Rutgers University’s Center for Social Justice Education and LGBT Communities will hold an event called “Fatphobia in the Queer Community” this week, reports Campus Reform. The center complains about the existence of “diet culture,” and says there are not enough depictions of fat queer bodies in the media.
“Fatphobia in the Queer Community” is part of the center’s “Body Positivity & Self-Love Project,” a “series of programs dedicated to affirming everyBODY with a social justice lens.”
The event “will explore how fatphobia has catalyzed the creation of queer sub-communities, impacts self-esteem and body dysphoria,” the center says.
“Fatphobia is prevalent in all cultures and communities, and the LGBTQIA+ community is not excluded from this,” it adds.
As examples of “fatphobia,” the center cites “the lack of diversity of fat bodies in the media,” such as on TV, and “the resurgence of diet culture.”
Campus Reform notes that as “part of the project, the Center is also hosting “Navigating & Addressing Fatphobia in Our Spaces” on Wednesday, March 25, which will prompt students to ‘reflect on ways fatphobia is rooted in everyday practices and procedures, and how the physical structures of campuses can be uncomfortable for fat bodies.'”
San Diego State University alleged a link between “fatphobia” and other forms of discrimination last January. “Anti-Fatness/fatphobia is intrinsically rooted in anti-Blackness, racism, classism, misogyny, homophobia, and many other systems of oppression,” it claimed.
