Ace Week Wrap-Up

 This is a follow up to my previous post, but there was a lot of great things that happened this week and I just wanted to acknowledge them and celebrate them.

The Allusionist episode
First of all, a wonderful episode of The Allusionist, a podcast about language, released an episode about asexuality and aromanticism. You can find it here! I've been nagging her about doing a podcast about this for ages so I'm super happy to see it! It really was such a surprise for me and I was absolutely thrilled to see it drop and also to listen to it.

Disabled Aces Day
This year marked the first ever Disabled Aces Day! It was founded by Courtney Lane, a wonderful ace activist, and it aims to highlight the specific struggles of disabled aces. You can read more about it here, but the general idea is that disabled aces are often overlooked since all disabled individuals are assumed to be non-sexual. This results of erasure, of bot ace and allo disabled individuals. And in particular it can be hard for disabled aces to feel confident in their asexuality since it feels as though they're confirming a stereotype. So it's great that there's now a day for this community! Support and love disabled aces.

Racism in the community
Unfortunately there's also been a ton of racism online. Yasmin Benoit launched an asexuality-themed lingerie campaign and so many people have decided that this is too much or incomprehensible or whatever it is. I really wish that someday we could get to a point where this doesn't happen. Yasmin is a wonderful, incredible activist and she shouldn't be constantly harassed like this. Who cares what she's wearing? The whole point is that aces can wear and look however they want, that doesn't make them less asexual. Just another reminder of how far we have to go.

Happy Halloween!
And finally, happy Halloween! Aces get Halloween now, it's official. I hope that your week has been wonderful and tons of fun.

This Is Beautiful: ASHG

 This past week was ASHG, or the American Society of Human Genetics meeting. It has been virtual for the past two years now, which is disappointing, but good for safety since this meeting is HUGE.

I really enjoyed it last year, besides the fact that I started fighting people in the chat during 23andme's presentation on studying the genomics of gay individuals. It was nice to hear about other's research and to see what my larger field is like.

This year was rather similar! It had a nice sense of togetherness, even though we're all separated by a screen. Getting hype in the chat during my lab mates' presentations was definitely a highlight, but I always enjoy just popping into random sessions that look interesting as well. It's just really cool to be reminded of the bigger picture and what your field consists of!

Ace Week 2021

 This upcoming week is Ace Week (or Asexual Awareness Week). I try to celebrate it every year, it's really a highlight of the fall for me. This year I was able to celebrate by organizing events for my school's asexual community! Which is very exciting, we're going to have a community discussion, a student panel, a workshop on sex ed, and a social event. This is the first year that we've had a student panel, and I'm so excited for when that happens!

Having said all that, the ace community has a long way to go in terms of inclusion and diversity. More and more aces of color are speaking up about how the community is racist, and I've seen more disabled aces speaking up about how the community is ablest. We need to make radical strides towards making these intersectional identities more welcome.

But I also want to discuss the inclusivity of aces in queer spaces. So many people are still aphobic, possibly without realizing it. In particular, I want to highlight assumptions that get made when you tell someone "I'm asexual." Knowing that someone is asexual doesn't actually tell you anything about their relationship with sex. Same thing goes for aromanticism, knowing that someone is aromantic doesn't tell you anything about their relationship to romance. 

So it follows that not dating someone just because they're asexual or aromantic is inherently aphobic. Maybe sex is important to you and you want to have a lot of it. Great, there's plenty of asexuals who love to have sex. But you don't know that from knowing someone's identity, you have to have a conversation about it. Same as if you're dating anyone else. There's so much diversity within the asexual community, we need that diversity to be respected. Not being inclusive of all aces means that you aren't inclusive of aces at all.

So here's to another year of being asexual! And here's to hopefully seeing some improvements in diversity and inclusion over the coming year!

This Is Beautiful: Nice Try!

 When I found out that Avery Trufelman was hosting another podcast, I subscribed immediately. And it does not disappoint. 

