Virgie Tovar

This week I went to a networking event and had feelings about it. This is the story of those feelings. 

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 think a lot of us are probably walking around with mild PTSD, anxiously calculating risk and making plans about what and who to avoid.... Even though I’m no longer technically walking the halls of junior high, I am living in a fitness-obsessed city that doesn’t feel as safe as it ought to considering almost everyone is over age 13.

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

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.

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!

Fat positivity creates room for fat people to be seen with full humanity — not as failed thin people, but as complete and precious.

What horrible thing is going to happen this year? Is my aunt going to touch me or someone else inappropriately or make sexual innuendo? What terrible thing is my mother going to say to my aunt about her internet boyfriend who steals chicken from my grandparents’ garage freezer in the middle of the night?

Why do men text me about their dicks all the time? Do thin women get this many texts about penises?

What I’ve noticed, as a fat feminist, is that self-identifying as a feminist or an activist bears a different social cost depending on your body size.