Gem Kennedy (they/them) (00:01)

So, Hi Charlotte, it's super nice to you here again. And I was just going to say, but I saved it for now because ⁓ I've been thinking about the fact that you were the first person I interviewed for my podcast and you were actually my dream guest. And I remember being like, if I can get Charlotte Cooper on my podcast, I will have like made it, that would be the best. And then you said, yes, straight away.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (00:20)

Gem, I'm dying, I'm dying. That is so sweet of you. Thank you so much. Well, for me, the honour is being, you know, being part of your world and getting to know you. You know, the work you're doing is beautiful.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (00:25)

Yeah.

Oh, and likewise, yeah, it's just so good to be able to chat to you again. And like five years later, because we talked in 2020, to be able to have another conversation about all the cool stuff that you're up to. For anyone who hasn't listened to it, go back and listen to the first one, because then you'll have context for what we're talking about today. Because at that time, your book, Fat Activism, was relatively new. And so we talked about that. And then today we're talking about another book, which I'm excited to do. So I'm gonna introduce you and then we can talk about the book. Okay.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (01:02)

Okay, great.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (01:04)

So if you haven't met her before, this is Dr. Charlotte Cooper. She is a psychotherapist working in East London. Her scholarship concerning fat liberation is influential to say the least. And she is the author of Fat Activism, A Radical Social Movement Highly recommend you check that book out if you haven't already. And Charlotte is also a queer cultural worker influenced by DIY ethics and performs as Homosexual Death Drive which hopefully we can talk about again.

and has also ⁓ recently written an incredible book which is an auto ethnography called Fat Body Work and I fucking loved reading it. ⁓ So yeah, I'm really excited to be able to talk about it and hopefully people can then go to your website and they can buy it and read it themselves. ⁓ Yeah, cause it's amazing. So ⁓ anything you'd like to add to the introduction or do you want to just let us know like how you're doing?

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (01:45)

great.

I'm

blushing, I'm like, who's Gem talking about? ⁓ is that me? So that's nice, thank you.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (01:55)

Yes, it's you.

And no problem. One of the first questions that I, so I sent you like a few questions in advance just to, know, some people like some prep. ⁓ And yeah, it'll be interesting to hear how you're doing right now. Obviously your books just come out, but like the world's on fire. How are you doing?

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (02:16)

Well, I'm doing okay because I have the kind of work that helps me do okay. So ⁓ I'm a psychotherapist, a radical psychotherapist, and you know I feel a lot of responsibility to the people that I work with to provide a safe and stable and well safe enough a stable and solid place where we can work together. That is you know...

essence of the work really and I care enormously about that so I do that space making and that helps me feel solid and focused as well so that's one of the things that helps. I'm also a sociologist by training and I find this very helpful ⁓ because it enables me to take a longer view and resist being sidetracked by daily drama of which there are volumes at the moment ⁓ and you know

Even the worst regimes are inherently unstable. They don't last forever. Not to minimise how very bad things are. But people also find ways to resist. They always find that. And that's the core of my fat activism and my scholarship around fat activism is about how people resist. ⁓ And I find that soothing to remember. It gives me hope.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (03:39)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (03:40)

Won't come as much surprise given that I've written this book about Fat Body Work but I also swim. And I'm in the middle of a long-term project at the moment, which is about swimming culture, architecture, feelings, all of it. So I swim in different municipal pools and I find that interesting and relaxing and restorative. ⁓ Yeah, so a mixture of things, political things, serving other people, trying to take a long view.

being in my body, those are the things that kind of keep me going, I suppose.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (04:12)

Yeah, yeah, I really get that. And I think that ⁓ that idea of having a long view or seeing what is happening in a broader context can really help can't it because it can be, obviously it's important to zoom in and be with what is happening, but having that sort of like broader context, it hasn't always been this way, it won't always be this way, like things change. ⁓ Yeah, I think is really helpful and reassuring even if it's terribly shit right now.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (04:26)

Yeah.

Well, devastating in fact, know, and finding ways to grieve the devastation, to maintain some hope that there'll be some rebuild, hopefully a lot of rebuilding, to express solidarity with people who are at the sharp end of everything. That's also part of the work at the moment.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (04:53)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. And I was having a conversation with Kristy Forbes earlier today and we were talking about solidarity and just the importance of being able to feel that and how that in itself is just like really helpful fuel to keep going and knowing that there are other people doing cool stuff. And yeah, it means a lot, I think, to be able to have those connections.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (05:16)

Yes, persist.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (05:18)

Yes, definitely. ⁓

And so coming to your book specifically then, because it almost feels like ⁓ there's something really radical in like the sharing of having your own movement practice and like how that's developed. you know, so for people who haven't heard it, is it okay if I say a little bit about it you can add anything that you would like to describe? ⁓ yeah, there it goes across the screen. again, isn't it shiny?

