Virgie Tovar

I got tired of waking up and being terrified for my health and so I decided to do what I’d been taught to do in moments of distress: craft.

Two weeks ago, I was in West Lafayette, Indiana. I flew into Chicago at around midnight, and I was picked up by new friend and hostess, Mel.

Fat Girl Scarcity — the sense that we are not enough or that we don’t have enough — permeates the life of a person in a marginalized body.

You were taught not to invest in yourself. You were taught to invest in the culture, which is bolstered by patriarchy, racism, etc..

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.

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.

When we both moved to San Francisco in our 20s, she moved to a wealthy neighborhood and I moved into a neighborhood where old men had phone sex on the pay phone at the laundromat. Our friendship threatened her world in a way that it didn’t mine. The people I knew had neither wealth to protect nor any desire to play at that game, and so their lives were inspired by a freedom I adored. The kind of freedom that allows you to talk about shitting and fucking over dinner.

This is a love song for those who showed me there was a thing called freedom, and it wasn’t closed-legged, and it wasn’t passable, that it was expensive and gaudy, and I wanted it, and I didn’t want it.

Last week I posted an image of myself on Instagram, middle finger raised, in front of an enormous ad that said “Power to the Thinnest.”

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