Tigress is the Executive Director of the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance (NAAFA) and is someone many of us look up to for creating and advocating for fat liberation, justice, inclusion, and community. Keep reading to learn more about Tigress and NAAFA, and keep your fingers crossed that our panel with Tigress on Fat Justice in the Age of Ozempic is selected to move forward for SXSW 2027!
What messages did you receive growing up about bodies, worth, and belonging, and how did that impact how you felt about yourself? What were you taught about fatness growing up?
I came of age in the 80’s and early 90’s. I got a lot of my lessons about bodies from Judy Blume, magazines for teen girls, and sitcom “very special episodes” about talented and beautiful white girls (and only talented and beautiful white girls) having eating disorders. And then, Oprah. Whew, Oprah in the 80’s (and still, and apparently always)! I definitely internalized the idea that no matter how much people loved you, they would love you more if you lost weight. I was especially susceptible to the fat duckling transforms to thin swan narrative, and I just knew that if I could lose weight over the summer and go back to school skinny, it would be the greatest accomplishment ever.
As a younger kid, I was lean. Kids clothes back then were labeled slim, average, or husky, and I knew you weren’t supposed to be husky. Puberty brought about a new shape, and I wasn’t slim anymore, and I knew I was supposed to feel bad about that. If you look at my 6th grade class picture, I don’t actually look bigger than the other kids. I’m not the kid in the class who would be picked out as the fat kid. But by then I had already come to understand that I was a fat girl because at some point kids had either been weighed or just compared weights on our own, and my number was much bigger than some of the other girls.
Fat aunts on all sides of my family were the evidence of my future, and I knew I was supposed to try really hard to avoid that fate. I also observed a lot about the world’s reactions to my fat aunts on both sides of my family. I learned that even if you were stylish or sexy or glamorous as a fat woman, like my mom’s friend Cindy who looked like Miss Piggy, or my Aunt Linda who wore fancy dresses, people would say “such a pretty face” or “it’s a shame” about you.
Sometimes I felt a little rebellious about being bigger. I felt a little bit of, “So what?” about it. I wish I’d met more “So What?” people when I was younger.
I read online that you first encountered the fat acceptance movement as a first-year college student, and that the idea of being unashamedly fat really stayed with you. What do you remember about that moment? What did that open up for you?
In my first year at Smith College, the school hosted a diversity symposium that mostly focused on race but included a few sessions on other topics. Carrie Hemenway, who worked in the Career Development Office, did a workshop on living in a larger body. She was active in NAAFA (I didn’t know until many years later just how well-known she’d been in East Coast fat acceptance circles). I started thinking differently about the word fat, and about being fat, but I still thought I was supposed to be losing weight.
I didn’t get directly involved in NAAFA until about 20 years later, when I coordinated a fashion show for a NAAFA conference in San Francisco. But knowing that this whole organization of people was out there in the world insisting that fat was a perfectly fine thing to be added onto my “So What?” spirit. A few years later, I read Marilyn Wann’s Fat!So?, Lara Frazer’s Losing It, and Camryn Manheim’s Wake Up, I’m Fat, all around the same time somewhere in my mid-20’s. Those books shifted me even further into “question more about what you’ve been taught about bodies” territory.
How has your relationship with fashion, style, or getting dressed changed over time?
A few weeks ago, I was going through some old photos and found the proofs for my senior portraits. At least one of those pics, maybe two, are me wearing my mom’s old maternity clothes. I remember feeling quite sure that I was supposed to be embarrassed about this, but actually feeling kinda proud that I was creative enough to figure out a good look without trippin about how the clothes were labeled. But I didn’t always feel that way. Sometimes I felt othered and restricted because I was trying to develop my own style, but I was limited to very few plus size options, especially if I didn’t want to look like somebody’s mom. I don’t remember how I discovered Stuarts Plus in the TriCity Mall, but that changed my life as a teen in the early 90’s. Their clothes had a more youthful vibe than early 90’s Lane Bryant, the best option until then.
