Virgie Tovar

Solidarity strategies are possible. They happen all the time — though often less frequently in the realm of romance, unfortunately.

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.

My boundaries around how people can talk to me about my body are very clear. I’d like to share with you four body boundary tips for a better holiday.

I was introduced to the concept of ugliness when I was five years old. It was, for almost all intents and purposes, the totality of who I was. Fat was me. I was fat. I was taught that fat is the opposite of everything that is feminine, moral, and beautiful. Just like ugliness. But even though I still live in the awful world that made my traumatic childhood possible, I know for certain that ugliness isn’t a physical reality, it is a cultural fabrication. I truly believe that we are born with the capacity to see beauty in all things, and it is through the dispiriting reality of our cultural education that we lose that ability.

It’s taken me a long time to write about this topic because I’m not an eating disorder specialist or clinician.

The word “bully” makes us think we’re talking about a tiny handful of anti-social individuals when in fact we’re talking about a group of people.

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!

I thought I’d make a list of regular things that become “radical” (in the culture’s eyes) when you’re doing them while also being fat.

Health is the banner we have raised in defense of weight loss surgery, The Biggest Loser, putting children on diets, shaming our friends and family members, fat jokes, weight-based workplace discrimination, and heavily processed low-calorie meals with no nutritional value.

It all started with a text from my roomie, Kori: "I am manifesting lying out, and getting some sun on my cooch."