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.

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!

I am Not an Activist

[This is my own submission for the Carnival of Aces hosted this month by me, for the prompt “What are you hoping to get out of the ace community?“ I will be posting the Roundup on Monday night, Aug 31st, so if you’ve submitted something and have not received a like on the comment or a “thank you” acknowledgement let me know because that probably means that I missed it. If you sent me something via email and didn’t get a response please resend it and let me know in the comments here or the Call for Submissions post so I can be on the look out for it. Thank you!]

As the title says, I am not an activist. I don’t think of myself as an activist, I don’t call myself an activist, and I try not present myself as an activist because I am not an activist. I merely exist as an asexual (and aromantic and agender) person and I infrequently ramble on my personal blog (and admin a Twitter account that posts screenshots of aphobes being assholes on the internet, which is also definitely not activism).

The thing is just existing as an asexual person comes with caveats. For instance if an acephobic troll shit-post goes viral on Twitter (or tumblr or Facebook or any mainstream online media) you literally have hundreds of armchair pharmacists, evolutionary biologists, and psychologists swarming the comments trying to pick apart your existence based on what they probably remember from their high school biology textbook. LGBTQ exclusionists demand “proof” of your existence and “oppression” in the form of peer reviewed journal articles and hard science while hypocritically using PowerPoint slides that they’ve clobbered together based off of a preliminary study/article they either obviously didn’t actually read or obviously didn’t understand how the data was being interpreted because the orginal source overtly contradicts their claim. Then there are “well meaning” family members and friends who instead of listening to you as you share a deeply personal, core aspect of your very self and personal identity, they brush you off or offer irrelivant/harmful advice because what you are saying contradicts the status quo they’ve been conditioned to believe without question their entire lives. What I’m hoping to get out of the ace community is just a goddamn break.

It is completely and utterly exhausting to go through life feeling isolated, disconnected, and othered by every emotional support system you’ve build up, especially if you can’t fully trust the medical systems in place because of heteronormative bias on top of cost/availability. It’s almost like life decided to push out of a plane with just a spool of thread instead of a parachute and you just have to find a way to deal with it. Okay, the parachute thing might be just a bit over dramatic (again, personal blog, I can vent if I want), but just because I’m “complaining” it doesn’t automatically make my perception untrue or “out of turn” and it’s really nice to know that there’s a group of people who understand that. Day-to-day I’m really just hoping for bare bones, basic dictionary definition of “community”.

I am looking for a human connection that I literally cannot get in my regular life. It’s nice to have a conversation with a stranger who already knows what asexuality is. It’s nice to have someone who’s sympathetic to my crappy coming-out-to-my-parents story. It’s nice to know there’s other people who also didn’t realize until later in life that there’re more options than just “straight or gay”. It’s nice to know that even though I barely had the energy to put a new coat of gorilla tape on my car today, there are other people who are working really, really hard on the daily to make real, meaningful changes to laws, medical practices, and general awareness regarding asexuality. I’m not an activist, I can’t organize people, I don’t consider myself charismatic, I don’t know anybody important, but I do a pretty good impression of a warm body when the situation calls for it. It’s not much, but it’s also not nothing either.

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!

Capture the Flag (Why I’m Concerned about Flag Discourse on Twitter)

Before we get started we’re going to need some context. It began (to my knowledge) when the creator of the pan flag came out and said that they supported bi-lesbians and pan-lesbians. Bi/pan-lesbian discourse is THE divisive discourse right now. Basically two kinds of people might call themselves a bi lesbian or pan lesbian; a) someone describing their romantic and sexual orientation (like aces and aros do) or more commonly it’s b) a nonbinary person who doesn’t feel like either label by itself is an accurate enough label so they’ll use the double label in community spaces.

Nobody is ready for the conversation on how terms like “SGA” and “het” get really complicated really fast when you actually account for nonbinary gender diversity. Regardless a lot of people believe that double labeling is invalidating for lesbians and discussions tend to get heated.

In response to the pan flag creator supporting bi/pan lesbians, a lesbian (as the Twitter rumor mill claims) created a “new pan flag”

In what I would consider an impressive counter tactic, pan-lesbians reclaimed the new flag and dubbed it the pan-lesbian flag:

It was at this point that I had a good laugh at the situation and assumed the issue would be self-contained.

It was not self-contained.

