All books mentioned in this essay are listed and available for purchase in the Bibliotherapy section. Also, names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals mentioned. And if you enjoyed this article, be sure to subscribe so you'll receive updates in your inbox. You can also follow the Chronicles of the Fellow Traveler on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and Substack!
In her debut book The Book of Juju, Hoodoo practitioner and Ifa Priestess Juju Bae highlights the importance of Black community elders. She defines elders as “life’s seasoned professionals whose duty is to guide and elevate those around them.” Juju further emphasizes that, aside from children, Black community elders are the closest connection to our ancestors. This is because both groups are the closest to the spirit realm due to their age. Speaking of age, one does not have to become a senior citizen to receive the title. What makes someone an elder is the level of time and energy to obtain knowledge in their preferred subject, lifestyle, and craft. Or someone who displays wisdom beyond their years.
But another characteristic that elders are known to possess is the gift of storytelling. Black community elders are griots, the oral historians that preserve our history and memories of our existence through storytelling. Griots are the reason we remember our ancestors and the life they lead. The reason we’ve been able to maintain information about the complexities and richness of African and Black American history. Black trans and non-binary elders are also known for their gift of storytelling. Many of these elders are authors who’ve published literary works that are inspired by the folklore (or porch lies) their ancestors recited for them at some point. Some trans and non-binary authors have produced books and essays documenting the life history of trans and non-binary historical figures, printing on paper the names of these beloved ancestors with full intention of having them venerated by readers.
Then there are the Black trans and non-binary community elders/authors who recall stories prioritizing the circumstances currently unfolding throughout their community. These elders/storytellers accurately document the racialized political and social injustices that significantly impact Black trans and non-binary people. Sewn throughout their narratives are suggestions rooted in Black liberation politics that can be utilized while we’re still breathing. From my perspective, Da’Shaun L. Harrison is this type of trans community elder.
In 2021, Da’Shaun L. Harrison released their debut book, Belly of the Beast:The Politics of Anti-Fatness As Anti-Blackness. Belly of the Beast is a comprehensive literary work that revolves the compelling argument that anti-fatness is anti-Blackness. Utilizing the combination of news stories, the work of Black scholars, and interviews with Black fat transmasculine people, Harrison provides an thought-provoking analysis shedding light on state-sanctioned violence against fat Black people.
There were many aspects I appreciate about Belly of the Beast:
· Overlap of Topics
To demonstrate the levels of violence Black fat people endure, Harrison thoroughly investigates a variety of industrial complexes, ideologies, political movements from a sociopolitical perspective. In Chapter One, for example, the author heavily critiques the body positivity movement. Harrison begins with challenging the sincerity of the messages of encouragement posted beneath the photographs of plus sized White women found on Instagram. Though the comments seem affirming on the surface, the author states, they are violent upon closer inspection. Harrison explains:
The issue with all of these comments is that, at their core, they suggest that self-love is enough to eradicate anti-fatness and that if you just accept yourself, or love who you are, that somehow the methodical violence of anti-fatness—housing, employment, etcetera—is no more. This is what is violent about “body positivity”; it is benevolent anti-fatness in that it is masqueraded as some sort of semblance of acceptance for fat people when it is, instead, an opportunity for Thinness to reroute, but not give up, its hold on fat people’s collective liberation.
I personally agree with Harrison’s assessment of the body positivity movement. I’ve seen many of the same content on social media platforms—mainly Instagram. Read many of the same “affirming” comments. Until now, I’ve never regarded them as violent—just cliché. But the more I ruminate on this topic, the more I understand that the body positivity movement is violent simply because it’s misleading. Advising someone struggling with body dysmorphia to “love the skin you’re in” is not only insulting but doesn’t scratch the surface of the core issue. The core issue being Eurocentric beauty standards.
Furthermore, attention must be called to the movement’s exclusion and unacceptance of certain types of fat bodies—especially Black fat transmasculine individuals. Harrison blatantly scrutinizes the lack of radicalism and intersectionality within the body positivity movement. This movement, the author points out, does nothing to dismantle the industrial complexes that perpetuate anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. For the sake of my overall well-being, I reject body positivity and instead gravitate towards body liberation. Aside from resonating with its integrated approach, body liberation addresses the systemic oppression that created fatphobia and other forms of discrimination. The body liberation movement is affirming of fat people of all races and gender expressions, allowing me to confront anti-fatness from the perspective of a Black disabled transmasculine person.
