Trans fats: A white trans social worker’s podcasted autoethnography
Date
2025
Authors
O’Brien, Kaitlin (Katie) Rosemary
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Abstract
My podcasted, autoethnographic thesis ruminates on the question: how is my experience of transgender corporeality mediated by pathologising logics? Drawing on decolonial feminism and disability justice, I review the pathologising ways that transness, fatness, and eating disorders are normatively framed, and connect this pathologisation with the ongoing colonial project. I then explore stories about existing in my small fat, nonbinary trans, white settler body, ultimately arguing that the normative (pathologising) story of fat trans folks with complicated relationships with food and eating does colonial violence to trans people. Along the way, I refuse straightforward answers, remaining critical, uncertain, and curious about how my experiences of systemic marginalisation and privilege always overlap. I conclude by imagining a social work context that is abolitionist and deprofessionalised, centred on principles of harm reduction and community care.
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Keywords
Transness, Fatness, Whiteness, Autoethnography, Scholarly podcasting, Decolonial feminism, Disability justice, Lived experience, Depathologisation, Abolitionist social work