Charlotte Cooper (born 1968) is a

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

-based British writer and outspoken advocate for

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Not ...

and

fat acceptance The fat acceptance movement (also known by various other names, such as fat pride, fat empowerment, fat liberation, and fat activism) is a social movement which seeks to eliminate the social stigma of obesity. Areas of contention include the aest ...

Biography

She describes herself as "queer, from a working-class background, white, middle-aged, and have a load of higher education. I have

poly Poly, from the Greek πολύς meaning "many" or "much", may refer to: Businesses * China Poly Group Corporation, a Chinese business group, and its subsidiaries: ** Poly Property, a Hong Kong incorporated Chinese property developer ** Poly R ...

relationships and am sort-of

femme ''Femme'' (; , literally meaning ) is a term traditionally used to describe a lesbian woman who exhibits a feminine identity or gender presentation. While commonly viewed as a lesbian term, alternate meanings of the word also exist with some ...

". Cooper is both an academic and mainstream author. She has published articles in academic journals such as '' Disability and Society'' and is herself a board member of ''Fat Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Body Weight and Society''. She has written many articles on fat acceptance and gay rights issues for websites, magazines and newspapers, including ''

Diva Diva (, ) is the Latin word for a goddess. Diva is a name from Roman mythology, and is associated with the nouns divus, diva, which means god, goddess, and the adjective divinius, which means divine or heavenly. It has often been used to refer t ...

'', the UK's leading lesbian magazine, and UK national newspaper ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

''. Cooper is also news editor for RainbowNetwork.com, the largest gay and lesbian portal in the UK. She is a prolific author of

zines A zine ( ; short for ''magazine'' or ''fanzine'') is, as noted on Merriam-Webster’s official website, a magazine that is a “noncommercial often homemade or online publication usually devoted to specialized and often unconventional subject ...

and performs in the

queercore Queercore (or homocore) is a cultural/social movement that began in the mid-1980s as an offshoot of the punk subculture and a music genre that comes from punk rock. It is distinguished by its discontent with society in general, and specifically ...

band Homosexual Death Drive. Charlotte Cooper describes her approach to fat activism:

I challenge biomedical discourse on fat through my activism. Many fat activists are interested in countering
obesity Obesity is a medical condition, considered by multiple organizations to be a disease, in which excess Adipose tissue, body fat has accumulated to such an extent that it can potentially have negative effects on health. People are classifi ...
discourse claims, but my interests are in creating communities and cultures, and in documenting fat activist histories, that are somewhat autonomous and exist beyond the boundaries of medicalisation... It does not answer to biomedical discourse, it is something else entirely that is built on the creativity and sheer badassery of fat people. It shows that there are other ways of thinking about fat, and embodying fatness.

Cooper's 2002 novel, ''Cherry'', about a young woman's experience and discovery of

lesbianism A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homo ...

, attracted controversy when copies were impounded by Canadian Customs officers. Reasons given were the scenes of

fisting Fisting—also known as fist fucking (FF) and handballing—is a sexual activity that involves inserting one or more hands into the rectum (anal fisting) or the vagina (vaginal fisting). Fisting may be performed on oneself (self-fisting) or perf ...

and golden showers. In 2007, Cooper coined the term "headless fatty" to describe negative media representations of fat people. In 2010, Cooper was a Government of Ireland Ph.D. scholar at Limerick University where she wrote a history of the fat activist movement in which she argued that it is closely allied with the

feminist Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

movement and, like it, has undergone waves of activity. Cooper has co-produced a number of events with fat activism themes including 'The Fat of the Land', 'Big Bum Jumble' and 2012's 'Fattylympics', a protest against both attitudes to fat and the

London 2012 Olympics The 2012 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXX Olympiad and also known as London 2012, were an international multi-sport event held from 27 July to 12 August 2012 in London, England, United Kingdom. The first event, the ...

, held in Stratford, where she lives.

Books

* ''Fat and Proud: The Politics of Size'' (1998, ) * ''Cherry'' (2002, ) * ''Fat Activism: A Radical Social Movement'' (2016, ) * ''Fat Activist Vernacular'' (2019, )

Journal articles

* * * * *

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cooper, Charlotte 1968 births 21st-century British novelists British lesbian writers Living people English LGBTQ rights activists Fat acceptance activists Fat feminism English LGBTQ novelists British women novelists 21st-century British women writers Polyamorous people 21st-century British LGBTQ people

Biography

Books

Journal articles

See also

References

External links