· Harrison’s Personal Story
Throughout Belly of the Beast, Harrison beautifully weaves personal narrative with the sociopolitical analysis. Unfortunately, some of these narratives involve childhood sexual abuse. In Chapter 2, for example, the author informs readers that the bodies of Black fat queer boys/bois are often sexualized by adults who attracted to the shape of their bodies. They point out that it is usually adult men who notice the size of their asses with the full intention of taking advantage of the Black fat queer child’s vulnerability. Afterwards, they candidly share a recollection about the first time they’ve been violated. Harrison writes:
The first time I can recall being violated by a man, I was around eight. At the time, I was perceived as a Black boy who had more ass and more thighs than boys were supposed to have. Black boys are supposed to be athletes. They’re supposed to carry their weight proportionally or not at all. They are supposed to be thin, or at least a little muscular, and not really fat. Whatever their size, they were never supposed to look like the “little fast Black girl on the block.” The one whose breaststroke formed a little earlier than expected. The one whose body moved differently when she walked. Though I was, in fact, an athlete, that body that people so easily read as “fast” was my own. I had the weighed thighs, the pants that didn’t really fit, the ass that moved without being prompted to. And because I did, I quickly learned that my body was not my own.
When I read this paragraph, I felt seen. Granted, I was assigned female at birth. But I was sexually abused my aunt Beatrice.* When my breast became more pronounced, my mother terrorized me with stories of men wanting to sexually assaulted and placed the onus on me if they ever did. These incidents—and many others—frightened me growing up. As a child who felt at peace in their masculine energy, I didn’t understand why I was obligated with how I was perceived as a girl when I didn’t think of myself as one. And I was also confused. Because though I was being sexualized, I was also severely uglified by family members and kids at school. My fat body and masculine features rendered me unattractive and boyish. And because of that, I was what Hortense Spillers describes in her article Mama’s Baby, Papa’s Maybe: An American Grammer Book “ungendered,”or “an altered reading of gender for Black people—particularly and especially Black women—after slavery through the “ungendering” of their body.”
Throughout the years I presented as female, I was disconnected from my own body. It wasn’t because of gender dysphoria. The disconnection stemmed from the notion that the body in which I was born always belonged to someone else. It was like others outside of me granted themselves permission to critique, sexually violate, and sometimes physically assault a part of me they despised yet consumed as if there was no one living inside of it. And I assumed I was too powerless couldn’t stop them because their hearing conveniently switched off when I did. Meanwhile, the child inside of me tried desperately backed away from the strangers and relatives whom were attempted to lay hands on them without permission.
I didn’t recognize this disconnection until after I rediscovered myself in 2017. The night I came out was the first time my body and I realigned, the kinship was further strengthened after I had top surgery. It was at that moment that I felt my true self emerge and claim this vessel that outsiders were so compelled to make their business. The combination of trauma-based therapy and my recovery work in Adult Children of Alcoholics Anonymous has continued to encourage me to allow my Inner Children through the grievance process around their loss of innocence. When I navigated this world as Meeka, I encountered violations against my bodily autonomy in manners that I'm only beginning to understand. Harrison’s vulnerability has helped me better understand the confusion I felt growing up as a closeted genderless transmasculine person. Because of Harrison and the connection they have with their body, I now have the terminology and knowledge to investigate the childhood trauma that once disconnected me from my own.
· The Centering of Black Fat Transmasculine Individuals
In the beginning of Chapter One in Belly of the Beast, Harrison leads with:
“In this book, we will talk about the body. Not just any body but the fat Black body. And while our focus on the fat Black body will be general in some places, we will talk specifically about the fat Black masc body—how it has been imposed in forgotten, and dismissed with fat studies.”
Harrison correctly highlights the deliberate exclusion of Black fat transmasculine people in discussions about body image and anti-fatness. Honestly, Black people are almost never mentioned in any conversation centered around body image. When the Black body is spoken about, the reasons are oftentimes for the purposes of White entertainment or performative outrage/activism. A prime example of this is Beyoncé and the consistent news coverage about the shape of her body. When the Black body isn’t critiqued or sexualized, then it is the topic of brutal and sometimes mysterious death. Sometimes the death being that of a Black trans woman.
