Aubrey Gordon (she/her) is back! We’re talking about the amazing success of the film Your Fat Friend, how it changed her family relationships, and what it’s like being filmed over six years. Aubrey and Sophia share their experiences having conversations with non-fat folks about how to be good allies. Spoiler: not all of these conversations go well.

Aubrey Gordon stars in the documentary film Your Fat Friend, is the author of You Just Need to Lose Weight and What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, and co-host of the Maintenance Phase podcast. Aubrey started writing as Your Fat Friend in 2016. She published exclusively under the pseudonym for four years, writing anonymously about the social and cultural realities of moving through the world as a very fat person.

Please connect with Aubrey on her website and Instagram.

This episode’s poem is called “my mother says kissing a man without a mustache is like eating eggs without salt” by Joy Sullivan.

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Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Sophia has created a workshop called Fat Joy- specifically for listeners of this podcast who are interested in exploring the fat experience through writing. Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to learn more about the Fat Joy workshop. For $50 off the workshop, use code: FATJOY

Kate Manne (she/her), philosopher and author of Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, shares her thoughts on why we struggle to see through diet culture, how the ‘thought-terminating cliche’ ends liberatory conversations, and if it’s possible to be anti-diet and also pursue intentional weight loss.

Kate Manne is an associate professor of philosophy at Cornell University, where she’s been teaching since 2013. Before that, she was a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Manne did her graduate work in philosophy at MIT and works in moral, social, and feminist philosophy. She is the author of three books, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women, and Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia, which came out in 2024. She writes a newsletter, More to Hate, canvassing misogyny, fatphobia, their intersection, and more.

Please connect with Kate through Instagram, X, her website, and her newsletter.

This episode’s poem is called “to approach” by Raquel Salas Rivera.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Tiana Dodson (she/her) explores how liberation consciousness requires hope and imagination, even when they feel impossible. Part of that exploration is rooted in exploring the ‘science of less’ and how being subtractive rather than additive can unlock new levels of awareness and help dismantle oppression.

With a decade as a body liberation facilitator and a lifetime of lived experience as a fat, biracial, queer, neurodivergent person, Tiana Dodson is well-versed in what it is to exist in a multiply-marginalized body. As an active co-creator of the syllabus for liberation, her work addresses how personal, community, and global liberation depend upon each other. Through her consulting services, group offerings, and public speaking, Tiana highlights the ways these systems of oppression are bound together and how we can push back against them.

Please connect with through her website, Instagram, Facebook, and tiktok.

This episode’s poem is called “The Broken” by Alberto Rios.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Sophia has created a workshop specifically for listeners of this podcast who are interested in exploring the fat experience through writing. Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to learn more. For $50 off any Firefly workshop, use code: FATJOY

Elle Baez (she/her) is the brilliant singer-songwriter of the runaway hit “I Love My Body.” Elle shares her own journey to body positivity, including being bullied, being sent to fat camps, and struggling with eating disorders. Music became a way to heal from fatphobia, and Elle reflects on how making the music videos with fat actors was a deliberate way to showcase body diversity and representation. And, she sings for us, too!!

Trailblazing Latina singer-songwriter Elle Baez is taking over with her innovative pop-soul music and message. Real, authentic, and relatable, Elle is a representation for womxn who have been craving seeing themselves in the spotlight. She empowers and inspires others through her captivating hooks, body positive music videos, versatile writing style, and motto of self-love. Her newest hit song “I Love My Body” has gone viral on social media with with over 2.5 Million Hits. The song along with her summer 2023 hit “Fuego” were both featured in Rolling Stone’s “Songs You Need To Know," and she was named 2023 Entertainer of The Year at the Full Figured Industry Awards. As a songwriter, Elle has been featured by the Grammy’s. She has opened for charting artists Bea Miller and Leah Kate, been featured in Pop Sugar Magazine, NPR and went on a VS Pink Sponsored Tour.

Please connect with Elle on her website, Instagram, TikTok, and the Curvy Artists Collective.

This episode’s poem is called “For Keeps” by Joy Harjo.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to see if any of our cozy writing workshops are for you. For $50 off, use code: FATJOY

Charis Stiles (she/her) wants us all to feel like we belong, are accepted, and are worthy of love. Often, the barriers to feeling this way stem from wounding that was out of our control, however there’s a lot we can do to repair, heal, and rebuild a sense of self. Charis describes how we can examine self-limiting beliefs, separate out what are real external barriers and what are internalized barriers, and let go of shame and perfectionism.