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (05:39)

Yeah please do and look I'm going to wave it. ⁓

There it

is.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (05:48)

⁓

And so it's an auto ethnography. And so it's essentially like a self study of ⁓ your movement practice and how that has developed over time. So it takes us from like the nineties until the present day, pretty much. ⁓ And I'm very excited about it. So you can probably tell. So I just want to make sure I can get my words out. ⁓ The cool thing about it is that it's like snippets of different experiences and it's different.

like ⁓ mediums of delivery. So you've got, for example, like some is poetry, like that incredible poem at the beginning of the book. And then other parts are like a description of an exercise class that you used to attend and like what that meant for you. And having those sort of different, almost like case studies in a way, and then kind of bringing them together as like, this is an overarching body of work about my body and my relationship to how I move it. Would you say that's like a fair summary? Is there anything you'd add?

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (06:40)

That's

a beautiful summary. I mean, the very fancy word for something like this would be a bricolage. Ooh, I know these words. And also possibly gestalt as well is a way you might describe it. But for, ⁓ you know, people, you know, not using that kind of jargon. Yeah, it's like a scrapbook, a patchwork. It's something where these pieces make a whole. And there is a narrative. It's about how I am now. ⁓ And it's also a narrative of

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (06:47)

Ooh, I've never heard that word. Good one. Uh-huh.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (07:09)

of Covid ⁓ and about how that has affected me and it's also a narrative about fatphobia and how that has affected me too. It was very important to me ⁓ with this work and One of the things that came up as I was writing it ⁓ was was recognising how powerfully fatphobia has affected me and I'm somebody with probably close to 40 years of activism and scholarship under my belt. I've got all the knowledge, ⁓

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (07:18)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (07:38)

but it's still a daily experience, it's not something that goes away. ⁓ So I wanted to engage with that a bit more and how that is so deeply imprinted on and in my body and what I do with my body too.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (07:51)

Yeah, and I think that really comes through, especially in that first poem where you're kind of, it felt like a timeline through your life and seeing the sort of like, you know, just daily, everyday things and then the interspersing of like fatphobia and experiences you'd had. I think for people who haven't experienced fatphobia or who have internalised fatphobia but haven't existed in a larger body, so don't know what it's like to experience themselves, I feel like that's a really...

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (07:57)

Yeah.

Mm.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (08:19)

Yeah, just like a really visceral way to like read about it and see how it like comes in from so many different angles in so many different situations that some people just don't even have to think about.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (08:29)

Yes, yes, it's omnipresent. And one of the things about fatphobia that was a revelation, mean, the book was also about my process in working this out. had these notebooks and these scraps and I was like, what does this mean? One of the big revelations for me was about how gaslit I'd been by fatphobia too, to believe myself to be someone that I'm actually not. And no shade on the couch potatoes of this world, you know, but I'm not a couch potato.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (08:38)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (08:58)

I'd been led to believe that there was something inherently pathological, lazy, stupid and uninformed about who I am, how I move and my ambitions that I might have for movement, that I might even have a practice of movement as well. That had seemed out of the question until I really started to engage with this material.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (09:21)

Yeah, yeah. And I really love how this, I guess like the DIY aspect of your work is really like, it really gives permission to people to be like your experience doesn't have to be, you don't have to go to fucking university and do a PhD on this particular thing, or you don't have to be an expert on something in order to be able to create something of value. Obviously you are incredibly experienced in your work.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (09:44)

I those

things, but it's true. was a DIYer before those things too. You know, that's something that I learned, well, because I come from punk, it's something that I learned at a very tender age, is that ⁓ culture and world making is yours to do. You don't have to have fancy special knowledge. If you want to pursue that, well, that's beautiful and it will probably infuse what you do, but it's not absolutely necessary. You can do it with, you know, literally, I mean, literally my first...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (09:48)

Exactly. Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (10:13)

publications with a pencil and a piece of paper. I didn't have to have all that. It doesn't have to be excessive, I suppose. You can make the worlds with what's at hand. And I love that. That remains with me. And luckily at the moment, the world at hand offers me technologies and networks that enables me to, and I have skills now, that enables me to write and publish books too, which is...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (10:18)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (10:42)

what I'm interested in.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (10:44)

Yeah. And I think that ⁓ it's such a reminder to people that may feel like, what can I possibly say about things? Or like, why would anyone be interested in my voice? Like that documenting of just everyday experiences or thoughts or reflections is so valuable and really, like I think.

