Virgie Tovar

I don’t want to move the line of the socially acceptable body by 50 or 100 or 150 pounds. I want to get rid of the line altogether because the line hurts everyone — even the people who are seen as the “winners.”

I finally left Goodwill with about 15 pieces and the sense that I had a new friend who donated her wardrobe. Fat intimacy and solidarity!

On Sunday night, I went on a Christmas tree hunting expedition.

Earlier this month I flew into JFK for the Glamour Women of the Year Awards (WOTY, for short) and took selfies with Gabourey Sidibe!

So as you can see, “polite” bigotry is just bigotry. It's manipulative. It's aggressive. And it hurts people. Speak up against polite fatphobia!

A historian told me once to always be suspicious of anyone who used the word "progress" to describe the unfolding of events from past to present and from present to future. History is full of instances of change, she said, but it’s important to remember that change isn’t the same as progress.

I know that not everyone has the same appetite for The Vent, but when it comes to doing work around diet culture and fatphobia, venting is a powerful tool. For people who are in the process of healing from diet culture, we are often wading through an enormous ocean of misinformation, gas lighting and dirty ol’ lies. Without access to venting, our emotions and thoughts occur in sort of a vacuum where we can easily talk ourselves out of what may well be very astute analysis.

What does it mean to want this body? What does it mean to fight for this brown, fat feminine body? In this culture, it means revolution.

Though there was useful commentary, deeply personal stories, and some incisive observations, my problem with the episode is that it ultimately repeats a harmful framework:
Fat people (nearly all women) were on trial and up for observation (their privacy already considered non-existent) — not the fatphobic bias that had so clearly shaped their lives.

To me, being a spinster is a lot about prioritizing myself, my needs and my desires over the culture’s needs and desires for my life.