Avery Trufelman was a host for 99% Invisible, where she got her start, and while she was there she made "Articles of Interest." This was a really cool series about clothes and how fashion affects and reflects society through its designs. She then hosted "The Cut" from New York Magazine for a year, and I loved hearing her voice weekly. Now she's at "Nice Try!" a podcast about home design. For this season, they're focusing on the interior and how the personal things we use everyday are political and affected by the world at large. 

The podcast is very 99pi in concept, focusing on the design of everyday items. But it's cool to hear Avery's voice again, and I'm excited to see where this season leads!

The Dave Chappelle Special: I'm not watching it

 Alright look, this isn't really about the special. It's more about how sick I am of this kind of discourse. I'm really really sick of someone saying inflammatory things and us giving them a huge platform for it by discussing it. I have no desire to watch this. If you want to see a decent breakdown of this, head to Jessie Gender's excellent video on it here. But I'm focusing on something larger than that.

It's just so exhausting seeing all of the transphobes come out of the woodwork and rally around this special and these comments. Everyone has some hot take on this one way or another, but rarely is the goal of these comments to learn and grow. It's more to just dunk on someone and yell about it. We all want to make a lot of noise, but rarely do we want to reflect on our opinions and what they say about us.

Particularly with people on the left, those that are defending trans people, they tend to virtue signal rather than really interact with the ideas. I'm very sick of people just taking a holier than thou stance and pointing out the contradictions instead of trying to contribute to work going against this. By educating people or dismantling the system of transphobia that creates people like this. (This is why Jessie Gender's video is good, she takes a lot of time to interact with it and doesn't just dunk on things and leave.)

Really the special is only popular right now because so many people are discussing it. We have made Chappelle so incredibly powerful instead of taking that away. If you want to cancel someone truly, stop talking about them. Don't even acknowledge it. No I'm not doing this right now, but I really need to vent and I'll go back to not discussing it afterwards. Interacting with these ideas just adds to their power, I doubt that Chappelle actually gives that much of a shit what we think anyways. Just walk away.

Anyways, I'm not watching the special, and I'm going to be super critical of anyone who does at this point because I suspect that they're just there to add fuel to the flames. And honestly shame on Netflix for putting it up on their platform. I'm exiting the system as soon as I can.

This Is Beautiful: acting?

 So it feels really strange to say this, but I'm acting again. I'm a very minor character in "Much Ado About Nothing." It's a little disappointing to be honest. But I'm having a good time doing Shakespeare again, and getting to say lines on a stage again. I really liked acting while in college and high school and middle school, so I'm hoping that this'll add some color to my life again.

But yeah, I'm acting! It's kinda fun. Good stuff.

“One Last Stop” by Casey McQuiston

I’ve wanted to read this book since I saw it being described as “magic subway lesbians” in a magazine review. Previously I’d heard of Red, White, and Royal Blue which is McQuiston’s other book, but I’d never read it. So I was thrilled when my book club selected this book to be our next pick!

Let me preface this by saying that it is very good. It’s excellently written. All of the characters are hilarious and larger than life, from the transmasc psychic to the drag queen working at a diner. They’re all delightful and super entertaining to read about. And the writing is terrific! McQuiston clearly knows what she’s doing. Yes it’s romance, but it’s also about magic and being queer and finding your family.

Having said that, there’s a lot of elements that really rubbed me the wrong way. So much of the plot feels like McQuiston checking off all of the tropes that queer readers will love. There’s the protagonist who has a hard time opening up to other people. There’s SO MANY queer characters. There’s the roommate who never talks to anyone opening up about how his parents kicked him out. There’s the love interest who’s a radical queer feminist and covered in tattoos. We KNOW that we’ll love it, but also I can see what you’re doing there. It just feels like every plot point is designed to inject dopamine directly into my veins, which is fine, but I’d like something I can find new or different in the plot beyond the number of queer characters. Representation is objectively a good thing, but I expected a little more from the novel beyond that.