I don't know, I think that sometimes that kind of knowledge is like gate-kept in terms of what people consider to be worth reading. But actually for me, it's in that, like I feel connected to someone in the sort of everyday, in the figuring out that they're sharing. And yeah, I think that's such a cool thing to share.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (11:20)

Thank you. I mean, yeah, we're the owners of what's worth reading. You know, I try and make things that I want to see in the world. ⁓ Yeah, yeah, I had another thought then, but it's flown out of my mind. But it's something about feeling maybe entitled or, yeah, making the things that are unexpected about what's valuable. I know what it was. So a lot of the impetus to write this book came from...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (11:24)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (11:46)

the notebooks and reflective journals that I kept when I was working on a show called Swagger with a company called Project O who are also known as Alexandrina Hemsley and Jamila Johnson Small. And that was such a profound experience. It's about 10 years ago now that I was keeping these notebooks and recording what was happening, but I didn't really fully understand it at the time. It's only a long time later with hindsight and with more reflection.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (12:10)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (12:15)

come to be able to contextualize what was happening back then. So I suppose some advice I might give to other people considering writing or publishing or talking about this stuff is it doesn't matter if you don't understand it in the moment but you probably will with reflection, you'll understand it in time. So things might need to percolate for a while too and that's okay, that makes it rich and valuable too.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (12:42)

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that idea of building a body of work, like I know we talked before about this archive that you have at your house that I don't know if people can still visit it, but people could book in and come and see it. And having a body of work, I mean, it's also fat body work, it makes me think of the title too. But like having that is so amazing. Like imagine if everyone just went through live and it wouldn't, it doesn't have to be like a book or a specific way, but.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (12:53)

Yeah.

Yes!

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (13:08)

kind of thinking of their life as a piece of work, not in the capitalist sense, but like creating and gathering and yeah, I just think that's such a cool way to think about things.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (13:19)

Yes, yes, it's lovely. It's one of the big benefits of getting older is that you have a body of knowledge, a body of work, ⁓ maybe collections of things that kind of constitute you. I love that when I encounter it in other people. It doesn't even have to be material things. It can be stories, memories, experiences, things that you can share. It is about the richness of life and enjoying that.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (13:30)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (13:48)

seeing the value of it, especially for people who aren't of the mainstream, who aren't of the dominant culture, absolutely critical that we value this material, that we don't chuck it out or burn our diaries. I know some people do that, I would never do that. And also think about repositories where these things can be held. In London we've got the wonderful Bishopsgate archive ⁓ which has collections of ⁓

radical material, all kinds of things. And there are also regional archives as well. You might think about ⁓ your own collections, your own work, where it might go when you've finished with it, perhaps when you've moved on to other projects or when you die perhaps. I suppose I'm at the stage of life when I'm thinking about what will remain of me when I'm gone. And it won't remain forever, but what can I give a good chance of remaining?

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (14:34)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, Yeah, I can really understand that because it would be such a shame for all of that to be lost. And like you said, the dominant culture, you know the narrative of history is shared. That is not everyone's experience and is only, you know, select things. And so every time, I mean, I feel like I talk about this all the time, but every time people realize they're queer or realize they're neurodivergent or...

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (14:46)

So that's on my mind a lot at the moment too.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (15:10)

or any kind of marginalized identity, they're having to search and scour the archives for like anything that gives them a sense of like connection to elders. ⁓ And just, yeah, you're just like, here you go, here's all my work. You might enjoy it.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (15:23)

Yeah,

dig in. Yeah, I mean that whole kind of reinventing the wheel each time, each new wave of activism. I mean, it's exciting because there are new ideas, but also some of it makes me cry because there is, you know, changes so very glacial, glacially slow that I always want it to, you know, I want to connect people across generations with different kind of iterations of knowledge and to see how that can.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (15:47)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (15:52)

develop and grow and benefit us all. ⁓ Archiving is one way of doing that, but having conversations like this and also knowing lots of different people of different places and times also helps a lot too. I'm a big big fan of an intergenerational conversation.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (16:10)

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, 100 % agree. I'm really like, wanna talk about that, but maybe I'll talk to you about that afterwards. I have a question. Okay. So, all right then, let's get into the book in terms of like, what your discoveries were and like, what it was like learning. Cause I guess you've obviously developed a movement practice over time and that has been like tweaked and affected by things like COVID, know, not being able to go out or having to adapt in certain ways. And-

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (16:16)

Okay.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (16:38)

when you got to the end of the book and kind of looked at your movement practice as a whole, I guess what was that like for you and what did you learn about your movement practice? I mean, spoiler alert, you share this in the book too, but yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (16:51)

Well, that it's very humbling actually. It's really hard and really humbling. I guess that might be the headlines. You know, in a lot of kind of fat liberation rhetoric, certainly in Health at Every Size, there's this instruction to find joyful movement. And you also hear in the culture at large as well, you know, find something you really like. Well, that's lovely advice. But persisting and keeping going and encountering your own body

in the mire of fatphobia makes it really really difficult so difficult you're encountering shame all the time yeah feeling inadequate feeling you know too slow too you know I don't know lumpy, ⁓ blobby, whatever yeah so it's a continual engagement with that which was really really really hard for me. Maybe other people have other experiences but my movement is anything but

light, lithe athletic, virtuoso, you know, it's not that. And that is humbling because when Kay, my partner Kay Hyatt, and also somebody I've worked with a lot, when we went into the studio by ourselves after our experiences of working on Swagger, you know, I went in there thinking, oh yeah, we're going to rule this, we're going to perform all the time.