Soon newflagitis started spreading to other communities:

screen shot: “new bi flag”

“New bi flag” with stripe meaning

The idea of creating a new flag for bisexuality after BiNet’s “copyright” stunt and the resulting backlash is purely nonsensical and I would have been willing to dismiss the trend as merely teen boredom from Covid restrictions-

But then it spread to the ace community:

Screenshot: “new ace flag”

What was alarming about “new ace flag” posts was the misinformation that proceeded it. Once the word got out established ace accounts mobilized quickly to target the misinformation, namely that David Jay didn’t create the ace flag (see my previous post about how acephobes can’t get over a forum post from 2003). The AVEN threads showing the flag’s creation and unveiling were shared and boosted and the countering short hand narrative became “the ace flag was a community project”. It was noted that changing the purple to a gradient made the flag unfriendly for commercial production and artists. The flag itself was deemed mostly harmless and a fad that would likely die out quickly.

Shortly there after infighting broke out between aroace activist Yasmin Benoit and Rose from FYA. The flag situation was set aside in favor of what was seen as a bigger crisis that needed to be dealt with.

But then it happened again:

Once again someone posted a “new ace flag” proceeded by misinformation. I’m not sure if this is becoming a thing yet since the “antisemitic roots” mentioned in regards to the original flag is that AVEN’s symbol IS A TRIANGLE. That’s one hell of a reach, but he went for it and doubled down. Once again ace twitter mobilized to tackle the misinformation and point out that the “new flag” was too similar to other flags like the demi boy flag and the freysexual/romantic flag. As BiNet showed us, if you’re going to start flag discourse you better be squeaky clean. Similarly, when this flag maker was confronted by community members he started spouting exclusionary rhetoric like “allo is a slur” and “cis het aces aren’t LGBT” and eventually deactivated.

Our concern in the ace twitter community isn’t that people are making new flags. New flags appear all the time. The aroace flag, for example, has grown on me despite my initial rejection when I first saw it and it’s now one of my favorites for merchandise and swag. What made the “new ace flag” posts different from the pan and bi flag posts is that the ace flag posts contained misinformation directly lifted from anti-ace tumblr blogs like “David Jay is a misogynist homophobe” and “the AVEN triangle is a nazi symbol” and when confronted they used tumblr screenshots as “evidence”.

We’re not worried, per say, but we are getting a little nervous because we don’t know if this is just the latest teen fad as a result of being lonely and stuck inside during the Covid pandemic or if this is a symptom of larger issue that could negatively impact the community. We don’t know yet, but we’re keeping an eye on it.

It’s 2020 and Acephobes Can’t Get Over David Jay’s Forum Post From 2003

[Edited: I noticed there might be some tonal issues with the post in its original and have expanded in a few places]

I feel like it’s been an eternity since I’ve contributed to my blog, but I’m house-sitting for somebody with a desktop this weekend so hopefully I can crank out a couple of drafts to post later. For now I’m going to address the click-baity topic I’ve chosen for this post.

Some context: Every couple of months or so acephobes will dig up an AVEN forum post David Jay posted in 2003 with the f-slur in it and shove it in ace people’s faces like “IS THIS YOUR KING?”

The Split Attraction Model has a PR Problem

[UPDATE: 5/19/20: Coyote was kind enough to make a brief history summary of the term “split attraction model” and I highly recommend taking a look at the post series specifically this post and this post. My post will remain in its original form (with the exception of grammar corrections and update notes) but my opinions will likely change as I encounter new and updated information.]
See: Apology Statement

Something I didn’t know until recently is the split attraction model (or SAM) has a bit of a PR problem. If you type “split attraction model” into the search bar on Twitter, here’s what comes up. Yikes.

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Why I’m an “Inclusionist” Part 1

Greetings everyone, I have finally returned to WP after a long break. I’m rested up. I’m done with school. All my bills are paid and I have a little money left over to go into savings. That last bit feels like a huge weight has been lifted and I now have energy to write blog posts! I’m just going to bask in that feeling for a moment before I move on to the topic I want to ramble about (in multiple parts because I didn’t realize how long this topic was going to be).

While I haven’t been keeping up on WP, I have been my snarky self on Twitter. I’m a nobody on Twitter and it’s great. I love being a nobody. I just get to like and retweet other people’s clever things and maybe one or two people like my ramblings about my cat. Basically, I just get to sit and relax and watch the trash fires burn.

My little Twitter sphere goes through different “discourse” cycles. I’ve expressed my displeasure before people using the word “discourse” to describe what amounts to social media mudslinging, but it’s definitely a thing so I have to just accept it. Each cycle I find myself siding firmly in the “inclusionists” camp in contrast to the “exclusionists” camp. The reason is pretty obvious, “exclusionists” get their name because they want to exclude heteromantic asexuals and heterosexual aromantics from the LGBT+ and since I happen to be both asexual and aromantic that kind of talk makes me nervous. The main arguments exclusionists use are 1) aces and aros are “not oppressed” and 2) aces and aros are secret cishets who want to “invade” LGBT spaces.

