Incase you missed it (highlights from the International Asexuality Day livestreams)

April 6th was International Asexuality Day and the ace orgs from around the world got together and did a 24hr livestream called Aces never EVER sleep. Unfortunately I did have to sleep through some of it. I was able to catch the beginning of the stream and the beginning of the Spotlight on Australia and I missed the Spotlight on Vietnam, Spotlight on India, Books with Ace Representation panel, Arts and Crafts, Spotlight on Netherlands, Anti-LGBT Laws: Georgia, Spotlight on Chile, Spotlight on Pakistan, Spotlight on Poland, the School and Education panel so I need to go back and watch ALL of that. I tuned back in for the Spotlight on Nepal who powered through their technical issues. I want to give a special shout-out to Dr. Manita Newa Khadgi and I sincerely how we see and hear more from them in the future.

Incase you missed it, I HIGHLY recommend going back to watch the Spotlight on Bangladesh with Dipa Mahbuba Yasmin, the founder of Bangledesh Asexual Association and see her amazing protest artwork. I have no words for how beautiful and powerful her artwork comes across, you really need to see it for yourself and hear the stories behind the different pieces.

Next up was Yasmin Benoit talking about her partnership with Stonewall on the Ace Report. Yasmin talked about how when you don’t see yourself represented it means you have to step up and be that representation (for better or worse as seen in her twitter replies). She talked about the tremendous effort, negotiations, and collaborations it took to get the Stonewall Ace Report off the ground- again emphasizing that if the research isn’t there it probably means you need to be the one to make it happen. I’ve seen a lot of acephobes try to rip into the Stonewall Ace Report and the report put out by AACAU trying to delegitimize them by saying it’s “not scientific enough” or the research was “done by people who don’t know what they’re doing”. There is no objectivity when it comes to aphobia. The people who perpetuate aphobia are not doing so because it’s “scientific” or because they’re “experts”, they do it out of ignorance and most of the time it’s willful ignorance so shout out to Yasmin for taking that on. Hopefully we see many more opensource research about aces and aros come out in the future. These reports are meant to start conversations, not be a period at the end of a sentence.

Next up came Chiacchierata ace [IN ITALIANO], I don’t speak Italian, but I was dog sitting at the time of the stream and he didn’t seem to mind the panel in the background (I assume it was a delightful break from the regular tv shows his owner plays from him when she’s out). The folks behind IAD have a mission to bring more diverse language groups into the global conversation and are always looking for volunteer translators.

Speaking of translations, the Italian Aces were kind enough to switch back to English for the next panel dedicated to Writing about asexuality. I confess I became distracted by Kay’s cat, however, Francesca mentioned that there is a growing body of ace literature not just in English. It’s probably very easy to get caught up in our own little communities, but but we do have this amazing communication technologies available to us, we have international cooperation efforts like the IAD livestreams, and thus there are opportunities to expand our understanding of asexuality beyond the English-speaking side of the globe.

The next panel was Autistic Aces…Assemble. There were some technical issues, as can be expected with streaming technology, so the panel is split between two recordings and picks up again here. I’ll often see acephobes on social media try to dismiss asexuality or aromanticism as “just autism” and sort of the jerk reaction from aces is to deny the claim in a way that perpetuates ablism or continues the stigmatism of mental illness. There are aces who have autism and there are aces with mental illness and it’s not fair to them to ask them to keep their asexuality and/or romanticism separate where their identity intersects. As the panelists mentioned, they did their best to pack as much representation into the panel as possible, but they represent just a sliver of what is a very big, very nuanced conversation.

We are so close to the end, thank you for reading this far into my recap. I missed a lot of the stream at the beginning that I’ll be catching up on in the coming weeks. It’s a lot which is why if you see something you want to check out first I’ve included the links with the appropriate time code. There have also been talks of hosting more streams throughout the year to feature more of the global community.

Very quickly, there was a Spanish language panel. Once again, I don’t speak Spanish, but I had it on the background for the dog I was pet sitting. After the Spanish language panel there was a panel dedicated to Aro-erasure and ace activism. This panel made my little aro heart both very happy and very sad. One of the comments that was highlighted said, “​​I’m often suspicious of fully aspec spaces as an aro person, because of the exclusion I’ve had historically. Any thoughts on how to make the spaces inclusive for folks who’ve been hurt this way?” Something that was pointed was that different countries have different histories regarding activism. The US model can’t be a blueprint because of it’s fairly unique history and it’s current status as an economic and military superpower.