I'm going be doing high kicks, hither and thither, you know, we're going to be doing such extraordinary things with our bodies. I mean, we did do extraordinary things with our bodies, but the reality was it was nowhere in the, it was not in that realm of virtuosity. So that was a ⁓ yeah, humbling reality check about what it is I have ⁓ as a middle-aged fat dyke. ⁓

But also what I have is I'm a middle-aged fat dyke which is blimmin' phenomenal, you know? There's a lot around that that is really beautiful and brilliant and fun and ⁓ irreverent and rude and naughty and badly behaved and expressive. I suppose that was one of the big, big takeouts of doing that period of work

was about how expressive my body could be. That was a revelation to me. But yeah, the big takeaways were about, wow, fatphobia is big and real and affects me profoundly. The big takeaways were about, Oh my god, Covid really, really destroyed so many things. And also stuff around what thin people say about fat people's bodies moving. Not a lot that's massively helpful, but there are... ⁓

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (19:25)

Mmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (19:42)

bodies of work which are helpful around somatics for example, around mindful movement, it's really good. ⁓ And also what fat people experience which is exclusion, marginalisation, self-hatred, but also this amazing resistance, ⁓ again irreverence, quiet practice, things that people discover by themselves. I mean I always love the queer edges of things as well, so the rude stuff is really great.

Yeah and people like ⁓ Martinez Evans who runs the Slow AF Run Club, you know it's like you're taking something and making it slightly different. So what ⁓ thin athletes might make of running for example, he turns into a different sort of aesthetic which is really, I mean what you saying earlier about you know the things that you actually want to see and the things that you can relate to, well he does a really good job of that.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (20:23)

Mm-hmm

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (20:41)

⁓ Yeah, so it's also about, I suppose, expanding what is possible. I think fat people have enormous ⁓ gifts to offer the world in general about what a body can be, what it can do, how to be with your body, how to experience it. There's a lot of, I'm going to use the D word, discourse, ⁓ that we have amazing...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (20:41)

you

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (21:10)

knowledge that we can contribute to the world. Whether people are going to listen to us is another matter, but I do think that that knowledge that comes directly from our bodies, that we share with each other, is super, super powerful and I want to be, well I am, I'm part of that discussion, but I want that discussion to go further.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (21:16)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. And I remember feeling when we talked last time, so hopeful around like the progress that was being made because obviously in 2020, you know, the body positive movement was like at its height in terms of like it being more of a mainstream conversation. You know, there were more like models who were ⁓ like fat models compared to, you know, the aesthetic that was stick thin, all of that stuff. And I remember just feeling like, I feel like we're cracking this, like this is really gonna change. And now sitting here like,

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (21:52)

Mm-hmm.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (22:01)

your work is more needed than ever because it's all been rolled back. yeah, and not to, I don't want to sort of ⁓ dwell on how shit things are necessarily, but I think it's important to mention that like, you know, a lot of people have sort of broken up with body positivity because it's not radical enough. And at the time, definitely people were like, it's a helpful vehicle, but it's not as radical as it should be. ⁓ And I'm thinking about Fatlib London. I don't know if you've come across their work, like doing amazing stuff. ⁓ So it's all...

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (22:03)

Yeah, yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (22:30)

It's exciting that things are happening, but it's so shit that it's more needed than ever because I really thought that things were going in the right direction when we talked before.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (22:38)

Yeah, well, again, you know, taking a longer view, there's always this kind of pattern of progress and backlash, progress and backlash. And this is sort of, I think this is part of that. Yeah, and what's going on with weight loss technologies? Again, that's an old story. It's being treated as though it's new, but it's not new.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (22:47)

and

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (23:06)

And because of that, I don't think it can succeed. because you know, fat people have been on this planet for at least 30,000 years. There's documentary evidence of that. We're not a group of people that can be eliminated. I mean, perhaps, I don't know, are we the cockroaches of the world? I don't know. Perhaps we are. But, you know, you can't just get rid of a group of people. We know that, you know. ⁓

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (23:30)

you

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (23:35)

There may be genocides but you cannot wipe out a group of people. There's something about an idea or a sensibility or a kind of group of people that cannot be completely extinguished. They can try, they can try very hard, but I don't think that's going to happen. I still maintain a lot of hope and for me it's always about culture, culture and world making. ⁓ And that still exists, that hasn't changed for me at all.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (24:03)

Yeah, yeah. And for people listening to this, I guess some people may have been coming into this conversation from like a trans / autistic lens, as in that's how they've come across the work I'm doing. But I wonder, I don't even know what my question is. I guess it's like, for some people this might be quite mind blowing, this conversation to even think about like, ⁓ yeah, like around.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (24:15)

Mm-hmm.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (24:29)

for example, like fatness as being a cultural identity or a cultural experience and it's incredibly rich and there's so much to learn about from that. If you've never had to experience that before, it can be like really eye-opening, I think. So I guess I'm just saying that. I don't even know if have a question about it.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (24:42)

Yeah? No, that's true.

