Yale Guest Speaker Virgie Tovar: Being Fat Is a Revolutionary Political Act

Fat acceptance activist Virgie Tovar is scheduled to speak at Yale University on Thursday.

Radical activist Virgie Tovar is scheduled to speak at Yale University on Thursday evening. Tovar is best known for promoting a brand of body nihilism that encourages women to not care about their weight, no matter how large they are.

“My fat is political because when I show it off it really seems to piss people off,” Tovar writes in her recent book, a collection of essays. “My fat is political because I’m keeping it. My fat is political because it’s fucking hot. My fat is my flag, my claim to fame, my battle scar, my secret fat girl society badge.”

On her website, Tovar calls herself “one of the nation’s leading experts” on “fat discrimination and body image.”

Tovar is one of the nation’s leading experts and lecturers on fat discrimination and body image. She is the founder of Babecamp, a four-week online course designed to help women who are ready to “break up” with diet culture. She started the hashtag campaign #LoseHateNotWeight. Tovar is the editor of “Hot & Heavy: Fierce Fat Girls on Life, Love & Fashion,” a book of essays. This August, her new book, “You Have the Right to Remain Fat,” will be published.

Her talk at Yale, which will last two hours, is entitled “Diet Culture, Fatphobia & the New Sexism.”

The fat acceptance movement has found a comfortable home on college campuses. Just this month, several events promoting unhealthy attitudes about obesity have taken place on college campuses.

“Fat sex therapist” Sonalee Rashatwar told students during a lecture at the University of Vermont  to “throw [their] scales in the trash.”

At the beginning of the month, a guest speaker at Johns Hopkins University argued that humans can be healthy at any body weight.

On social media, Danish comedian Sofie Hagen faced a storm of criticism after she accused a cancer research organization of “fat-shaming” after they published an advertisement that highlighted the link between obesity and cancer.