Charis is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) living in the San Francisco Bay Area. She’s a therapist, educator, and activist. In addition to proving therapy, she trains organizations on proving fat positive care. She’s taught social work at San Jose State and been a clinical supervisor for new therapists. She identifies as fat, queer, white cisgender (elder) millennial, managing daily life with an autoimmune disorder. When she’s not working, she’s reading romance novels, watching lots of cat TikTok, and trying her hand at ceramics.

Please connect with Charis through her website.

This episode’s poem is called “Starfish” by Eleanor Lerman.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

Please go to Firefly Creative Writing to see if any of our cozy writing workshops are for you. The Fall schedule will be on the website for July 11th. For $50 off, use code: FATJOY

Crystal Maldonado (she/her) is a young adult author with a lot of feelings that she’s channeled into romcoms for fat, brown girls. She shares what it was like to write the stories she wished she’d had when she was growing up, the gatekeeping she had to overcome to get published, and her ‘glimmers’ writing practice that connects her to joy each day.

Crystal has written several books, including The Fall of Whit Rivera, which People Magazine called a “pumpkin-spice-latte-flavored treat”; Fat Chance, Charlie Vega, which was a New England Book Award winner, a Cosmopolitan Best New Book, and a Kirkus Best YA Fiction of 2021; and No Filter and Other Lies, which was named a POPSUGAR and Seventeen Best New YA. Her middle grade debut, Camp Sylvania: Moon Madness—a paranormal summer camp story featuring two fat besties, co-written with #1 New York Times bestselling author Julie Murphy—releases in spring 2024.

Please connect with through her website, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and tiktok.

This episode’s poem is called “My friends got married today…” by Yesika Salgado.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

In this riotous episode, Parker McMullen Bushman (they/she) takes us on their journey to become an activist and educator in the environmental education and outdoor spaces when no one looked like them. Fat, Black, queer, and non-binary, Parker shares how disparities in access to nature are outcomes from the Jim Crow laws, how race is different from ethnicity, and that disrupting white supremacy is about questioning default assumptions.

Parker, aka KWEEN WERK, is bringing people together in the fight for Environmental Justice and Social Equity. Using Social Media as a tool, this Social Justice Activist is part Fashion Diva, Artist and Educator. KWEEN stands for Keep Widening Environmental Engagement Narratives. Parker has a passion for equity and inclusion in outdoor spaces. Their interest in justice, accessibility, and equity issues developed from their personal experiences facing the unequal representation of people of color in environmental organizations and green spaces. Parker tackles these complex issues by addressing them through head-on activism and education.

As the Chief Operating Officer of Inclusive Journeys, and CEO/Founder of Ecoinclusive Strategies, Parker is a dynamic speaker and facilitator who engages organizations in new thinking around what it means to be a diversity change-agent and create dynamic organizational change. Parker’s background in the non-profit leadership, activism, conservation, environmental education and outdoor recreation fields spans over 24+ years.

Please connect with Parker through their TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and website. Links to Ecoinclusive and the Inclusive Guide.

This episode’s poem is called “Teach Me” by Malgosia Halliop.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.

(Content Note: mention of sexual assault)

Melanie Tufts (she/her) and Emma Deakin (she/her) collaboratively create boudoir photography experiences grounded in fat-positivity, equity, and consent. Sophia, host of the Fat Joy podcast, did a boudoir photo shoot with them and shares her experience being photographed nude, and how everything they did throughout the experience felt like a reclamation of her body.

Melanie Tufts is a fat-positive boudoir photographer. Her focus on the boudoir genre, specifically for women, allows her to focus on her values and ideologies. She views her work as personal activism against societal pressures dictating how women, especially those in marginalized bodies, should appear and behave. Reclaiming sensuality as a personal journey, Melanie strives to provide a safe space for women. Alongside her husband, three kids, and one very spoiled cat, she lives in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, where she also serves as a creative consultant contributing to a local mental health community's website and photography needs.

Connect with Melanie on her website, Instagram, Facebook page, and Women’s Only VIP Facebook Group.

Emma Deakin is a licensed Hairstylist and Makeup Artist and the Owner of Bare Bones Beauty located in Brantford, Ontario. Emma’s focus in life is self-love and self-acceptance, which she brings into her salon practices. Emma became a member of the Fanshawe Hair Program Faculty in 2021 as well as an Education Leader for the hair line, Colorproof.

Connect with Emma on Instagram and Facebook.

This episode’s poem is called “a brief meditation on breath” by Yesenia Montilla.

Connect with Fat Joy on the website, Instagram, subscribe to the Fat Joy newsletter, and watch full video episodes on YouTube.

Want to share some fattie love? Please rate this podcast and give it a joyful review.

Our thanks to Chris Jones and AR Media for keeping this podcast looking and sounding joyful.