Well, yeah, it is true, you know. And you think about how different groups of people have also taken this up as a tactic. I mean, it's not that long ago that to be a homosexual was to have a disease. And in some places and times this still exists, this belief still exists. And, you know, a disease that can be cured. Well, it turns out that... ⁓

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (24:58)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (25:10)

LGBTQIA++ culture is one of the richest, most diverse, most brilliant cultures in the world and no way is this pathological and nothing is going to cure that baby, you know. So you can see that other, it's a tactic that is a really, it's a powerful tactic to look at, there are lots of ways of looking at fat. Medicalisation is one way of looking at it and

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (25:31)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (25:39)

weight loss or the, what do they call it, weight management. There isn't kind of a word for that because it's assumed to be the norm, but it's only one way of looking at it. Cultural, looking at fat people as a culture, as a group of people, possibly with things in common is another way of looking at it. That's my way of looking at it. And there are other ways still. I mean, there are sexual subcultures around fat as well. There's, you know cultures around fashion.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (25:47)

Mm-hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (26:08)

and cultures around body practice as well I suppose but there are lots and lots of different ways of looking at fat and for me culture-making is a really important form of activism and also the queerness of it as well. The bits that I like are the bits that are a bit strange, on the edge, you know. They kind of don't make sense. They might be a bit wrong, they might fail

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (26:19)

you

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (26:34)

those are the bits that I really really love ⁓ yeah so it doesn't have to be a one flavour it's about the mixture and the diversity that makes it really good and rich

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (26:37)

Yeah.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I have so many thoughts, but I'm just gonna check that I'm on the right track in terms of the things I said I was gonna ask you. ⁓ Yeah, one of them was around, ⁓ a bit like when we talked about if people want to sort of document their lives or their learnings in some way, do you have any kind of recommendations for how people might create or engage with their own movement practice? ⁓

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (27:08)

Yeah, well, yeah, it's likely to bring up a lot of stuff. ⁓ Try and have somebody or something. It might not be somebody, it might be a journal, it might be a notebook, it could be ⁓ speaking of something into an app, but something that will support you, that will help you, that will give you something that you can look back on.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (27:14)

Hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (27:38)

I suppose. ⁓ Being curious about it, ⁓ looking and feeling, trying to work out what's going on. I mean recording yes, in whatever form or flavour that moves you it could be anything. You can use digital technology, you can ⁓ go fully analogue, it doesn't matter. It could just be a conversation. But yeah you might not know what the thing is straight away. ⁓ Give yourself plenty of time.

That's the main thing actually. These things take time and over time things grow and change and your interests develop but there is a whole picture there. I know I'm being quite vague about this but yeah in terms of like documenting or developing a movement practice, well have a go. Yeah have a go. It will bring up a lot of crap. You're going to have feelings about it and they might not be comfortable feelings so be prepared for that. But those feelings are important

and they can tell you a lot of things about what matters, what's going on. Yeah, try and stay curious and open. Keep going. It doesn't matter what you do. You don't have to do one thing. You don't have to be great at it. You can be really terrible at it. You get to decide what good or bad looks like. Yeah. Forget all the stuff about having fun and doing stuff you love. No, there'll be many, many days, most days where you just think, ugh!

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (29:06)

I so relate to that, yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (29:07)

Yeah, it's not happening. ⁓

Yeah, no, I'm not sure. What is it? You'll find your own path, I suppose. and also if it stops, don't worry. You can pick up something else or you'll pick it up again. ⁓ Just, I suppose for me, what has helped for me, certainly in writing the book, has been knowing that there's a thread. There's a thread of movement and expression that has been there since I was a tiny tot and has persisted

throughout my whole life. I mean it's very hard for me to remember times in my life when there hasn't been something even if it's walking around, you know, walking around town a bit. That would have been my practice for a few years but there's always been something and yeah maybe you zone in on the things that you do and don't worry about being healthy or it being good for you. Yeah, for me it's about sensation usually.

being naughty, doing stuff I'm not supposed to do, find your way in the thing that is meaningful to you and know that it won't be easy that will bring up a load of stuff. Oh actually the key key key thing is have a good outfit, have an outfit that makes you feel very sporty. So all the lycra, get all the lycra on. I love that.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (30:23)

Yeah.

Love that. That's such a good one.

I mean, that's sensory hell for me, but if you enjoy lycra then crack on. ⁓ Yeah, and like hearing you say that, it made me think of a few things from a neurodivergent perspective, if it would be okay to add, like, because I think for me, one of the things that I really struggled with was for such a long time was knowing that I enjoyed movement, like I danced from a really young age and...

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (30:34)

Okay, don't do the lycra don't do the lycra.

