Belly of the Beast: Da'Shaun Harrison

Episode 48

Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black trans writer and community organizer in Atlanta, GA.

Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black trans writer and community organizer in Atlanta, GA. Harrison currently serves as the Managing Editor of Wear Your Voice Magazine, and is the author of Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness. A public speaker who often leads workshops on Blackness, queerness, gender, fatness, disabilities—and their intersections—Harrison’s portfolio/works can be found at dashaunharrison.com.

In this episode, we talked about the long term impacts of childhood illness and confrontation with the fragility of the body, anti-fatness as a barrier for receiving medical care, how liberal folk’s disdain for the south constitutes anti-blackness, their discovery of fat studies and the impact of survival sex work on their sense of self, the significance of mutual aid work in Da’Shaun’s life, the limitations of academia as an institution and of course, their new brilliant book, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness.

Scholars and Activists mentioned in this episode: Sabrina Strings (author of Fearing the Black Body: The Racial Origins of Fat Phobia), Sherronda J. Brown, Hunter Shackelford, Caleb Luna (@chairbreaker) and Aubrey Gordon (yrfatfriend).