Aside from within the contexts mentioned, the overall wellbeing of the Black body is rarely represented, reported or studied. This is especially the case for the Black fat transmasculine people. We’re normally absent from conversations, studies, and segments centering intersections of body image and the politics of anti-fatness. Harrison wrote Belly of the Beast to shed light on this lack of information on the Black fat transmasculine body. In fact, one part of the book I appreciate and resonate with the most are the interviews of Black fat transmasculine people, trans men, and non-binary people. Towards the very end of the book are pages of these folks candidly share with Harrison their personal experiences with fatphobic top surgeons, lack of representation, and the colorism and fatphobia prevalent within predominantly White trans spaces.
“Because people link fatness with ugliness, they think[fat folks] transition because we weren’t attractive as ‘women,’ which isn’t true, but because of the ignorance, that I’d what people think being trans is. Then you add the layer of being fat. I personally think that fat Black transmasc people have it extremely difficult; from the cost of transition to this idea of ‘passing’ being stressed because our chest size is inherently bigger than our smaller counterparts. In fact, I was actually so happy when I got a beard because there are fat cis men so I figured I could pass as one [since I had facial hair].”
On the topic of weight and gym culture within trans culture, Bearboi continues:
“HRT is also a big reason for this. We are told that the faster your metabolism is, the faster and better the injections work through the body. If not, it turns into estrogen and you gain weight. So many people work out to get a smaller chest area; the muscles just come with it. The smaller you cab get your chest, the less you have to break your ribs wearing a binder—making pre-op more bearable. There’s also the 3 stereotypical bodies people see when it comes to transmasc ppl: thin, bodybuilder, and fat...”
Bearboi’s responses forces me to reflect on my own mentality and ideologies around body image, my struggles with weight loss, and my past experiences with lookism and featurism. Throughout my pre-transition days, I was regarded as ugly. I was also housed in a fat body. School was where I was constantly met with some form of unnecessary mistreatment on account of my physical appearance. I can count on the one hand how many times I was received some resemblance of kindness while in the classroom. Outside of those few moments, I was merely a walking target.
Lookism, misogynoir, and featurism would haunt my every step until the moment I transitioned. Even when feel extremely at home in my transmasculine identity, transitioning alone didn’t relinquish the thoughts of being unattractive for the most part. Belly of the Beast has since encouraged me to genuinely understand and recognize that the discrimination I sustained during the years I presented as female were a product of White supremacy. That physical attributes were never the issue, and I must place the responsibility and accountability on the psychological, social, and cultural influence White supremacy has on the Black community. In fact, Harrison states throughout the 128-page book that I and other Black fat transmasculine people are to eradicate the very systems that created anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. From the author’s perspective, burning down these industrial complexes is another form of abolitionism. Another way towards healing from the historical and generational trauma anti-fatness and anti-Blackness has caused generations of fat Black people—especially people like me.
As we approach a new political era in which trans and non-binary people will confront further scrutiny for simply existing. The bodies of trans and non-binary youth are in the center the culture war spearheaded by conservatives. As I write this, trans and non-binary teens and even adults have either lost or on fighting to maintain access to gender-affirming healthcare, bathrooms that align with their gender identity, and sports activities. Nationwide book bans are preventing us from getting our hands on literature that accurately reflects the realities of Black LGBTIQA+ people.
Harrison’s Belly of the Beast is a blueprint, historical document, and manifesto that draws attention to the insidiousness of systemic violence against Black fat bodies. In addition to revealing the various tactics the carceral state executes in its attempts to kill fatness and the person living inside of it, the book illustrates for Black fat transmasculine people the ways we are purposely excluded from the nationwide discussion around anti-fatness. But more importantly, Harrison is a Black trans community elder who provides solutions to help Black fat people challenge and even eliminate the industrial complexes that perpetuate anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. They also introduce the stories of other Black fat transmasculine individuals navigating the psychological and emotional consequences of following a social script created to enforce Eurocentric perception of beauty, one designed to undermine our sense of self. And while the carceral state continues to use their resources to control our Black bodies, Belly of the Beast and Harrison is telling is that Black people of all body types must fight to liberate ourselves from state-sanctioned violence for the sake of our own healing.
So what are you thoughts on Da'Shaun L. Harrison's Belly of the Beast? I'd love to read your comments. And if you enjoyed this article, be sure to subscribe so you'll recieve updates in your inbox. You can also follow the Chronicles of the Fellow Traveler on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, YouTube, and Substack!
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Until next time, safe travels!