Last month I was in a public space. Meaning, I was in a space that left my body vulnerable to the interpretations of those around me and their responses. Two strangers met nearby, and one asked the other a question the necessitated acknowledging me. The first did so, referring to me as ‘she’ (“She is waiting in line”). I noted this internally, bemused. He then immediately … [Read more...]
Who Can and Cannot be Feminine… Without Giving Up Their Safety?
Before being out as feminine, in order to maintain any sense of safety (no matter how fragile), I was always expected and only allowed to express my femininity with certain restrictions, and these restrictions changed depending on who I was with and where I was. This often made things not only confusing, but miserable. It was difficult to keep up with who I was supposed to … [Read more...]
4 Problems with the Trauma-Leads-to-Fatness Narrative
This piece first appeared on the author’s blog, Virgie Tovar, and is reprinted here by permission. I've seen the fatness-as-a-product of trauma conversation pop up about 5 times in my feed this week, and though I have no desire to belittle the truly stultifying realities and effects of trauma (sexual and otherwise), I would like to offer the following 4 … [Read more...]
Breaking Out Of The “Acceptable:” I Don’t Have to Explain Away My Fatness
I would like to start this article with some good news: Acceptance of body diversity is happening, and it is amazing! There is no doubt about it, either. Between the new range of Barbie dolls in four different body types to the continual establishment of high street fashion retailers that cater to “different” bodies (such as Bravissimo for large-busted women and Long Tall … [Read more...]
6 Reasons I Struggle More With My Chronic Illness Than Being Fat (And How I Still Love This Body)
Generally, when people are talking about loving their bodies they are talking about things like fat and body image. I have been lucky to have not ever been too bothered by being fat. (That is a super simplification of a lot of privilege and fatphobia and decades of complicated feelings, but it’s also relatively accurate). However, I have had a lot of struggles around … [Read more...]
Fat Parenting 101: 7 Things to Know as a Fat Parent
Parents of all sizes have to navigate how to teach their kids about bodies. But for us fat parents it can be even more challenging because we have to deal with internalized fatphobia as well as the fatphobia directed at us from the world (and sometimes our kids). These thoughts are things that have worked for me as I have navigated being a fat parent raising (hopefully) … [Read more...]
Navigating the Whiteness of Countercultures in a Brown and Fat Body
I am an active enthusiast of counterculture fashion. I first discovered the emo counterculture as a young tween and I became obsessed with heavy eyeliner, vampires, and My Chemical Romance. I have continued to be an active participant in countercultures ever since, ranging from casual goth to space grunge and everything in between those two extremes. This means going through an … [Read more...]
Treating My Friends Like Lovers: The Politics of Desirability
Frequently when desirability gets brought up as a point of conversation, it gets interpreted as boiled down to an individual experience or merely about the frequency with which culturally ugly folks have sex, or the access to sex partners we have which is certainly a part of the conversation but it is not the conversation. This becomes an easy way for folks to shut the … [Read more...]
10 Ways to Be Fat (In a World That Wants to Destroy You)
Writer's note: These are some things I have learned after living for more than two and a half decades as a fat person. This list isn’t, by any means, comprehensive or relevant to every fat person. Some things might be relevant to people who aren't fat. That’s great. But don’t forget that this is by and for fat folks. Some things I am still trying to learn. Some … [Read more...]
Fat & Femme: My F*CK You to Traditional Beauty Standards
I am a Black mixed race, fat, queer, non-binary person. Most saliently, I am femme. I have come to understand radical femmeness, femme magic, femme community, femme love and femme power through my relationships with other womxn and femmes of colors. While femme communities evoke safeness and security for me they also often exist on the basis of trauma. There are an infinite … [Read more...]
When You Call Me Skinny
In a recent webinar with TBINAA founder Sonya Renee Taylor, she asked participants to recall their first memory of body shame. Everyone had one. I went blank. I had none. The truth was, I had far too many. My entire life flashed, and shorted out the lights in my mental attic. There was no clearing out this closet, especially not in the dark. Weeks later, it surfaced. A … [Read more...]
Who Your Friends Are Matters: Why I’m Wary of Being Friends With You When None of Your Friends Are Marginalized
The Body Is Not an Apology’s goal is to share the myriad ways human bodies unshackle the box of “beauty” and fling it wide open for all of us to access. Our goal is to redefine the unapologetic, radically amazing magnificence of EVERY BODY on this planet. When we do, we change the world! Join the movement and become a subscriber today! bit.ly/NoBodiesInvisible. One day I … [Read more...]
Desire & Belonging: On Blackness, Femininity, and Queerness
This article was originally published on Rest for Resistance and is republished with permission. This is for the queer fat Black femmes. As children, we learn that we never occupy just one, but all, of our identities. Not a fat girl or a black girl, but a fat black girl. In elementary school, when everyone began talking about crushes, relationships, and desirability, … [Read more...]
11 Offensive Phrases You Didn’t Realize Are Fat Shaming
The Body Is Not an Apology's goal is to share the myriad ways human bodies unshackle the box of "beauty" and fling it wide open for all of us to access. Our goal is to redefine the unapologetic, radically amazing magnificence of EVERY BODY on this planet. When we do, we change the world! Join the movement and become a subscriber today! bit.ly/NoBodiesInvisible. *** This … [Read more...]
