Lindley Ashline’s (she/her) stock photographs shouldn’t be as revolutionary as they are. But showcasing fat bodies and other marginalized bodies in everyday, commonplace settings enjoying their lives is tragically uncommon. Lindley takes us through the challenges and financial tensions of building out this niche business, her approach to trolls, and how she brings fat joy into her work.

During the pandemic, Val (she/her), now a fashion influencer, realized that her social media feeds were making her feel terrible about herself. So, she deleted almost everyone she followed, began following influencers who looked like her, which started her fat liberation journey. Since then, Val has become known for showcasing slow and ethical fashion at the intersections of disability, chronic illness, neurodivergence, and fatness. And she created #styledseated, which invites clothing retailers to include photographs of their clothing in the seated position.

Currently, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) work rarely provides training and support for the weight-based discrimination, bias, and stigma that happens frequently in the workplace. Miriam Chiasson (she/her/elle/la) shares details of the workshop she’s created to change that. And she offers practical actions that individuals and organizations can take to create a more inclusive workplace.

e are taught early in our lives to not trust our bodies, to ignore their signals, and to turn away from pleasure. Dawn Serra (she/her), a therapist and coach, believes we can live more joyful and fulfilled lives by returning to our bodies by building body trust, embracing unconditional permission, and developing pleasure practices.

Chrissy King (she/her) recently published the book “The Body Liberation Project: How Understanding Racism and Diet Culture Helps Cultivate Joy and Build Collective Freedom.” Chrissy shares how a series of small, brave steps led to her own body liberation and how threatened the systems of white supremacy, racism, and diet culture are by her being a free, Black woman in the world. Also, we explore if there is liberation without body liberation.

After a radical shift in life circumstances, Carissa Grace (she/her) realized she was done getting her happiness and sense of worthiness from external factors and people. She dedicated herself to creating her own joy and began sharing that joy through social media. Quickly, she became known for her cheeky “What I eat in a day as a fat person promoting obesity” videos as well as her fashion-focused “Get ready with me” videos.

Tired of going into a new spaces filled with anxiety about if her body would fit, Rebecca Alexander (she/her) decided to create an app that’s like Yelp for fat folks. Even though over 60% of the U.S. population is plus-size, restaurants, offices, chairs, theaters, and other public spaces are not designed with larger bodies in mind. But this entrepreneurial journey didn’t go as planned, and Rebecca shares her biggest challenges and sweetest joys.

Tamara Walcott (she/her) knew she ‘wasn’t born big for nothing.’ In only four years, she went from not working out at all to breaking two(!!!) Guinness World Records (check out the video here) and becoming the strongest woman in the world. Tamara shares what it was like growing up fat, how it felt walking into the gym for the first time, and the way she uses her personal growth journey to better support her kids. Plus, her favourite affirmations and biggest dreams!

Tracey Lindeman’s (she/her) experience with decades of period pain and the complicated, frustrating, and futile-feeling process of getting an endometriosis diagnosis led her to writing “Bleed: Destroying the Myths and Misogyny in Endometriosis Care.” Tracey and Sophia share their own unique experiences of moving through the medical system’s anti-fat bias and misogyny, and Tracey offers two suggestions for how we can better advocate for ourselves in any medical situation.

Angela Braxton-Johnson (her/she) shares her journey through dieting, 12-step programs, eating disorder out-patient treatment, and finally to Body Trust and liberation in her 50s. Using poetry to put her experiences into words, Angela reads two of her poems, gifting us with their raw beauty and power.

A counter-culture thinker since childhood, Amanda Laird (she/her) shares the journey she’s taken to follow a different path. From sewing her own period pads as a teen to hosting the popular podcast “Heavy Flow” to building her new business venture, slow & steady studio, Amanda is committed to advancing the feminine economy and exploring the question, ‘what is enough?’

Kelly Diels (she/her) makes it her mission to support culture makers. She’s disrupting the norms of extractive capitalism by shining a light on the harms caused by traditional sales & marketing tactics. She offers an alternative where we can focus on vision, consent, and deepening relationships. And how we can make both money and justice. Recently diagnosed with lipedema, Kelly shares how health is connected to culture-making, too.

With the creation of Fat Torah, Rabbi Dr. Minna Bromberg (she/her) shows people how their religious & spiritual lives can be a liberatory space. Minna broke up with diet culture at 16, but it was when she became a rabbi that she began to write and speak about fat liberation within the Jewish community. She shares how the stories from the Torah and Bible can be read as liberationist, how belonging can be derailed by unconscious bias, and how joy is a spiritual obligation in the Jewish faith.

Kids shouldn’t be stopped from playing their favourite sports because they can’t find active wear. Committed to helping kids thrive and not experience the negative impacts of having to leave their teams, their friends, and experience weight-stigmatizing clothing practices at a young age, Pam Luk (she/her) is determined to change the children’s apparel landscape with her company, Ember & Ace.

How fatness gets represented in popular culture, specifically in reality tv shows, is most often deeply cringe-worthy, violent, and filled with anti-fatness. Dr. Layla Cameron (they/them) brings an alternative way to view shows like “My 600-lbs Life” and “My Big Fat Fabulous Life” that may just help us better envision fat futures.

Clarkisha Kent (she/her) is a culture critic and bringer of chaos. Her new book, “Fat Off, Fat On: A Big Bitch Manifesto,” was published this year, and Clarkisha is here to talk about it, along with a foray into the connections between purity culture and fatness and how we can use The Kelli & Kat Test to determine whether a piece of media has provided the audience with thoughtful representation of fat [Black] women and/or non-men.

Embodiment is one of those words that’s thrown around, but what is it really? Alexandra Shewan (she/they) takes us through what her working definition of embodiment is, how she supports clients with becoming embodied, and the essential roles that being trauma-informed and anti-oppressive should play in therapeutic practices.

Nia Patterson (they/them) went viral after taking a photo of themselves in a Torrid change room in a bathing suit. Since then, Nia has become an influencer, social media manager, singer, podcaster, and coach. In this conversation, they share their journey and also their top three tips for staying joyful while living in marginalized bodies and with marginalized identities. We also talk about fat secrets and podcast dream guests.

Tamra Lamese Garland (she/her) & Jeremy C. Garland (he/him) are a mixed-size, mixed-race couple. Throughout their relationship, they’ve had to deal with racism and sizeism in surprising (not surprising) ways, such as being followed and photographed, a surly bartender who got physically threatening, and comments in airports, etc. Through it all, they continue to advocate for each other and for a more inclusive world. This episode will give you all the feels.

Creating a truly liberatory space for fat/plus-size bodies is revolutionary. Creating that for hiking trails? That’s next level! Avery Swartz (she/her) is here to share how the Greater Toronto Area chapter of the Body Liberation Hiking Club launched on April 2023 and is a space free of diet culture talk, open and accepting of all bodies, and provides community and connection to nature (i.e. no jerks allowed!). See you on the trail.