Please do.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (30:53)

Like I really enjoy that about your work as well, like your connection with dance. And then I just felt like it wasn't for me. I didn't fit, so I stopped doing it. ⁓ And then what I've learned later on in life is actually like as an autistic person, I get really stuck and it's really hard for me to get going. But once, I have either like accountability or ⁓ sort of like body doubling to like get going, then I'm into it and I can do it. But it's that kind of...

it's the getting into it that can be really hard. ⁓ And I think also that things like getting sweaty, I hate being sweaty with a passion. And some people will be like, yeah, no one really likes being sweaty. But I'm like I fucking hate it. So for me, like the practice that I found is power lifting because you stand still and you lift heavy things. You don't get that sweaty and then you have a big break after you've lifted something heavy. It's so good. ⁓

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (31:36)

I love that. Yeah. ⁓

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (31:48)

And it's super queer and there is no like body,

you know, there's no, I mean, obviously in like the, what's the right word? Maybe in younger, more competitive circles, there is a sort of body aesthetic. But like when I competed a few months ago, everyone looks different and no one cares. ⁓ And it's so empowering and so queer. So I think there's that as well, like what makes you feel affirmed, whether it's gender wise or, ⁓ you know, just.

around other cool people or do you want to do something alone? Yeah, it's been really, really cool to think about having a movement practice and feeling like there are some things that are accessible to me that I would never have thought I was allowed to access. Yeah, it's really cool.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (32:31)

Yes.

Lovely. Well, I love hearing that. I mean, it brings up a few things for me. First is perhaps the world hasn't caught up with you. Sad for the world and sad for you. But that doesn't mean you don't get to do the things you want to do. The inertia thing, I think, is really true and real. And, you know, it took me a long time to do things by myself. I was working with other people. Well, in this more recent period, I guess, from yeah, from

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (32:55)

Mmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (33:01)

the period in the book, I guess, from the 2010s onwards, to do things by myself was quite a stretch. Yeah, so having other people who you're doing stuff with, that was important to me. And yeah, about sweatiness. You know when we were working on Swagger, I felt really sensitive around getting sweaty and also having a red face and being out of breath as well.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (33:28)

Bye.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (33:30)

But one of the interventions, actually, Jamila said how much they really love sweating. And that was transformative for me. Not that everybody should love it. That is not what I'm getting at. But it was so interesting to me. This thing that I had loathed and tried to avoid is something that somebody else was trying to pursue. I was like, wow, really? And that changed quite a lot for me and made me a lot less judgmental of my own sweating.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (33:48)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (33:59)

In fact I don't feel judgy about it now. I'm quite curious about what happens when I sweat. Yeah, I think I was able to shift from trying to suppress this thing that my body does into being a lot more curious about it and appreciative of it as well. ⁓ I still feel stigma around it and I'm aware of what other people might make of a hot, red, huffing, sweating person, a fat person.

⁓ but also I recognise that's the story of fatphobia as well and that ⁓ yeah it makes me lot just more curious about what it is to sweat and seeing other sweaty people as well it's like ⁓ you kind of start clocking each other. Maybe this will be a project of the future, sweatiness but yeah for sure ⁓ yeah not liking it and having sensory sensitivities around it yes of course

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (34:48)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (34:56)

And for me, that's part of the story, but there are also these other ⁓ aspects to it as well that have developed as part of my own body work.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (35:04)

Yeah, and even you saying that, I feel like that's been really healing, just hearing you talk about sweatiness. ⁓ I think one of the reasons I have found it so sensorily overwhelming is this, I remember specifically as a child thinking, shit, I'm sweating and no one else is, and trying, like, how do you stop sweating? Or trying to kind of ⁓ stop it you can't. And then it's almost like the more you try to stop, the more you sweat, because you're getting stressed.

So even just hearing you say that, I'm thinking like, wow, well maybe it isn't just a sensory thing. I'm sure there's also other stuff there. So yeah, I'm gonna think on it more. Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (35:41)

Yeah, well there is other stuff there because I'm reminded

of, well, a snippet of a poem that was sort of present when I was young, which is really infused with misogyny and classism and probably racism as well, which is about ladies only glow, you know, only disgusting things sweat. And I really internalized that. But no, it turns out, well, am I a lady? Not really, but you know, it turns out that...

lots of people sweat and ⁓ yeah it doesn't have to be a morality tale or a value judgement, it can just be what it is.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (36:22)

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And as we're having this conversation, like I'm also aware that I'm sweating because it's really hot. It's like 30 something or I don't know, 28 or whatever. It's very hot today. Okay, well, I had two other questions. I'm just gonna check the time. I think, would it be okay just to ask you my other two questions and see if there's anything else? Okay, so one of them was because the idea behind having these conversations is like as cliche as it might sound to have bold conversations and talk about things that people

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (36:27)

Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yes!

