Amy

“My life wouldn't be easier if I were thin. My life would be easier if this culture wasn't obsessed with oppressing me because I'm fat. The solution to a problem like bigotry is not to do everything in our power to accommodate the bigotry. It is to get rid of the bigotry.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

“I gradually learned that I was less than others because I was a fat brown girl. The lessons I learned about the inferiority of my fat body were brutal; the lessons I received about my racial and gender inferiority were subtle by comparison.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

“There is compelling evidence that racism kills people. There is compelling evidence that living with the stress of poverty leads to a number of mental health challenges. There is compelling evidence that weight-based discrimination leads to heightened levels of stress and anxiety that suppress the function of major organs. And, there is evidence that fatphobia leads to shortened life expectancy.3 But racism, poverty, and weight-based bigotry are all social problems. It is through victim-blaming narratives that we cast these social issues as individual ones that can be solved through bootstrapping and consumerism.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat

“Dieting is a practice of fatphobia. Dieting is the result of unresolved fatphobia. We become terrified of what it would mean for us to be fat because we understand fundamentally how poorly fat people are treated. We transpose that bigotry onto the fat itself, rather than placing the blame where it belongs: on the culture that created and promotes injustice and fat hatred. We thereby, perhaps unintentionally, end up blaming fat people for the bigotry they are experiencing. Even though fatphobia is culturally pervasive and treated as if it’s a totally normal part of everyday life, it’s important to recognize that it is a form of bigotry that really harms people and that must be eradicated.”
― Virgie Tovar, You Have the Right to Remain Fat