Sonalee Rashatwar is a
CLINICAL SOCIAL WORKER

SEX THERAPIST
PUBLIC SPEAKER
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
DONUT LOVER

Sonalee Rashatwar (they/he) LCSW MEd is an award-winning clinical social worker, sex therapist, adjunct lecturer, and grassroots organizer. Based in Philly (licensed in NJ and PA), they are a superfat queer bisexual non-binary therapist and co-owner of Radical Therapy Center, specialized in treating sexual trauma, diet trauma, racial or immigrant trauma, and South Asian family abuse, while offering fat positive sexual healthcare.

As Seen in

who is the fat sex therapist?

meet sonalee

Popularly known as TheFatSexTherapist on Instagram, Sonalee’s notoriety first peaked when they were featured on Breitbart in March 2018 for naming thinness as a white supremacist beauty ideal. And they continue to draw the ire of white supremacists everywhere with controversial statements on intersectional fat liberation since then. Sonalee is a sought-after speaker who travels internationally to curate custom visual workshops that whisper to our change-making spirit and nourish our vision for a more just future.

Sonalee is not paid for their labor as a community organizer, where they have fundraised and facilitated a free five-day political action summer camp for LGBT+ South Asian and Indo Caribbean youth. Sonalee received their Master of Social Work and Master of Education in Human Sexuality from Widener University in 2016 and have been working in the field of anti-violence for 10+ years.

SEXUAL COLONIZATION

As an immigrant and community organizer working across cultural and ethnic borders, I offer unique insight into the ways residual colonialism continues to warp sexuality norms. Much of what we experience as acceptable sexuality has been shaped by colonialism. I develop cutting edge workshops on how gender, sexual behavior, and health are marginalized by these interlocking systems of oppression.

Areas of Expertise

SOUTH ASIAN SEXUALITY

Much of my graduate academic experience was spent writing about the immigrant sexual experience and unlearning dominant sexual norms. I curate workshops for all audiences to better understand South Asian individuals and families living within the North American diaspora.

I build workshops for clinicians to understand South Asians as a special clinical population due to their specific migration histories based on caste, class, religion, race, and nationality. These workshops include an uncommon assessment of South Asian family systems, sexualites, and ethnosexual identity development.

DISABILITY JUSTICE & HEALTHISM

An accessible therapeutic space is an important aspect of trauma recovery. Disability is a natural part of the human experience, which is why I offer a distinctive culture of acceptance, freedom from stigma, and release of shame for all of my clients. All bodies are good bodies. And all bodies deserve love, care, and respect from a clinician who is constantly working to disrupt the field by intersecting disability justice into all treatment modalities.

The construct of health is a stick used to beat marginalized people with, especially fat people. This is why I integrate politicized conversations into my therapeutic work. Let’s work together to unlearn the ways we are using healthism to measure our own humanity and worthiness.

DECOLONIAL SEXUALITIES

Sexuality is morphed by the pressures of compounding oppressions, which is why I offer solution-focused workshops that affirm the colonized experience and contribute to the radical imagination of our decolonial sexual futures. We must unlearn the ways we have been forced to exist within what is considered “normal,” and begin to imagine the ways we can flourish outside of these pressurized systems.

By aggregating individual forms of sexual resistance, I am able to weave together workshops explaining broader ideas of collective sexual liberation. Centering conversations around pleasure and body liberation, we can better imagine how joy will lead us to revolution.

SEXUAL TRAUMA

For 10 years I have worked with individuals (ages 13+) who have survived experiences of domestic and sexual violence. As a sex therapist, I have highly specialized training to address sexual trauma and healing. I have additional expertise with intimate partner violence and sexual violence from years of clinical nonprofit work and supervision.

At the intersection of warm comfort and radical acceptance, my therapeutic orientation feels more like a post-trauma doula. I provide a non-medical guided-experience after sexual trauma, using psychological and emotional support to help clients adjust to their new realities. I offer a unique focus to trauma recovery as a sex educator, by centering recovery from shame through pleasure. Learning to regain access to pleasure is an often overlooked aspect of sexual trauma recovery.

