Wednesday, September 14, 2022

This Is Beautiful: UK Ace Con 2022

 This past weekend was the 2022 UK Ace Con! It was my third year being part of the organizing team and I had a lot of fun. There were a number of challenges, it was after the semester started so I was really busy, the Queen died that week so the UK organizers were unsure if we should postpone at the last minute, and of course there were tech issues. But at its heart, this was a weekend spent with fellow aces talking about really important issues within the community and it was full of affirmations and community.

I had to get up really early both days to be on UK time, the first day I was part of the intro to talk about accessibility for the conference, and from there went straight to an Ace 101 presentation. This was new this year, but I think it really helped some attendees. After that I led an anti-racism workshop with another ace, and that gave me a lot of anxiety, would there be trolls, would I mess up the slides, etc. It ended up going really well, the discussion went long but a lot of good comments were had. I hope that this can be a regular part of ace spaces, to help us combat the whiteness and racism in the community.

Second day had to get up early again, first to lead a conversation on non-romantic relationships. I took a backseat on this one since I'm not in a platonic relationship, but the conversation was really cool and different from previous years. Then had a trans/non-binary aces conversation, it was something like my 3rd time leading that haha! Always good every year though. And finally led a discussion on child-free aces. This was another new topic, and I think it was cool to highlight that aspect of the community.

All in all, a busy weekend but a really nice one! I hope that next year it isn't during the fall semester but I'm always excited to be a part of it.

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