There’s also just the amount of sex. I’m fine with reading about it but wooooow that last chapter was a lot even for me. If you are asexual or aromantic, this might be a hard read for you. I also just left thinking, is that what allo relationships are like? Is that what people do? It’s all queer sex so I’ll support that being seen and written about, but I kinda wish that I had a bit more of a heads up.

Then there’s the ending. Yes it’s romance and it therefore gets a happy ending. But I feel like the story could have been a lot more interesting and stand out more if it ended differently. If Jane went back and they didn’t end the story together. There was a half of a chapter where this was teased and I thought that seeing August’s development and her coming to terms with it MUCH more interesting than the final chapter where they just had a lot of sex. You never see a book where that happens and the author goes through the recovery detail with as much care as the romantic details. (Which McQuiston is definitely capable of.) Queer happiness is a radical act, but queer happiness after a tragedy to me seems like something with more depth to it.

Definitely read this book and adore this book, and find other queer authors to read and love. But also, I think there’s areas to improve and make changes to in future works. And maybe that’s just for me, and that’s alright.

This Is Beautiful: The Lifespan of a Fact

 Last weekend, my partner and I went to go see a local play, "The Lifespan of a Fact." It was an excellent production, and we both thoroughly enjoyed it! It was at a local theater company that I saw once before the pandemic, I'm glad that they're still running and able to put on shows!

The play centers on an essay written for a magazine. A recently hired employee is tasked with fact checking it, a job that he goes to with zeal and enthusiasm. A little too much enthusiasm. He ends up travelling to the writer's place in Las Vegas to ask him some questions about the piece. There he's met with a writer who considers the crafting of a compelling and well-written essay much more important than sticking strictly to facts. Meanwhile, the editor of the magazine is trying to publish this gorgeous essay without offending anyone, and acts as the middle ground between these two extremes.

The writing is wonderfully done, it exposes the ridiculousness within both worldviews. But also how they both can have valid claims here. There also aren't any answers given within the play, the audience leaves not knowing if the essay was published in the magazine or not. But it really makes you think about what a fact is, and how facts should be used to serve the purpose of crafting a story.

Definitely would recommend seeing it if you can! It's a production that really makes you think and reflect.

On Living in a Hybrid World

 I feel like we are now at the worst part of reopening: when some things are virtual and some things are in person. The bulk of my meetings are still online through web conferencing platforms, but more and more things are at the very least trying to go back to in person. There's quite a few aspects of this that I find exhausting.

First of all there's simply logistical issues. It's really hard to plan my day when I'm not sure where I need to be when, and trying to find ideal locations for virtual meetings is harder than it seems. If my work is in person and I have a virtual meeting, is it then my responsibility to find a quiet, private place to have my virtual meeting in? I'm used to running around for in person things, but this feels like a different kind of frantic and inconvenient. Virtual meetings are very convenient in a lot of ways, and I think I've also gotten used to being able to hop instantly on and off calls. Now with more in person events, travel time is a thing and it's harder for me to do everything that I used to do easily. It takes some adjustment. This liminal space that we're in between virtual and in person is really highlighting this change.

Then there's the fact that I don't feel safe being in person for a number of events. The Delta variant is still out there being spread by vaccinated individuals, I'm not willing to take huge risks when it comes to that. So I constantly have to check what form meetings are in and how comfortable I feel about this at the time. This pandemic has definitely eroded my trust of others, I don't care if they say an in person meeting is fine, I personally may or may not be comfy with that.

The end result is that I feel way more exhausted than I would if everything was either online or in person. The constant back and forth of it all and trying to plan out where and when everything is taking place has been a drain on my energy. Plus I constantly have to think about whether I even feel safe in these in person situations when they do take place. It's a nightmare and a lot for one person to handle.

I'm not sure what the solution is though. The hybrid world is the one that we now live in, and it's probably here to stay. Possibly if the ratio of virtual to in person events skews one way or another it'll get easier, but the underlying issues will still be there. I'm not sure. All of which is to say, if you feel similarly to me, just know that you're not alone!