Virgie Tovar

[CN: fatphobia] I tell her I have an idea. She loves my ideas, my schemes, our witchcraft. We talk about feeling crazy, because that’s what the culture does to women who really want something, anything...

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.”

See the way that I show up in the world. Honor that and this girl's heart. See my magic. Love me without agenda. Take no joy in the moments I am weak.

Sharon is so intensely interesting to me in The Sinner. We get to see a fat woman who is over thirty exercise extraordinary sexual power.

If you asked me to guess what was going through her head, I would say she was in shock that a fat lady would wear a tight skirt, belly in full sight. This feminist act of taking up space, tacitly but clearly making room for myself in a fatphobic culture, is a bold-but-crucial move if you’re my brand of fat babe.

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.

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?

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

Fat people, we do not have to acquiesce to our culture's normalization of hierarchy. We do not have to turn the other cheek. Joy does not come at the expense of your dignity, of your humanity.