Virgie Tovar

The first time I heard about the #DropThePlus campaign I was of two minds.

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

I've gone into Lane Bryant about 68 times in my life, and each time I'm lucky to leave with a faux-snakeskin belt or wide-shaft boots in an on-trend style. Most of the clothing, however, is draping, muted, and made up of superfluous yards of fabric covered in condescending ruffles and flowers. Imagine a fat baby going to a funeral for her former fat self and you've got Lane Bryant's general look.

Fatphobia morphs into a conversation about looks because fatphobia targets women. The bigotry is masked through this gendered decoy.

I think there’s a special kind of burden placed on stigmatized people to pretend that everything is A-Okay. Would I be smiling if I was oppressed? Heck no.

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.

Shade is a resiliency tool constructed and wielded by those who have been forced to survive systems of unfairness. Shade isn’t polite, but everyone knows that the high road is over-sold to oppressed people! I knew I had to begin my own complete anthology of fat girl shade. And I thought I would start the chronicle here with Take the Cake. This tale is one from the vault, and it starts in high school.

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.

A couple of weeks ago I got an email that contained a question I never thought I’d be asked.

Fatphobia is not safely in my rearview mirror. Trying to heal from something as painful as fatphobia (which attacks us to the core!) is a daunting task.