51 year old Tigress still has some things in common style-wise with 17 year old Tigress. I’ll still wear a maternity item without giving a f that I’m ”supposed” to be embarrassed that something cut for a bigger belly fits me better. I still wear bright colors and bold patterns (not the same patterns as in the 90’s, unless I’m trying to have a vintage vibe, but I’m not sticking with only solid colors or only Black any more than I was 30+ years ago). My IDGAF about fashion rules is even stronger. I wear what I like. I don’t care if something is “flattering” or it makes me look bigger. When I was in my 20’s and working a part-time job at Fashion Bug, an elder co-worker said to me, “Honey, you can paint a barn Black, but it’ll still be a barn.” I’ve never forgotten that!
Viva Voce is fat-founded and rooted in the belief that every body deserves to be seen, heard, and celebrated, and that we all deserve access to fashion that fits our body, style, and personality. What feels important to you about fashion spaces built with fat people at the center?
It’s very rare for brands and businesses that are not centered around fat people to truly include fat people. When fat people are an afterthought, that’s what the clothes look like and that’s what the experience of wearing them feels like. I love supporting brands that actually support fat community. I want to see clothes on fat people. I want to see fat people working in the shops. I want fat people behind the scenes making the decisions, creating the designs, and running sustainable businesses that will continue to serve fat clientele whether it’s trendy or not.
NAAFA was founded in 1969, and has been doing this work for decades. For someone who is newer to fat liberation, how would you describe what NAAFA is fighting for right now?
I once met one of the founders of the marriage equality movement, and he shared his commitment was to ensure that every single day, someone was working on marriage equality. I think of NAAFA’s role in fat liberation work much the same way. As the legacy organization in fat rights work, we are not the only voice of fat liberation. But we’re a constant and consistent reminder – to the media, to the government, and most importantly, to fat people– that there is always, always, someone out there who is still affirming fat people’s right to be and to be treated fairly.
What that looks like on a day to day basis is creating spaces where fat people are educated, entertained, and inspired; raising money for fat advocacy and fat-centered projects; creating new media and working with existing media to tell authentic stories of fat lives; and advocating for public and private policies that improve fat people’s lives.
The Campaign for Size Freedom works to end body size discrimination through legal protections and cultural change. What does size freedom mean to you?
To me, Size Freedom means that nothing about body size is compulsory, and nothing about body size is punished. Your body, your choice, but actually your choice, not choices you are coerced into. Size Freedom means fat people have equity, access, and accommodations.
Everyone of all shapes and sizes deserves that, but we have to be the most explicit about naming that fat people also deserve it because of the pervasiveness of the cultural message that fat people don’t. As much as bodies are actually in our control, we should be free to be in them and to be sovereign over them.
Legislation can only do so much to offer protection from discrimination. People’s rights are being ignored, striped away, overturned every day in this country. But staking the claim that fat people deserve the right to justice in our bodies as they are is important, especially when so many of the people whose identities and personhood are under attack are fat in addition to those other dehumanized identities. Fighting for all justice has to actually mean all justice, including fat justice.
Anti-fat bias and size discrimination impact so many aspects of life, like employment, healthcare, housing, travel, public spaces, fashion, and more. What do you wish people understood about how deep anti-fat discrimination goes?
Anti-fatness is in every system and every subculture. It’s not just attitudes on the internet, or how people feel about a fat character on tv, or whether there’s a bully at your school who makes fun of your body. It’s also do you get paid fairly, is there a uniform so you can play on the team, can your ex demand child custody because your kid’s weight is considered your fault. It’s not just do you need two seats on the plane; it’s will there be any seat for you in the classroom.
There are endless examples of how anti-fatness materially and systematically harms fat people, but at a societal level, the only time we talk about size discrimination is when we’re asking fat people to change in order to avoid it. That’s bullshit. The solution to discrimination is ending the discrimination, not changing the people who are experiencing it.
What’s something people might not know about you if they only know you through advocacy?
I was Gunnar Holma’s back-up dancer on Sweden’s Got Talent, and three of four judges voted yes on our act, but the producers didn’t invite me to join him for the finals. We never had a chance against the guy who won that year, but the crowd loved us! Maybe I still have a few fans in Sweden?
If you had a megaphone and the whole world was listening, what message would you share?
Love Will Conquer Hate. A lot of things make me wonder these days, and I can’t predict the timing of this win, but I ultimately still believe the win will come.
What has fat community meant to you personally?
Everything.