Virgie Tovar

Whenever [my last therapist and I] got to talking about the ways that being fat had shaped my romantic experiences, or the ways that racism or xenophobia had shaped my family’s life, she would get this far-off look. Like, she wanted to believe me, but that she was grappling with this belief that I was choosing to see life this way.

I do conference calls from wherever I am at the moment. I answer work emails on the train, while I’m waiting in line for tacos, and (for better or worse) when there is a lull or awkward moment at a party.

Why is it important to call a diet a diet? Because 1. The truth is actually important and 2. Misleading language only benefits the person peddling it.

Jealousy is such an interesting thing to me. As immediate and intense as it feels when it hits, it has always struck me as a secondary — a smokescreen for something else.

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.

I’d like to enter the term “thinspreading” into the running for 2017's new word of the year. Fat people are expected to take up as little space as possible.

One of the things that has become exceedingly obvious to me is how our current cultural attitudes toward fat people are steeped in bigotry.

I already feel super visible because I’m a fat woman wearing neon most likely, which I’ll admit I’m kinda into. But add a dude to the equation and all of a sudden I feel like people’s eyeballs are a moon orbiting the planet on which our initial fumbling exchanges are taking place. High pressure.

A lot of people don’t know this, but fat activism has been around in the United States since the 1960s. Yes, it’s true!