And with that note, it was time to turn the stream over to the US & Canada team.

The next panel was Anti-racism in the Ace community. A lot of great resources were mentioned in the panel including Native Land Digital, The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action, Ace in Grace and the Ace Flag Revision survey, information about Aspects Committed to Anti-racism (ACAR) including their Gaza Action Document. Ashabi talked about her experience as a Black woman in the ace community and how that experience is subject to intersectionality. The conversation then moved to ace (and queer) representation in media as being primarily white including how that affects biases in generative AI. Panelists shared their recommendations for works by people of color including Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (2021) by Angela Chen, Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture (2022) by  Sherronda J. Brown, and Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism and Agender Identity (2024) by Michael Paramo. Michael Paramo is also the editor of the AZEjournal, a literary publication dedicated to highlighting diversity withing aspec spaces, and one of the panelists, Justin, has two articles in the AZEjournal if someone wants a more digestible read to start off with. Although not ace specific, Justin recommended Bi: Notes for a Bisexual Revolution by Shiri Eisner as a necessary read. Panelist Yilin recommended Song of the Six Realms by Judy I. Lin, a fantasy novel that features a demisexual character. Yilin also recommended “A Hundred Different Ways of Being in Love”: Emma, Queer Austen, and Asexuality Studies co-authored by Lillian Lu featured in Vol 36 of Eighteenth-century Fiction journal.

Yilin is also a writer and translator herself which is a nice segue into the next panel Translating Chinese poetry and literature as an aro-ace. Yilin’s own book, The Lantern and the Night Moths, came out this past week. I had already ordered my copy, but after watching Justin and Yilin talk about her work and the book I am now even more excited and I can’t wait for my copy to arrive. It was a fantastic discussion I recommend checking it out.

The last panel of the night was Split Attraction and the complexities of being an Orientated ace with Justin and Jenna. It wasn’t really any new information for me, I’ve written posts about split and divergent attraction in the past, but it aways makes me happy to see people having having a nuanced discussion about the weird, wonderful, and the queer bits of asexuality and aromanticism. I discovered tumblr when I was 25 and I was there when a bunch of young people were like, “let’s throw everything at the wall and see what sticks”. I was all for it then and I love it now. People are weird and people are complicated and I want the ace community to be a place where that truth is acknowledged and celebrated.

Overall I think the IAD teams did a fantastic job. A 24hr stream is a massive beast of a project and from what I saw it was executed masterfully with minimal technology issues, nothing beyond what you would expect from such an ambitious project. The stream provided an opportunity for aces orgs to see their counterparts across the globe in action. I was also very excited to be able to put some faces to the twitter handles. I’ve included a lot of links in this post, please take the time to check them out and support the global aspec community.

Dear Past Me

I just recently finished a handwritten journal that I started in 2011 and I’m very curious to see what was going on with past me. I didn’t figure out I was aromantic, asexual, and agender until 2015. I didn’t write consistently and the purpose of the journal changed to mostly evening relaxation and handwriting practice. If you’re feeling nosy you can come along. I’ll put current me’s comments/editorizations [in brackets with italics].

9/25/11
It’s been a week since my birthday and I must say it’s been a very long week. I’m twenty-two this year and I think I’ve pretty much overcome my adolescent demons. [i sincerely doubt that] A phrase that I have not read yet in a book comes to mind, “Behold, the great men of the ages past have banished all the other worldly demons. All that remains are the demons man kind has created for itself”. [meaning either i straight up made that quote up because I wanted to be a the next big high fantasy novelist or it’s from an anime and I don’t want to fess up to that]. I’ve kept journals before (and lost them) and there sits a great many blank notebooks in my bottom drawer. [I would call myself pretentious, but I think my spelling skills are actually the determining factor of my written speech patterns] I don’t expect [and “exspect” is hilariously miss spelled thus proving my previous point] this one to be any different, but I live and hope. [the rest of the entry goes on about how much my parents have supported me and some musing about being Buddhist, which isn’t what I currently identify with. In all honesty I’m finding the writing style to be very cringe so I’m going to move on]

