The Fat Caucus of WGS South offers opportunities for professionalization, community building, and collaboration for fat studies scholars in the U.S. South. The caucus aims to increase awareness on issues related to fatness in Gender and Women's Studies and advancing the goals of fat liberation. The Fat Caucus will hold its inaugural sponsored panel during the 2027 WGS South Annual Conference.

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“Forming Fat Futures: Dignity in an Era of Resurgent Anti-Fatness”

WGS South 2027 - Fat Caucus
Call for Papers
Deadline: November 15th, 2026

In September 2025, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth addressed the U.S. military and decried the presence of fat service members, stating: “Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon…It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are.”

The responses to Hegseth’s remarks on soldiers’ waistlines ranged from enthusiastic support to mild bemusement. Little attention was paid to the connection between troops’ body size and the fascism of Trump-era America. However, this moment is evidence of an era of resurgent anti-fatness--one that is deeply intertwined with the global rise of fascism. Shifts towards body diversity made in the late 2010s and early 2020s have given way to a renewed era of fascist body politics: Thin is back in. Gender is not real. Americans are white.

This era is marked by the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and the proliferation of GLP-1s both of which rely on the moralization of thinness, health, and able-bodiedness. As a result, fat folks, particularly those who are women, Black and brown, queer/trans, disabled, and working-class, face renewed pressure to pursue thinness no matter the cost.

Even amidst these increasing pressures, fat folks are asserting their dignity in everyday practices of resistance. How does resistance to anti-fatness take shape in our current moment? How are fat folks asserting dignity for themselves and their communities? How do we imagine more joyful futures for fat folks?

For the upcoming 2027 conference, the Fat Caucus invites scholars, artists, and activists to submit papers, panels, and creative works that engage with the sub-theme of Forming Fat Futures.

We also invite scholarship and creative works on topics addressing
anti-fatness and fat dignity, including but not limited to:

  • Fat desire and pleasure

  • Fat fashion and craft

  • Fat performance (e.g., dance, burlesque, theatre, etc.)

  • Fat place-making

  • Fat positivity

  • Fat representation in books, film, and television

  • Histories of fat activism

  • Medicalization of fatness, weight stigma, GLP-1s

  • Social media and fatness

  • Intersections between anti-fatness and racism, classism,
    cisheteropatriarchy, and/or ableism

Please submit any questions to Fat Caucus Chair,
Annie Elledge (aelledge@kennesaw.edu).