Written by: Ieva Miltina

Fat liberation can feel abstract when you only encounter it in books and online. For me, it became very real the moment I walked into FatCon. It showed me how liberation is celebrated and how it looks like when it is lived, not just imagined. This is the second article in a series “A Latvian in Fatcon: an intensive crash course in fat liberation”.

Liberation is…knowledge

Finding out about fat liberation as a movement and its principles has been one of the most influential things that has happened to me in my life. It literally saved me, by giving me freedom in my body and specific tools to acknowledge the extensive trauma I had endured all of my life. It gave me words to describe my experiences, it helped to understand why I had always felt the dissonance of feeling good about myself, but never good enough. It helped to move towards not feeling shame about my body, and seeing the world we live in as clearly as never before.

Now, after a few years of working in the field, and having completed a few research projects myself, FatCon reminded me about the importance of knowledge about fatness, as well as knowledge rooted in fat realities. I approached many of the sessions with a scholarly interest, a mini-exploration project of sorts. What else can we unravel by cross-examining a topic from a fat lens? What knowledge can I learn from other activists to be able to have a greater impact when I return back to Latvia?

While many sessions were genuinely interesting, the one that made me most excited was “Dietbolical: A History of Anti-Fatness in the Christian Church” by the wonderful Anastasia Kidd. The single idea about finding connections among seemingly two very different topics made me have a lot of epistemological reflections. I am from a country where little knowledge is available about fat liberation. Simultaneously, existing knowledge and status quo (about religion, bodies, or anything else) is rarely contested. Maybe because of the post-Soviet cultural background where the system was punishing anybody who stood out too much. But maybe because of the lack of diversity of voices (that have historically been more present in the U.S).

Whatever the reason might be – I left FatCon with a strong feeling that conversation about intricate topics (like Anastasia Kidd’s insight in how diet culture is rooted in Christian values), would not naturally happen in Latvia. And it will unlikely happen in the next decade or a few, because we have more pressing issues to bring up. Like, how do we prove that fat people exist and suffer from anti-fat beliefs in Latvia too? (Yes, they do, by the way!:) It also made me think about the depth of conversations I was able to have here versus back at home around fat knowledge, and how blessed I was to experience such depth of completely new insights. A topic for thought, and something I anticipate I will be missing very much when returning home.

Thinking back, I can wholeheartedly say that liberation can only happen if we jointly learn, explore, and talk about our experiences. It can happen if we make curious explorations within our respective disciplines, as people with fat lived experiences. What FatCon gave me was the next level of knowledge – a saturated glimpse on what it feels like when fat not only exists, but is taken as seriously as any other topic. More importantly, it solidified the awareness about the power of lived experiences as valid knowledge, and saw how this collective wealth leads to tangible change and healing. Knowing how different bodies exist in this world, it is possible to provide an all-fat gym (shoutout to All Bodies Strong). Knowing the challenges around clothing, it is possible to open an inclusive plus-size clothing shop (wink wink at I Want Seconds in Portland and ChubRub Clothing). 

I could go on and on, but the point here is – fat liberation resides on the shoulders of knowledge. Knowing makes us stronger, individually and collectively. (And this is also where it feels really important to acknowledge and honor that all of this would not be possible without all the work and knowledge developed by activists that came before us. Forever grateful for the impact on my life!)

 [Click here to read the next article in the series]

Concluding this, I wish to express my gratitude for this opportunity – to the professional internship program at BAFF for bringing me to the US, to NAAFA for inviting and supporting me throughout this event, and to FatCon for the joy and source of revelations for the time to come.

Visuals from collection of Ieva Miltina