9/26/11
Today’s insight comes from Card Captor Sakura, which is an anime whose dub I cannot stand but that’s beside the point. No doubt fans go wild at the end of the second movie where Sakura finally confesses her love for Syaoran, but do they ever stop and question it? […I’m about to say something very aromantic aren’t i? lol] Is there no, “…wait a second…” after the credits start to roll? Well, I must be strange then because I realized that poor kid (meaning Syaoran) is gonna go through hell. The movie [which current me haze ZERO memory of] ends with a freeze frame where Sakura who has just confessed leaps over a very long drop to get to Syaoran. Poor little Syaoran is telling her to wait for the magic to wear off and the killer jump to disappear, but in all her bubbly enthusiasm Sakura says no and leaps, presumably, into her lover’s arms. Freeze frame of mid jump with Syaoran running to catch her. They are now a couple (more or less) [I guess I wasn’t sold on the chemistry] and Syaoran now has a bubbly, daredevil, magic girlfriend. Although, I suppose it’s not all bad. He was originally sent to Japan to get the clow cards and now he has a girlfriend with clow cards so it’s a win-win. BUT! Girlfriend comes complete with two magic guardians, an ultra rich best friend who adores her, a father who’s the reincarnation of the most powerful wizard to ever live, and is buddy-buddy with two more ultra magic users, so in short: if Syaoran even messes up even a little bit he’s screwed. Hence I have discovered the phrase, “It could have been worse, you could have won” I’m sure Syaoran is overjoyed, but the dialogue would be something like- “yaaay…owwww”. Thus ends my analysis.

9/29/11
Wow, I am having trouble believing that September is almost over. The internet at work isn’t working so I’m doing writing therapy. Tsukiko [a friend from the same RP writing forum] gave me a very pretty Kurama sig ❤ <3. Mom wants to host a Halloween party for my younger sister, but most of her friends are no-can-do so she asked me to extend an invite to my pals. No dice. It’s a month away and my flakeish, scatter-brained pals already know they have plans. It’s amazing what a few years of college will do. I know that it’s not that I’m not important, but that Halloween after a certain age just isn’t really up there on lists of important holidays. Oh, well. The internet is still down and a full hour of work to go. Wow this must look silly, me writing in an archaic looking journal. Not half as silly as carrying a box of ears though (and that is exactly as it sounds). Such a feat is impossible to do with a straight face and the look on the other work study’s faces as I dropped the box off was very amusing. Maybe by the time I get to the last page of this journal (if I can) my handwriting will be readable. Still fuming about the internet. It’s all down then I can’t watch my anime. I need my fix. Ah, what to do? My stress levels are unbelievable with that one project for class. One class, I need just one class to graduate. Unfortunately financial aid doth not cover one class. Thus I must take three extra classes to keep my full-time student status. Which reminds me of how my work-study supervisor dared to ask me, “are you sure you’re graduating?” Uh, yeah. People tend to do that after they gat all their classes done with. My concentration is being disturbed by my coworkers. They are talking about what’s news and what’s not news. My watch ticking is getting really annoying. I better stop here, my hand is getting sore.

For comparison, here are the last three entries in the journal.

March 1st, 2024
And now I should do some serious reflection. I don’t really remember who I was as a person in 2011. My as a person now finds the greatest joy in family games nights, learning new things and new skills. I like making things. I still read when I can which is in long stretches or 15 minute bursts. Things I want to improve on is my handwriting [I have to say the handwriting practice part of journaling is NOT paying off and I need to squint and use context clues] and honestly that’s kind of it? I know I’ll naturally improve quilting by doing it. I’m getting better at figuring out my body cues. My stress was unusually high this passed week and when I clearly needed to rest, I did. I might have to miss tai chi all this week and so I will need to practice by myself or do chi gong with mom. I’m very tired and I have a headache, but I know that it’s because I didn’t eat much today. I made myself some onion soup with noodles and that helped a lot because it was savory, nutrient rich, and hydrating. I also paired with with some cherry/rose tea. So much for serious reflection. I have one more page, but I do need sleep.

