Virgie Tovar

Virgie Tovar

Bio

Virgie Tovar, MA is an author, activist and one of the nation's leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She is the editor of Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love and Fashion (Seal Press, November 2012) and the mind behind #LoseHateNotWeight. She holds a Master's degree in Human Sexuality with a focus on the intersections of body size, race and gender. After teaching "Female Sexuality" at the University of California at Berkeley, where she completed a Bachelor's degree in Political Science in 2005, she went onto host "The Virgie Show" (CBS Radio) in San Francisco. She is certified as a sex educator and was voted Best Sex Writer by the Bay Area Guardian in 2008 for her first book. Virgie has been featured by the New York Times, MTV, Al Jazeera, the San Francisco Chronicle, NPR, Huffington Post, Bust Magazine, Jezebel, 7x7 Magazine, XOJane, and SF Weekly as well as on Women’s Entertainment Television and The Ricki Lake Show. Her most recent speaking engagements have included University of Washington, Earlham College, Hollins University, University of California at Berkeley, University of California at Davis, California College of the Arts, Sonoma State University, and Humboldt State University. She lives in San Francisco and offers workshops and lectures nationwide. Find her online at www.virgietovar.com. And on instagram. 

Virgie Tovar Articles

image credit: Virgie Tovar via Instagram

Take The Cake: Is Diet Recovery Harder For Codependents?

The wound of codependency leaves a haunting question in its wake: Do I actually matter? Diet culture’s answer to fat people is: no.

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In my limited experience, I have always felt that BBW events were spaces designed by fat women for men — frequently thin ones.

Take The Cake: My First BBW Bash

My jaw clenches in judgmental discomfort whenever I think of any event with "BBW" in the title. To me, the term "BBW" is coded. When I hear that word, my eyes begin a preemptive roll as the keywords "heteronormativity," "hookup," "gendered labor," "mansplaining," and "ugh" scroll past the neon pink kiosk in my brain.

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Ariana and Virgie

Take The Cake: Are High School Dress Codes Especially Unfair To Plus-Size Teen Girls?

Fat girls have less latitude in every arena – clothing is no exception with high school dress codes. Fat women’s bodies are constructed as “outlaw” bodies.

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Take The Cake: That Time I Went To Adult Fat Camp

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.

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There's a difference between a person genuinely admiring your gifts, and a person who sees you as a way to feel superior.

Take The Cake: Don't Just Blindly Say 'You Inspire Me'

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.

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image credit Virgie Tovar

Take The Cake: Diets Don't Work (But They Do Give People These 4 Things)

Dieting is a socially sanctioned method of mentally high-tailing out of whatever is going on and keeping you entirely in your head, laser-focused on your next bite, your scale, your plate.

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It's good to be body positive and body proud. (Image Credit: Instagram, Virgie Tovar)

Take the Cake: Fat Fury, Fat Love — Claiming 'Fat Space' In Activist Communities

Fat people are not obligated to be disproportionate emotional laborers. They get to be angry, frustrated, and even difficult, just like everyone else.

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I thought we both knew he was our enemy, but in reality you both were mine.

Take The Cake: An Open Letter To The Woman Who Betrayed Me

I told you I never wanted to speak to him again. I offered that we work together to rid him from our lives. I thought we had both made the realization that he was garbage, but in reality, only I had.

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You are the proverbial light. You are the world’s treasure.

Take The Cake: For The Queers Who Died Because The World Called Our Bodies Disposable

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.

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Unlike my childhood, near-daily exposure to fatphobia is not safely in my rearview mirror. That makes healing all the harder. Image: author.

Take The Cake: Fatphobia Gave Me PTSD

I think a lot of us are probably walking around with mild PTSD, anxiously calculating risk and making plans about what and who to avoid.... Even though I’m no longer technically walking the halls of junior high, I am living in a fitness-obsessed city that doesn’t feel as safe as it ought to considering almost everyone is over age 13.

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