Obviously, there’s a lot to unpack there, but hoo boy where have I heard that rhetoric before? I’m automatically suspicious of anyone who uses the term “invade” because that’s definitely recycled terf/red hat-conservative/fundamentalist garbage. Most excursionists I’ve encountered are in their teens and early twenties and obviously fresh off of Tumblr. When they say “LGBT” they mean themselves and their two-three other friends. When I say “LGBT+” or “LGBTQIA+” I mean the an ongoing world wide civil rights moment with a long and rich and complicated history because I’m 30 and didn’t realize I was ace/aro/agender until my late 20s. My introduction into the ace community was through the WP community. I can’t even imagine being 13 and having my introduction into the LGBT+ be through the dumpster fire that is Tumblr. So, that’s where a lot of these younger folks are at. There’s a bunch of dedicated people working to try to reeducate them, but I don’t have the time or energy so I use the block function a lot.

If only it were that easy though. Way back during Ace Week and then again during Thanksgiving and yet again during Christmas a few acephobic shitheads specifically targeted ace people and added them to group chats specifically to harass them. The first group back in October was called “genocide time”. Subsequent groups had less obvious titles, but the intent was the same. It was a coordinated effort to terrorize and harass asexuals. Many of the targeted individuals were upset with Twitter’s lack of response because the offenders were suspended for a week, but they just made “sockpuppet” accounts to continue the harassment campaign. I was never specifically targeted because I’m a literal nobody on Twitter and thanks to screenshots posted by the targeted aces I was able to block the offenders. I know at least one person is taking legal action because death threats over social media are a federal crime and I know in the state of Texas any illicit social media activity is grounds for expulsion from school. State laws have been getting tighter in response to the numerous school shootings and they’re paying more attention to social media activity.

Not all exclusionists are that extreme, but their argument doesn’t really have much of a leg to stand on. The LGBTQIA is a civil rights movement. Oppression matters because that’s what we’re fighting against, but it’s not the Oppression Olympics. I, as a white person nonbinary person, will never be as oppressed as a black trans woman. That doesn’t mean that my rights don’t matter; it just means that since black trans women are the more vulnerable target I need to do my part to support them. This isn’t some macho military campaign where you can leave your most vulnerable troops exposed and expect victory and there are no acceptable casualties.

As for “cishets” invading LGBT spaces, a lot of SGA clubs and LGBT orgs welcome straight allies and volunteers. It’s not okay if a straight person talks over LGBT+ folks or makes assumptions about the needs of LGBT+ folks, but the more bodies we have in our fight for civil rights the better. We need more people spreading positivity, handing out informational flyers, writing letters to politicians, and VOTING. How we look to potential allies kinda matters if we want them to think about our needs while they’re in the voting booths or running for local office or organizing community events.

From the WorldCon Dublin Code of Conduct:

Dublin 2019 is dedicated to providing a harassment-free convention experience for all Attendees, regardless of ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual identity or sexual orientation, neurodiversity, disability, physical ability or appearance, race, age, religion, or fiction/fandom preferences (this list is not exhaustive).

The WorldCon Dublin Code of Conduct was primarily based on Irish equality legislation:

The Equal Status Act 2000 provides protection against direct and indirect discrimination outside of employment on the same 9 grounds: age, gender, religion, race, sexual orientation, marital status, family status and membership to the Traveller community…

http://www.culturewise.ie/equal-check/equality_lagislation_in_ie.php

So, it really feels like a step backwards with the current US political climate and then to have a bunch young people on Twitter mirroring that red-hat rhetoric by trying to police what is or isn’t considered LGBT.

I consider myself an “inclusionist” because I believe aces and aros regardless of their romantic or sexual orientation belong in the LGBTQIA. Also it would be logistically impossible to exclude them. The question I have for exclusionists who don’t think heterosexual aromantics and heteromantic asexuals belong in the LGBT+ is “how are you going to spot check?” ID cards? Secret handshakes? The most resent ace polls say nearly half of asexuals reported being trans. Most aces have are queer romantic attracted. It is logistically impossible (and very reminiscent of state “Bathroom Bills”) to only exclude heteromantic aces and hetersexual aros. How do you know they’re not trans, not a bi or pan, or in the closet? How are you going to stop and check every. single. time. you see the word “ace” to make sure they’re not “cishet”? It’s logistically impossible.

That’s usually the point when I get blocked, which good riddance because in their quest to chase out “cishets” all aces get caught up in the crossfire and only get a “oops, my bad, I thought you were het” half-assed apology.