March 3rd, 2024
I can’t sleep because my room is too hot, so I’m hoping a box fan on high in the window will help. I’m not going to be able to do a reflection.

March 10th, 2024
I saw online that a news organization went off-live and thus their entire backlog of news articles are gone. I’m not the best at recording my day-to-day or about world events, but maybe that’s something I can work on. I don’t know how to even begin. I think maybe my commonplace book would be better? I could take screenshots and print them out? Is it enough to just write my reaction and record the bibliographic information? Would I be saving the journal for? All of my siblings and myself don’t plan on having kids. Oh, well, it might be fun for me. I finished one journal.

What have I learned? The more things change, the more they stay the same I guess. I am apparently not one for details and just like to flutter from one topic to the next with my thoughts. It took a moment, but while I don’t think I’m the same person that I was in 2011, I can definitely see the continuity there. My mom is currently planning a St. Patrick’s day themed party for next week. My sister’s plus one is proving to be a problem. I have no plans to rewatch the CCS movie since past me gave it what amounts to a scathing review. OH, and I am ONE CLASS away from graduating with my master’s degree. Fortunately, this time it IS covered by financial aid. I don’t need an anime fix, I need a nap. Possibly a 4th cup of coffee. It was less embarrassing than I thought it would be to check in on my past journal entries. For now I’m going to put the journal away, but I might revisit it again in the future. I’ve already started my new journal and hope to report back with legible handwriting some time in the near future.

Cool Qualitative Stuff I learned in Class

I’m one year into my master’s program and there were several themes shared between my classes even though each class was dedicated to a different topic. I don’t mean that each course was needed to meet my credit requirements. What I mean is each class picked readings and case studies that aliened with particular values and skill-sets that the school predicts graduates will need such as cooperative practices, professional ethics, and community involvement. For example, several classes touched on how information organizations are moving more towards a team-based structure instead of a traditional hierarchy structure. For professional ethics several classes used cased studies involving Indigenous materials that were discovered in collections, discussed patron privacy, and emphasized transparency and documenting how any why archive collections were intellectually arranged. Lastly, my most recent class deceptively titled “information behavior” required a deep dive in to user-based methods.

The final term paper directions were to “research a topic that relates to user-centered approaches within information environments to studying information needs of diverse constituencies and information services/resources meeting the needs of diverse constituencies”. Naturally I picked LGBTQIA+ as my topic because that’s a collection of diverse constituencies itself. I’m not here to rehash my paper, I want to skip to the good part of what I found in the research.

Word Cafe Methodology and World Mapping. Defined in their respective papers as “…a form of action research that develops collective knowledge among individuals and communities to address shared problems” and “an arts-based, participatory method that documents and triangulates contextual factors shaping people’s everyday information behaviors/practices”. For my paper I primarily used this article titled, Advancing information practices theoretical discourses centered on marginality, community, and embodiment: Learning from the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) communities and that’s the one I’m going to summarize because it did some really cool things with user-based methods.

The paper opens with “We align this paper with human‐centered explorations of information that address the social question of how people relate to, seek, and use information” in reference to Marcia J. Bates, who is considered one of the major influencers in Information Science.

Highlights from the Methods:

• Semi‐structured interviews and information world mapping with 30 LGBTQIA+ community leaders from January—August 2019. We analyzed interviews using an open qualitative coding process and information world mapping using situational analysis.
• A half‐day community forum between 16 LGBTQIA+ leaders who participated in mapping and interviews and 14 library staff from across a Southeastern state in November 2019. The World Café methodology structured small‐table conversations about social and structural barriers to health information experienced by LGBTQIA+ communities and collaborative strategies that communities and library staff could adopt to address these barriers. We analyzed notes collaboratively taken by participants and observational ones taken by researchers using a similar open qualitative coding process to the semi‐structured interviews.
• Ongoing virtual focus groups and information world mapping with LGBTQIA+ individuals beginning in August 2020. As of this writing, we have conducted 7 focus groups with an average of 3–4 people per group for a total of 27 participants. We are currently engaged in theoretical sampling to conduct 3–4 additional focus groups that capture perspectives underrepresented in the data, chiefly across age categories, emphasizing teens and seniors, and race or ethnicity, focusing on Latinx or Latine groups. Qualitative data analysis consists of a mixture of etic coding informed by the codebooks developed during leader interviews and mapping. Emic coding is inductively derived from participant narratives and maps and nested under etic codes. Situational analysis of maps informed by preexisting etic codes is underway, but we have analyzed participant descriptions of their maps from the interview transcripts.

