Weight stigma and discrimination occur in various environments, such as in educational, medical, and occupational settings, as well as in the contexts of interpersonal relationships (i.e. Pulh & Brownell, 2006). Experiences of weight stigma and discrimination often harm fat people’s mental well-being (i.e. Wu & Berry, 2018) and relational functioning (Lewis et al., 2011), which makes it an important area of concern for researchers and practitioners in psychology, especially as psychologists are being called more often to adopt a liberation based mindset when conceptualizing and treating mental health concerns in people with marginalized identities (Singh, 2020).

Because relational cultural theory (RCT) focuses on relationships and culture in understanding human development and mental health, it is an ideal theory for providing a framework for conceptualizing the harm done by weight-based oppression, as well as considering how fat people can cope and heal from these experiences. Additionally, given the empowering nature of fat positive and fat liberationist spaces (Dickins et al., 2011; Dickins et al., 2016; Lewis et al., 2010), exploring the impact of a fat person’s fat positive and liberationist identity, using RCT, may also yield important insights into how fat positive and fat liberationist fat people cope with and heal from experiences of weight-based oppression.

Thus, to gain a deeper understanding of these variables, 9 participants who identified as both fat and either fat positive or fat liberationist were interviewed about how they came to this identity and the impact that it has had on them. Once the data was collected, the participants’ narratives were analyzed using narrative analysis. The results support past research findings that experiences of weight stigma and discrimination have a devastating impact on fat people. The findings also suggest participants' journey toward a fat liberation was often slow and involved many factors. Lastly, while all participants identified challenges in their life since this identity developed, such as tension in relationships due to anti-fat views, the participants reported their fat positive or fat liberationist identity has had an overwhelmingly positive impact on their view of themselves and engagement in relationships.