Virgie Tovar

That’s the thing about I Feel Pretty, the narrative only makes sense when you consider how limited the onscreen life of everyone but white dudes gets to be.

Fat girl trauma, brown girl trauma, sexist trauma, class trauma. It’s time to start seeing our gifts, or handout an invoice for fat girl emotional labor

After years and years of fatphobia-induced body dysmorphia, it’s hard to actually just see my body with anything approaching objectivity. But when I finally looked at the photos of myself in my underwear, I knew there was nothing that fatphobia or my inner asshole could do to take away the beauty and the magic that was right before my eyes.

I just spent the weekend at adult fat camp — admittedly, a very different kind of fat camp than I used to dream about all those years ago.

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

As I’ve begun to teach other people about how to break up with diet culture, I offer everything in my personal artillery. And I’m proud of that. I love that. However, I’m always quick to remind them that fatphobia isn’t their problem to fix because they — WE — didn’t create it. Our job is to heal ourselves and to live life on our own terms.

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.

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.

I thoroughly appreciate that there is a primary focus on self-love, but I also feel the painfully deep silence around the healing power of loving — and dating and sleeping with — other fat people.

I finally left Goodwill with about 15 pieces and the sense that I had a new friend who donated her wardrobe. Fat intimacy and solidarity!