Kitzie, V. L., Wagner, T. L., Lookingbill, V., & Vera, N. (2022)…. https://doi-org.libezp.lib.lsu.edu/10.1002/asi.24594

Although asexuals are included in the title as members of the LGBTQIA+ I don’t believe any were quoted in the the examples. However, the authors cited several Black participants as examples of how normative models failed to capture essential nuances related to intersecting identities. I got a lot of good information out of the paper and it was the corner stone to my term paper (which I did very well on as a result).

I personally don’t like conducting research. I’m very good at finding sources for essays and term papers, but academic research has really high barriers to entry and every single class I’ve taken on research and research methods has made me hate doing research. I really enjoyed learning about user-based methods, action research and participatory action research. My school seems to believe these methods are the ways of the future. There will always be a need for traditional research methods, but the cool thing about the sciences is they are prone to paradigm shifts and shake ups. I also thing that these methodologies are do-able for activist groups and charities.

(anywho, I had a terrible day at work and a coaching meeting to look forward to so I’m going to do the all self-care things and hope for the best)

My “Fae/Faer” rant

[Edit notes: Since this is turning out to be my most viewed post I’ve expanded the orginal post to include additional sources. This is a very, very long rant so if your eyes start to glaze over somewhere in the middle the TL:DR is a rando kid (previously) on Twitter and Instagram put forward the claim that using “fae/faer pronouns is cultural appropriation” and they dropped zero native sources, didn’t credit any native sources, and their examples look like Urban Fantasy novel “Celtic hodgepodge” lore. I asked. I looked all up and down their link-tree before they privatized their IG and deleted their Twitter account. Nothing. So, going only by what was saved on @AphobeHottakes this is my counter argument as someone of “Celtic” decent (and the post explains why “Celtic” is a problematic word to use when talking about cultural appropriation). Edit logs: 7/31/21 for source correction, 12/19/2023 one source added, 03/04/2024 link added]

My internet said “f u” so I will be composing this rant from the mobile app which means there will be a lot of grammar issues. I’d like to apologize in advanced.

So! It has come up a few times on Twitter (because Twitter is a trashfire and the “Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory” applies) that the pronouns fae/faer are “cultural/religious appropriation” and if you can’t tell that’s just transphobic/enbyphobic/queerphobic nonsense at first glance I will be more than happy to go into greater detail of why it’s actual horse shit.

Carnival of Aces August 2020 Round Up: What are you Hoping to get out of the Ace Community?

[If I’m missing anyone’s submission please post a link or a note in the comments or send me an email at lettredemarque(at)outlook(dot)com. I’ve been checking my spam box but life happens. Speaking of life happens if anyone has a late submission they want me to retroactively add I’m okay doing that too]

Greetings! This takes us to the end of this month’s Carnival of Aces and I’m happy to present our five fabulous submissions based on this month’s topic of “What are you hoping to get out of the Ace community?”

First of up we have Coyote, the author behind The Ace Theist here on WordPress, with “Directions for Ace Community Advocacy”; It’s a quick read that brings up several advocacy points the community needs to be thinking more about and individuals should probably be incorporating into their advocacy plans:

…I see mental healthcare as a key issue for the ace community for a number of reasons — because it can be psychologically damaging to be trapped in a sexnormative culture, because it can be difficult to access treatment for other mental health issues when anti-ace narratives stand in the way, and because “low sexual desire” is officially pathologized as a disorder in the DSM. For all these reasons and more, I think ace advocacy should be prioritizing therapy as an important area of concern…

Up next we have redbeardace’s post “Get Out Of It” about wanting to step back as an activist but not willing to leave the community floundering to repeat past mistakes or without a clear direction forward:

