with Ozempic marketing, fatphobic memes and repeated inaccessibility to everything from healthcare to comfortable seating, it feels poignant to rebel against the need to fit in rather than force myself somewhere I’m not wanted. Why debate my right to exist on social media when the mere act of my existence drives strangers wild with anger on its own? There’s a power in doubling down on the countercultural nature of my marginalisation, especially when the alternative is begging others for a respected place in a society that profits, quite literally, from fatphobia.
My opinion of myself has changed from one that’s reliant on assimilation to being confident in never having that. As Dolly Parton once put it: Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
Greedy Guts by Gina Tonic is out now (Coronet: £20).
Sorry everyone.