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (36:50)

maybe don't feel comfortable to or like might be confronted by in some way. ⁓ And so my question to you, first of all, is ⁓ can you tell us about how or a time where you've made a bold choice and how it changed you? I mean, I'm sure there are so many, but if you can pick one or a few.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (37:06)

Yeah, it's funny I do make a lot of bold choices for somebody who is fairly anxious and quiet and hidden a lot of the time I also do bold things. I can't make sense of it but there it is. But I suppose one of the bold things I've done in recent years is the choice to make my own books. There are loads of books I want to write and publish about therapy and queer stuff and fat and art, you know, weird stuff too.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (37:15)

Mm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (37:35)

And so I've decided that I'm going to pursue that. It's about valuing what I do and being good enough but also at the heart of it not depending on gatekeepers and their permission to exist. So making my own stuff. And it's been great. I've been learning so much. Also humbling, you know? My books are not bestsellers to put it mildly,

but they break even and they make a little bit of money and it's exciting because they find the way to people who appreciate them. That's the thing that I want most is to be able to express myself and perhaps for other people to engage with that and for us to have a conversation about it as we're doing today. I mean this is my absolute dream for the things I'm making. Yeah, so I've certainly grown up with the idea that you know books are not for the likes of you. I've been rejected plenty of times.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (38:32)

Mmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (38:34)

I have been published all over the place in lots of different ways but the publishing that I enjoy the most is where I can make an object myself. So all the things from writing and editing and doing the research and being interested in something that maybe nobody else has really gone for, something unique and original, that's important to me. Laying it out and designing it and getting it printed,

promoting it, talking about it, doing readings, I love that. Yeah, all the life of books and different sorts of publishing now as well, so electronic publishing too. My background is in zines, that was the first, they were the first places, comics and zines, where I was publishing and being published. So it feels like this is another story, I suppose, not just about my body, but also about the world of...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (39:07)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (39:32)

making stuff, of putting ideas in the world, ideas that wouldn't normally get a look in. ⁓ Maybe not so much unpopular ideas but very marginal ideas I suppose. That's important to me and yes I've been doing that and that's quite a bold choice to do that, to go yes I'm going to make books I'm going to be a publisher. So that's also what I'm doing at the moment.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (39:48)

you

Yeah. ⁓ that's so cool.

I love that so much. I think like, imagine if you just wait for someone else to be like, yes, I consider that to be good enough to publish or like a good business choice, whatever. Like the world would miss out on so much cool stuff. And I feel like that happens to so many people. yeah, just do the thing.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (40:14)

Yes! Don't wait, don't wait! Yeah,

you'll be waiting forever, you will. And also somebody might pick it up but they'll change it and they'll make it fit their own agenda. And sometimes that's great and often, always actually, working with other people is great. So whenever I make something there'll always be conversations before it's put out into the world. You can't do absolutely everything by yourself. And you know, you might want to make decision about...

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (40:26)

Hmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (40:42)

is this something that I want to reach a much bigger audience and that is fine but that process will change it and it might not be the thing that you originally envisaged and it might improve it but it also might not so yeah the bold choice to make my own stuff and books especially that have this kind of "oooh" aura around them yeah that's been a bold move I think on my part

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (41:05)

Yeah,

that's so cool. Would you, ⁓ this is sort of like just, I'm just curious. Would you consider with ⁓ your publishing house, like for other people, would you want to publish other people's work or is this like really a container for yours?

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (41:17)

Yeah,

think I would, know. At the moment I'm learning how to do it, but I'm going to get good at it. And I think at that point I'm going to throw the gates open and see what else is out there and what people want to put in the world. But I also imagine that that would be a similarly DIY process where I'm working with people to make their own things and helping them with skills to do that. ⁓ Yeah, that would be great. I'd love that so much.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (41:21)

Mmm.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (41:46)

But I'm still in the kind of early learning stages at the moment. But you know, the learning curve is steep and I'm, you know, I know all about ISBNs now. I'll tell you that for nothing.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (41:54)

I know nothing about them other than they're long

numbers. That's very cool. Yeah, and like, who knows, we might speak in five years time and you're like, yeah, I've published this person's book and like this person's doing cool work. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, it would be really cool. ⁓ That is such an interesting question. ⁓ So I thought basically I have a book planned out of what I would write and how it would be. And I just can't write. Like my...

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (42:00)

Thank

That would be great, wouldn't it? Do you think you have a book in you?

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (42:23)

mode of communication is speaking and so that's why I do this because I recorded a solo podcast last year which was my first time doing something on my own that wasn't interviewing other people ⁓ and I just find writing very hard. I can't get out what I want to say in the same way as if I just speak it out loud so if I feel like some people, now I'm thinking of people like Robbie Williams I'm sure who like dictated his book, I haven't read it but ⁓

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (42:43)

Mmm.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (42:51)

I could dictate it, but in terms of sitting at a laptop or a notepad and writing it, just, yeah, I find it really hard. So it's a skill I really admire that people can express themselves in written words.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (43:02)

Mmm.

