Virgie Tovar

October is a busy month for me. It’s one of two peak periods for lecture bookings on university campuses.

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.

Dieting isn’t just a practice; it’s a way of life. What do we do when we don’t have any more calories to count and we have to deal with the wide-open space left in their wake?

I came to realize that even though I was certainly a bona fide member, that some fat people were far more acutely marginalized than me.

A lot of people don’t know this, but fat activism has been around in the United States since the 1960s. Yes, it’s true!

Would you date a fat fetishist? It always feels complicated to answer this question, but I promise an honest one by the end of part two.

My favorite thing about this trip was that I spent my time in Vienna with fat feminists by my side every single day.... Occasionally, our bellies bumped into one another and then rebounded for just a second, like balloons. The familiar physics of fatness multiplied by two or three. I felt like we spoke in shorthand, the language of shared experience.

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.

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.

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.