Virgie Tovar

Last week I posted an image of myself on Instagram, middle finger raised, in front of an enormous ad that said “Power to the Thinnest.”

The other day I was having coffee and ice cream with my friend. We were talking about who we follow online.

2. Fat People Are In Survival Mode. I then moved onto a very basic reality: fatphobia is unjust, fat people are oppressed, fat people are being forced every, single day to navigate fatphobia while attempting to keep their dignity, heart, and spirit intact.

It’s important to recognize that tiny or unsupportive seats (no matter how beautiful) send a silent but powerful message about who has the right to sit down. This message has strong ripple effects for a community that is already facing quite a bit of discrimination.

I’ve been ashamed of my indirect communication style for a really long time. Recently I realized that I was done feeling shame for the way I navigate.

I spent most of last week in a southern California heat wave.

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.

It's okay to hate Thanksgiving. After years of gritting my teeth I finally gave myself permission to choose what I wanted to do.

I was introduced to the concept of ugliness when I was five years old. It was, for almost all intents and purposes, the totality of who I was. Fat was me. I was fat. I was taught that fat is the opposite of everything that is feminine, moral, and beautiful. Just like ugliness. But even though I still live in the awful world that made my traumatic childhood possible, I know for certain that ugliness isn’t a physical reality, it is a cultural fabrication. I truly believe that we are born with the capacity to see beauty in all things, and it is through the dispiriting reality of our cultural education that we lose that ability.

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