FAT POSITIVE WELLNESS

I come from an exclusively pro-body & anti-diet perspective. This means I will never use food moralism to tell you to replace foods you love with foods you hate. I will never use intentional weight loss as a therapeutic goal. I will never collude with fatphobia in our therapeutic work.

Body autonomy is paramount. Let’s weave together body acceptance and body love to heal body image trauma from within. This involves rejecting external pressure from diet culture and re-centering around our body's inner compass. I also curate workshops for clinicians to learn to understand fatphobia as a clinical issue and how to treat fat trauma.

Speaking engagements

View my interview from the Explore More Summit where we discuss the following:

“You deserve pleasure. You deserve connection. You deserve healing.” - Sonalee Rashatwar

Sonalee Rashatwar BRINGS IT in this talk about gender, food, families, pleasure, and our inherent worthiness. The 4th annual Explore More Summit includes interviews on pleasure, body love, trauma, healing, connection, the erotic, and much much more. You can purchase my interview and others here!

What People are Saying

  • “I’m in recovery from atypical anorexia, and I know it’s been a while since I saw Sonalee speak, but hearing Sonalee talk about fat liberation and how thinness is a white supremacist, capitalist ideal has been without a doubt the most impactful thing in my recovery process. Since the night I saw Sonalee, I have been doing extremely well with my recovery. I really cannot properly express how thankful I am for her words. I think about them everyday, every meal, every self loathing session with myself in the mirror. Whenever I’m feeling down or feeling the urge to relapse, it is ultimately Sonalee who convinces me to stop, and reminds me that my body does not have to fit anyone’s expectations. Sonalee has given me so much liberation. I ineffably thank her.”

    - Daphne Bonner (Temple University)

  • “Sonalee is an amazing trainer and advocate for justice. I really do think that that she has made me a better therapist.”

    - Michael A. Giordano, LICSW (New York City)

  • “I would like to take a moment and reiterate what I told Sonalee after her presentation, Sonalee is awesome. I learned so much and feel so good about the information that Sonalee imparted. As a former presenter for many years I want to say that her poise, beauty, professionalism and intelligence are all exceptional.”

    - Ellen Bloom Rau, LCSW (New Jersey)

  • "Sonalee is teaching us freedom.”

    -Oten Star (New York)

  • "Sonalee provided a relevant and revolutionary presentation that brought together the intertwined dreams of racial and social justice, sexual freedom, and self love. I appreciated that Sonalee uses art, humor, and shared open-source resources throughout her workshop. What she is teaching should be required training for ALL therapists and sex educators!"

    - Molly Adler, LCSW, ACS (New Mexico)

  • "Thank you so much for this space! I learned and am taking away so much"

  • "A few of us attended the in-person speaking event you did at the University of Regina in 2019 and hands down, it was the best talk we've ever attended. "

  • "This is the best and honest webinar I’ve attended. I love how the conversations were as tough as they were frank with objectivity and inclusion."

  • "I am so grateful for the vocabulary, knowledge and empowerment from Sonalee's workshop experience. Thank you so much!! Hope to learn more."

  • "We are all so lucky to be learning from Sonalee today!!!"

  • "The world needs more presentations like Sonalee's."

  • "[Sonalee] opened people's minds today. So informative and thought provoking"

  • "This was PHENOMENONAL! Thank you. Looking forward to hearing more from you."

  • "So much important information- and critical to the work we do as a non-profit. I hope we can bring Sonalee back for future workshops!!"

  • "Thank you Sonalee for blessing us with your knowledge."

  • "thank for being amazing speaker for the lgbtqia+ community. helping open other people minds and hearts are is wonderful."

  • "Sonalee is an informative, respectful and real workshop facilitator."

  • "I enjoyed everything about Sonalee's training from the very beginning."

  • "We are so very lucky to have learned from you today, Sonalee!"

  • "I love Sonalee's presentation style! They do a wonderful job. Not only did I love seeing someone like me, but I realized that Sonalee is someone I would love to get to know better. Thank you for the comfortable environment."

  • "Sonalee's fatphobia workshop was helpful for our staff who support the individuals we serve as well. Great ways to include them and be more considerate of their requests. Thank you."

  • "Thank you Sonalee! Great insight and information once again! After your third invitation to come back and present you will become an honorary employee."