Virgie Tovar

When it comes to plus-size fashion, we’re all outsiders to this world — a world that makes amazing garments in our size and welcomes us with open arms full of bubbly water and tiny cakes.

By the time you read this, Babecamp Jamaica will be over. My 57 mosquito bites will have just stopped itching.

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.

A cake related fatphobic incident is that moment when it's time to eat cake, and an otherwise joyous experience gets ruined by a moralizing impulse.

*Spoiler alert: some character-specific plot point reveals for the films

In the wake of America's "crisis of adulthood" and in the middle of a city known for Peter Pan Syndrome, I find myself feeling that I too have gotten an extension on my adolescence. It has become a time for me to heal, center myself in a way I never could in childhood, and figure out what I want for my life.

It all started with a text from my roomie, Kori: "I am manifesting lying out, and getting some sun on my cooch."

Fat people are not obligated to be disproportionate emotional laborers. They get to be angry, frustrated, and even difficult, just like everyone else.

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.

I have seen the same tropes of fat people for the entirety of my life. Personally, I am so ready for a remake on what fat people are capable of doing and being.