Everyone at NAAFA is proud and excited to announce our first-ever Fat Liberation Month!

Graphics in bold colorful letters reads, "FAT" with the "A" as a triangle; below that reads, "LIBERATION MONTH" Artist is Ristiono of Banten, Indonesia

Inspired by Clark Beltran’s “Celebrating my Identities” piece last fall for the NAAFA Community Voices Blog, and further prompted by the input of fat advocate Juana Tango, the NAAFA Board and Future of NAAFA committee began late last year to explore the possibility of a month-long celebration of fat community.

We considered January (at Juana and others’ suggestion) because of the emphasis on weight loss dieting and resolutions to shrink during that month, and we considered May for the same reason (“swimsuit season” being around the corner). Celebrating in January would’ve meant holding off until 2022 to have planning time, and we know the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have created so many additional strains on fat community in so many ways. We believed May of 2021 would be the right time to launch. We hope that you agree, and that you will join us in celebrating Fat Liberation Month this May! 

Here at NAAFA, we’ve planned lots of fun and educational activities for May. All of them are free of charge to fat community and fat-positive folx of all sizes. We hope they will entertain you, teach you, inspire you, and fortify you with an extra, supersized dose of support as you strive to live your best fat life during what is, for many, one of the most challenging times in modern history. 

We can’t wait to see all the ways you choose to celebrate Fat Liberation Month yourselves. Use #FatLibertionMonth on your favorite social media sites to show off how you’re celebrating and to check out how others are celebrating, too! 

Check out our special Fat Liberation Month webpage. It includes Fat Liberation Month history and the Fat Liberation Month events listing. As far as we can tell, there’s never been another celebration quite like this, but we’ve put together a list of people who have organized or suggested their own versions of size acceptance or fat lib months. You can read about them here.

We are happy to announce the winner of our Fat Liberation Month Logo Contest!  Our logo contest was a truly international event with 19 submissions from seven different countries. We want to congratulate our winner, Ristiono of Banten, Indonesia!  You will be seeing the Fat Liberation Month logo on all of NAAFA’s materials and promotions.

At the time of this newsletter publication, we’re putting the finishing touches on several of the events we’re planning, so be sure to watch our social media and the event listing for more activities to be added soon!