Fatima Jamal is an American filmmaker, model, writer, and interdisciplinary artist. A Black

transgender A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth. The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...

woman who goes by the moniker "Fat Femme," Jamal is also an activist who speaks and makes art about social issues including

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

body positivity Body positivity is a social movement that promotes a positive view of all bodies, regardless of size, shape, skin tone, gender, and physical abilities. Proponents focus on the appreciation of the functionality and health of the human body instea ...

, and

LGBTQ 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. Nota ...

Biography

Jamal was born in

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

and attended

Morehouse College Morehouse College is a Private college, private, Historically black colleges and universities, historically black, Men's colleges in the United States, men's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, ...

. She completed a graduate program at

The New School The New School is a Private university, private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for p ...

, where she studied documentary filmmaking. Jamal underwent her gender transition after finishing graduate school. She credits her move from Atlanta to New York City as giving her the opportunity to thrive.

Career

About her art, Jamal has said, "My art really focuses on a black, queer, femme experience because those are all things that I'm interested in. I will never grow tired of capturing black, queer, and trans people and excavating our histories."

Acting and modeling

Jamal has modeled on runways at

New York Fashion Week New York Fashion Week (NYFW), held in February and September of each year, is a semi-annual series of events in Manhattan typically spanning seven to nine days when international Fashion design, fashion collections are shown to buyers, the pres ...

, is a fixture of the ballroom scene, and has appeared in the TV show

Pose Human positions refer to the different physical configurations that the human body can take. There are several synonyms that refer to human positioning, often used interchangeably, but having specific nuances of meaning. *''Position'' is a gen ...

. She was the first black trans model to walk the runway for a major menswear fashion house, for Stefano Pilati's unisex line in fall 2020. Jamal starred in Tourmaline's film ''Atlantic is a Sea Bones'' (2017), which takes its title from an

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

ous poem by Lucille Clifton. The film concerns black

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

history in New York City.

Directorial work

In 2020, Jamal began a crowdfunding campaign on the website

Indiegogo Indiegogo is an American crowdfunding website founded in 2008 by Danae Ringelmann, Slava Rubin, and Eric Schell. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, California. The site is one of the first sites to offer crowd funding. Indiegogo allows peo ...

to support a documentary, ''No Fats, No Femmes'', that Jamal is writing and directing. According to her fundraising campaign, the film "examines and troubles how the gazes of others — particularly dominant white gazes — inform how we see ourselves and each other. In it, I center and am fascinated by my own Black, fat body as a site of criticism; and, an invitation inward, toward self — often, a self un-done, vulnerable, and terrifying." As of September 2020, the campaign had raised more than $55,000. The project was featured in ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

'' in July 2020.

Legacy

Jamal has been cited as a source of inspiration by other contemporary artists. Gabriel Garcia Román's “Queer Icons” series of paintings (started in 2011), which honors queer activists and artists, includes a portrait of Jamal.

References

African-American models Morehouse College alumni African-American film directors American LGBTQ rights activists African-American LGBTQ people American transgender women LGBTQ people from Georgia (U.S. state) Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 21st-century African-American artists 21st-century American LGBTQ people 21st-century American women 21st-century American people {{US-film-director-stub