Matthew Thomas Conte
ABSTRACT: “More Fats, additional Femmes: an important study of Fatphobia and Femmephobia on Grindr” is your own narrative concerning liminalities to be an excess fat and femme queer on Grindr, the biggest and most-widely used social network application geared particularly towards queer males. The section deconstructs the now-ubiquitous trend in queer male communities, “no fats, no femmes,” and examines the complex intersections and connections which exist between queerness, fatness, and femininity. The story radically examines the complicated dual marginalities that fat and femme queers must navigate when their health and identities were simultaneously eroticized and discriminated on.
Determination
This personal narrative was dedicated to every queers who may have had to learn to try out by a different pair of guidelines on Grindr.
This individual narrative began once I involved twenty years old. It absolutely was the very first time I downloaded Grindr, the biggest web queer social network (study: fucking) software geared especially towards queer men. Once I going engaging together with the software, we straight away remember feeling like I did not belong. My personal excess fat furry muscles been around amongst a plethora of abs and rib cages and makeup back at my face designated my queer identification as womanly, that was unlike the visibility summaries declaring “masculine guys ONLY.” It actually was the first occasion in my existence that We started initially to comprehend my personal queer human body as excess fat and my queer personality as femme. It had been initially We decided my personal queerness had been a thing that could possibly be “wrong”—my fatness had been considered as gross and unappealing and my personal womanliness had been devalued and degraded. We discovered rapidly that my queer identities been around behind a ubiquitous phrase which is used throughout the software: “No fats, no femmes.” one in fact, this term has-been popularized a whole lot that when it comes down to low-price of $28.50, you’ll be able to enjoy satisfaction this year with your Marek + Richard container leading that delineates in large, bold characters that you’re not interested in fats or femmes (for record, cannot purchase this shirt). The notion of “no fats, no femmes” provides left me consistently questioning exactly what it method for “belong” on Grindr and exactly what systems is provided a “sense of that belong” for the reason that space.
Hegemonic narratives related the queer male body need built a 
queer area on Grindr that commemorates and greets whiteness, masculinity, and muscularity. Queer body that do not adapt to these strict limits of personality (browse: fats, femmes, and/or racialized queers) tend to be relegated into margins with this social networking program. These queer systems were exposed to a double marginality—they is denied from straight culture for exactly who they screw and adore after which declined from the corporate queer community for their non-whiteness, fatness, and/or womanliness. The intricate Othering and deviancy of femininity, fatness, and/or non-whiteness on Grindr is continuing to create an on-line queer space where a particular kind of queerness is celebrated—that is a queerness that’s white, masculine, and muscular. It is this queerness definitely welcomed and invited into queer spaces without difficulty; it is primarily the queerness which is used in queer mass media and marketing and advertising; it is primarily the queerness this is certainly acknowledged at pleasure occasions; it is this queerness definitely searched for on Grindr; and, most importantly, it is primarily the queerness that’s symbolized as being the “right form of queer.”
It is important to realize that “queer” just isn’t a homogenous identification and needs a vital deconstruction of the ways social hierarchies (e.g., battle, class, gender phrase, physique) come to frame apparently unitary categories of sex. We should end up being vital ways by which that numerous diversities create between those groups whom identify as “queer.” We posit that Grindr is actually a place of pervading homonormativity—that was, the queer muscles contained in this room was created within raced, gendered, and classed norms (Brown, Browne and Lim 2007, 12). Further, as Jon Binnie (2007) notes:
Heteronormativity was an effective principle in complicated the way community is organized over the two gender model—norms that enshrine heterosexuality as regular and so [queer] group as various other and limited. But I am not saying very positive about the effectiveness now. The idea of heteronormativity has a tendency to lump all heterosexuals [and queers] along in identical box, and that can mask or confuse the difference between and within sexual dissident identities and forums. (33)
The thought of a “singular queer neighborhood” ignores the key oppressions and discriminations being taking place within and between queer forums. The idea of homonormativity (Ferguson 2005; Nero 2005; Binnie 2004; Bell and Binnie 2004; Duggan 2014) refers to the mainstreaming of queer politics and growing exposure and energy of rich white homosexual males accompanied by the marginalization and exclusion of queer system on the basis of race, class, sex character and phrase, system dimensions, and (dis)ability (Binnie 2007, 34). These queer figures come to be exactly what Binnie and Bell (2004) reference once the “queer unwanted” (1810).
Homonormative formations in queer spots has designated the fat, femme and/or racialized queer muscles as “unwanted” and “undesired.” To embody the “right type of Queerness” on Grindr is going to be what Rinaldo Walcott (2007) identifies while the “archetypal queer”—white, muscular, middle-class, able-bodied and male (237). Fat, femme, and/or racialized queer figures have now been excised from the “we include children” discourse with the contemporary gay and lesbian action (239). We believe excess fat, femme and/or racialized queers become scripted as impostures on Grindr.