Well, that’s about as clear and concise as I can be on the issue. I’ve pretty much placed myself firmly in the inclusionist camp because of survival reasons (aro, ace, and agender) and ideological reasons (the logistics alone, ugh!) Some side effects have included agreeing with intersectional feminism views and getting dragged into other discourses. Remember how I mentioned that there were “discourse cycles”? Well every few weeks it’s rinse lather repeat and this week happens to be “bi-lesbian discourse” week. Yikes. And that just happens to be my next rambling topic.

Carnival of Aces Round Up: Then, Now, & Tomorrow

Alright folks, this is the Carnival of Aces Round Up for June 2019. The topic for this past month was Then, Now, & Tomorrow.

<> Our first submission is an enlightening post titled “On Purity, Asexuality, and Timing” by Perfect Number . In it she talks about Christian purity culture and touches how she would like to see asexuality included in sex education:

…if I wasn’t in purity culture, would I have had sex I didn’t want, because I thought it was “normal”? The sex-ed stuff I read now, it’s not written in a way that’s inclusive of aces. (ace = asexual) I’m trying to imagine an alternative to purity culture, that teaches kids it’s okay to have sex before marriage, but also helps asexuals understand their asexuality and be confident in their feeling that “no, I really don’t want to have sex…

<> Next up Jess wrote about both physical health and mental health in a fantastic post that is sure to get everyone thinking about their own future challenges:

… over the past year or so, I have dealt with new challenges to my mental and physical health that have really made me reconsider my priorities… [Aro-ace] lives have the potential to be very different from whatever roadmap we envisioned when we were younger, and living life without that roadmap …

<> Ace Film Reviews wrote a riveting post titled “Unhappiness and Other Unexpected Blessings” that will hopefully get folks thinking about something to look forward to:

…Is there a word for the opposite of nostalgia? Whatever it is, it’s what I felt as I stood in that chocolate shop. Not a memory of the past coupled with sorrow and longing to return to it. But a memory of the past coupled with relief and gratitude that it was over!

<> The last submission this month IS A POEM! titled Then Now & Tomorrow by LoyalTiger06 so be sure to check it out and let them know how awesome they are in the comments

A BIG “thank you” to everyone who took the time to make a submission this month and I hope everyone had a happy Pride. To see past Carnival of Aces submissions and/or to volunteer to be a future CoA host (it’s super easy, I promise) please check out the master post on The Asexual Agenda. The next Call for Submissions has been posted by The Ace Theist

Carnival of Aces Call for Submissions June 2019

First of all, Happy Pride Month Everyone!!!

This is a Call for submissions for the Carnival of Aces for June 2019. A “blogging carnival” is when a bunch of blogs get together and post about a single topic. The purpose of this is to bring awareness to the topic and to gain a variety of perspectives and voices. At the end of the month the host, yours truly, will collect all the links into a single post for everyone to see. To learn more about the Carnival of Aces, see past topics and submissions, and/or to volunteer to be a future host please check out the master post on The Asexual Agenda.

Last month was hosted by Demi and Proud on the topic of “Asexuality and Gender At Play” which you can view by clicking here.

For this month I picked the topic of “Then, Now, & Tomorrow“.

I’m turning 30 this year and my life is completely different from what I thought it would be when I graduated high school in 2008; Not better, not worse, just different. I’m actually pretty happy with how I turned out as a person, specifically as an aromantic asexual in an alloromantic/allosexual world and I’m looking forward to continuing that positive trend. On that note I’m curious to see how you folks have:

• Grown as a person the last few years
• What factors or people have helped you grow
• What set backs you might currently facing, past obstacles, or even possible future obstacles and how you’re dealing with them
• What you’re doing now to continue learning and growing
• Where you see yourself in the next few years
• Where you see yourself when you turn 25, 30, 40, 50, or whatever milestone is next for you
• Any combination of the above
• Or anything else you can think of along the lines of the prompt “Then, Now, & Tomorrow”

I’m looking forward to seeing where everyone is at in their life’s journey. To submit a post you can just put a link down in the comments or send the link in an email to LettreDeMarque(at)outlook(dot)com (mind the spelling) with your preferred name and pronouns. If you want to submit an anonymous post let me know in the email and I’ll put the post on my own blog. Just a friendly reminder that submissions are not limited to blog posts and that video essays, poems, comics, and other formats are perfectly fine as long as I can get a link for the round up post at the end. I’ll also take late submission up to 3 days after the deadline (I know the evils of writer’s block and that life gets in the way) which will be midnight Eastern Standard time on June 30th.

Happy writing everyone!