…For years, the primary drive has been visibility.  Shouting “WE EXIST!” as loud as we can until someone hears us. Okay.  They’ve heard us. What now? How about fighting singlism, pushing for better mental and physical healthcare, tearing down compulsory sexuality, inclusion in anti-discrimination policies, more and better media representation, sociological research that’s not mind-numbingly out of touch…more and stronger advocacy groups and closer ties/direct involvement with general queer groups, reaching all the people who are long past high school and feel lost and broken and confused because they haven’t heard of asexuality yet, and that’s just the beginning…

Moving right along Henry sent me a submission via email; “A Disconnected Past, and A Curious Present” brings the perspective of feeling unwelcome and disconnected to the ace community. This post actually reminded me of when Vivek Shraya (a Canadian trans activist) visited my college and mentioned that community spaces were some of the loneliest places she had ever been in and it was in the art community that she found love and acceptance. Henry had a similar experience and reminds that while there’s a lot of shared experience among aces, not everyone’s asexual journey is going to look the same:

…I had instead followed my fantastic side to a very different community. This other community is all about self-discovery and self-expression, and both is very open about sexuality and extremely non-heteronormative. Their art was the perfect thing to feed my imagination and my fiction writer’s pen. The friends I made were just who I needed. Not only could I talk to them about my imagination, but I could write very NSFW stories from it they would eagerly lap up…

lokiofjotunheim’s post simply titled “Carnival of Aces – August 2020” talks about being relatively new to the ace community, how they discovered asexuality, learning community history and what they’re hoping for in the future:

…I want other 15, 16-year-olds, 40, 70, 90-year-olds who’ve never quite had a word that fit to find that for themselves. I want people to not have to be resigned to (and I was resigned, heavily) living life as “straight by default.” I’m not active in the sense that I’ve done activism. I have my Tumblr, sure, where I reblog ace posts and sometimes add a comment or two on the occasional post. I’m in several ace discords, and I have my ring, and my flag but…that’s about it…

Lastly we have my own submission for this topic, “I am not an Activist” which is basically just me venting about acephobia for three paragraphs and listing things I appreciate about the ace community; namely it’s nice not to feel alone in my experiences as an asexual even if I don’t have the skills to necessary to carry the community forward.

Edit: Not your professor, I accept late submissions! Drop a link below and I’ll add it to the round up. Here are the posts that were added after Aug 31st:

Elisabeth talks about “Virtual Meetups” (click here to read part one of “Increasingly Accessibility” series). Your asexual movement isn’t inclusive unless it’s accessible. With the world in the middle of a global pandemic the logical thing seems to move meetups online, but that doesn’t automatically mean online meetups are fully accessible to everyone:

My biggest problem with the state of virtual meetups in asexual communities right now, though, is just the sheer amount of effort it takes to even find out about them. Most groups are set to private, so you have to already be a member to know what they’re up to

The Call for Submissions for September is already up with the exciting topic of “Manifestos”

Please help us keep the conversation going by volunteering to become a future host!

[Carnival of Aces Guest Post] The Ace Community and Me: A Disconnected Past, and A Curious Present

This is a submission for the Carnival of Aces August for the topic of “What are you hoping to get out of the ace community” written by Henry:

I would like to thank Lib for posting this. Though you can find me in a couple places on the internet if you look for me, I didn’t feel any of them were a place to host this essay.

That fact is probably a pretty good introduction: you are about to read about my early struggles with asexuality, why I didn’t feel like the community spoke to me then, and why I am cautiously looking into it more now.

Capture the Flag (Part 2)

I need everyone to take a deep breath because this is going to be a trip. In a previous post I mentioned that flag discourse on Twitter was making me nervous because of the misinformation that came with it. Since then I’ve been keeping an ear to the ground because drama in other communities tends to leak over.

So, there’s been some pan flag discourse again.

Twitter screenshot: pansexual flag was stolen from a South Indian flag

The person who wrote that tweet deleted it a while ago time ago and apologized, but the screenshot has resurfaced on Instagram and things blew up. I searched high and low for anything related to this topic. Exact phrasing, nothing. Not even a tumblr hit and there’s always a tumblr hit on discourse. It was unbelievable. When I did a keyword search I got ONE hit.