Hmm, interesting. Well, I mean, you find the medium that's right for you. ⁓ Yeah, but you certainly have a breadth of knowledge that would, you know, that people need to know about.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (43:16)

well, I guess I'll just have to keep talking about things until they're really sick of my voice or put me on like double speed. ⁓ well, okay, let me make sure that I ask you the last question, because this is such a good one too. ⁓ So  thinking about bold things, like we've already talked about some, I guess, opinions that you hold that may be considered bold by other people, but they're just like common sense to you.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (43:18)

That is not going to happen.

Okay.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (43:41)

⁓ So was there anything that you thought of that is common sense that you think other people would be like, my gosh, that's such a bold opinion.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (43:48)

Yes and This comes up every day in my life as a psychotherapist but hey it's really good to talk through things honestly and humbly with someone. You don't have to lie. Don't make yourself look good. Don't defend. That's all waste of time. Don't do that. You're enough as you are. Bring that back to the work. Let's collaborate. Let's see what happens. Yeah Being honest with yourself, as honest as you can be with yourself.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (43:59)

Yeah

My God, I'm messing up my sound but yes.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (44:18)

Yeah, presenting your sad, broken, pathetic self to somebody else, vulnerable self to somebody else is amazing. Yeah, but people do, I mean all kinds of people, everybody, not just the people I work with or some of the people I work with, some do and some don't. I know I do it as well, but that kind of defensive, "No, nothing to see here."

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (44:43)

Yeah.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (44:44)

of sensibility really really gets in the way of living a life fully. Yeah it's the tender stuff that is your gold and that if you can present that to somebody else who can hold it then you're well ahead of the game.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (45:02)

Yeah, I love that so much. And also thinking about how little access people have to like people who can accurately, not accurately, adequately hold that for them. Obviously we do slightly different work in terms of I'm not a therapist, but as a coach, like a lot of stuff comes up and I'm like, ethics are incredibly important to me. ⁓

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (45:12)

Yeah.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (45:25)

think the thing that often is so magical in having that kind of connection with someone is just to be like unsurprised by what they share with you. People have shared like what may be considered like quite wild, weird, wonderful things about their lives or about their experience. And I'm literally like, I'm shocked for them as in, you know, that they've been through such a hard thing or that something turned out in such an odd way, but to be able to hold that and not be like, or

I don't know, I'm not sure if I'm articulating it right, but I think that kind of non-judgment and like not just being able to hold something and know that whatever someone gives you, you can hold it because you are working to be resourced yourself. I think that's a real gift.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (46:08)

Exactly, you don't have to bring your shiny performing self to every interaction. ⁓ you know, that shiny performing self is beautiful, but it doesn't have to be the only, ⁓ it doesn't have to be the one note of your life. ⁓ Yeah, the rest of it is, is gorgeous and important too, and really valuable.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (46:23)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. And it's such a gift to be able to let people into that because that's how you know and understand people fully, isn't it? Or as fully as you can rather than just interfacing with like you know, a small thin layer of what someone is wanting to share.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (46:37)

Yes.

Yes, or somebody's online brand, do you know what I mean? It's like the real stuff is where it all happens.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (46:46)

Mmm.

Yeah, definitely. Okay, well that is wild that that is bold, but I think it is. Yeah, it's so good. ⁓ Is there anything that you think that we should still talk about that we haven't covered? Like anything that you came here today thinking we should definitely make time to talk about that.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (46:57)

Thank you.

don't think so. Just, well, I suppose I want to say...

Well, to acknowledge the valuable spaces that you create for conversations. I really, really enjoy your work, Gem, and it is such a pleasure to be part of it. ⁓ Yeah, it's again, it's this sort of world-making, culture-making, yeah, these delicate and nuanced conversations, your skill as an interviewer. ⁓ Yeah, I just want to acknowledge that and say that I appreciate it and I appreciate you.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (47:40)

Thank you so much, that really means a lot. And yeah, likewise, like I said right at the beginning, I remember thinking if Charlotte Cooper comes on my podcast, I will be like, I've done it. Like I've had a really great conversation and a brilliant guest. And then you said, yes, like you were my first guest and I was shitting myself because I was really worried about like, what if I didn't do a good job? But I think having that, ⁓ yeah, just having, experiencing your trust in me is...

is really, really affirming and like really helps me to make sure I'm doing a good job knowing that you like trust me to do a good job if that makes sense. Yeah, thank you so much. And just to say everyone should go and get your book and they should get your books as in plural. ⁓ And if people want to find out where they can follow you obviously I'll share all the links. They can go to charlottecooper.net which is your website. You also are a psychotherapist so people could work with you potentially if you have space.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (48:17)

I do, yeah, yeah.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (48:38)

But yeah, just like whatever way they can get involved in your work, I would highly recommend that they do.

Charlotte Cooper (she/her) (48:42)

Well, thank you for that. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Thank you.

Gem Kennedy (they/them) (48:45)

Cool, okay, thank you so much. Okay.