Da'Shaun L.
Harrison

Da’Shaun Harrison is a Black trans theorist and storyteller in Atlanta, GA. Harrison has risen to national acclaim with the release of their debut title, Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness—published in August 2021. Belly of the Beast won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award for Transgender Nonfiction, and since then, Harrison has been the recipient of ProjectHEAL’s “Inspire Award” and was listed as a Forbes 30 under 30 (Media) honoree. Harrison lectures on Blackness, fatness, gender, and their intersections. Harrison currently serves as Editor-at-Large at Scalawag Magazine and is the co-host of the podcast “Unsolicited: Fatties Talk Back.” Between the years 2019 and 2021, Harrison served as Associate Editor — and later as Managing Editor — of Wear Your Voice Magazine.

Harrison penned their first published piece in the summer of 2017 while navigating heightened poverty and homelessness. This would become the genesis of their writing career. Harrison writes not only as a means of survival, but with the belief that if the marginalized wish for a future where their history is depicted accurately and their stories are told correctly then they must document them. Writing, for Da’Shaun, is not solely a passion or talent, but it is the foundation on which their home—their love, their survival, their creativity—is built. It is their expression of self; their contribution to the documentation of the histories of oppressed/colonized peoples.

Harrison’s writing has appeared in PhiladelphiaPrint, Medium, THEM, Black Youth Project, BET, and other online publications. They have also been featured in/interviewed by The Fader, Everyday Feminism, Buzzfeed, Teen Vogue, the New York Times, and other local and national publications.