Screenshot: fandom.com wiki pansexuality

So I did a less strict search and I just have a couple of questions…

• 

• 

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Screenshot gallery

Nothing major, just…where…

Screenshot blog post

…are all…

• 

• 

• 

• 

Screenshot gallery: “Kingdom of Cochin” flags

…the primary sources?!

My next question is how easy is it to make magenta dye before 1949, but we’re going to put a pin in that because I forgot to mention that there’s a exclusionist/separatist group running around on Twitter and I forgot the rest of the internet doesn’t know that.

Twitter screenshot

If you would kindly note the twitter ribbon in asshole #1’s profile pic, that is one of the “eclipse” flags. And I’m just going to let them explain it:

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Twitter screenshot gallery: eclipse meaing

That sums up today’s Twitter drama.

Mini Rant: Exclusionist “Sources”

A personal pet-peeve of mine, but here I am banging my head against freaking paywalls trying to find actual evidence that the Wissenschaftlich-humanitäres Komitee (the first LGBT organization according to Wikipedia) was asexual inclusive, meanwhile this (see image below) is what passes for “sources” among exclusionists:

screenshot “source list”

Twitter Screenshot

Exclusionsts will grab whatever quotes from whatever pops up in their Google search they think might support their argument without actually checking if they read the material correctly or if it even supports the argument they are trying to make. Nothing in that linktree mentions asexuals. But that’s what somebody sent me when I asked for their sources on their post on asexuals. It’s like they think my nerdy ass isn’t going to check.

Anywho, a gay activist named Carl Schlegel was asexual inclusive in 1907 and I’m trying to figure out figure out if that was a him thing or if he adopted it from the WhK. Unfortunately, I don’t read German and there was that rise of the Nazi thing that destroyed a crap ton of priceless LGBT history. But sure, a instagram linktree is a “source”.

John Oliver headdesk reaction image because words cannot fully express my frustration right now

ANYWHO, self-care today is putting a pin in the WhK thing (for now) and watching my all time favorite film, Denial (2016), to remind myself that it is not my job to debate people on Twitter and I don’t have a crack team of researchers who can pour over everything my “opponent” ever wrote. ALL that considered, I’m doing fine…..

(minus, you know, global pandemic and upcoming US election. “Fine” might be relative)

What’s it Like Running an Aphobe Hot-takes account?

Greetings! My internet is absolutely crap right now so I just wanted to do a quick post and the easiest topic I can throw together is about running @Aphobehottakes on Twitter. It’s actually not very exciting.

TW// aphobia because I will be showing some screenshots. yay. Fingers crossed that all of my screenshots still load after I hit “Publish”
(TW is short hand for trigger warning)

What are you hoping to get out of the ace community?

This Carnival is already closed and you can find the Roundup Post Here

Greetings! This is the call for submissions for the Carnival of aces for August 2020. A blogging carnival is where a bunch of blogs will get together and post about the same topic and a host will select the topic and gather all the links in a round up post at the end. Future host spots are open!!! To see past round ups or volunteer to be a host check out the Masterpost on the Asexual Agenda. The topic I’ve selected is “What are you hoping to get out of the ace community?” To see July’s roundup on the topic of “Renaissance-people’s experience with ace culture and how they have seen it change.” hosted by the Ace Initiative Center (AIC) the link will be HERE when it becomes available.

What are you hoping to get out of the ace community? This is intentionally a broad topic, but here some suggested ideas to get you started:

• How did you find the ace community and why did you decide to join? If you’re not an active community member, why not?
• How is your experiences in the ace community different from the larger LGBTQIA+ or other communities (ethnic, religious, ect..) you belong to?
• What are new activists doing that you think is working or not working? Who are your favorite activists and why? What have activists done in the past that you’d like to see make a comeback or you’re glad people are no longer doing?
• What would you like to see more of in the ace community or is there something lacking?

Submissions can be blog posts, videos, Twitter threads, poems, whatever, as long as it relates to the topic. Just drop a link in the comments below or send an email to lettredemarque(at)outlook.com. I will be posting the round up on September the 1st so please have the submissions in to my by then. Happy blogging!