This Is Beautiful: Pride Finally!

 This past weekend was Pride in Durham (past two weekends really) and it was great to finally make a Pride celebration! For a series of reasons I wasn't able to make it to the Prides in Michigan (weather and scheduling and health, etc) and I figured that I would have just missed it all this year. Not so! Durham celebrates their Pride in October since it's warm until then and that's when they first marched for equal rights. So we get a later Pride! And it coincided so nicely with my partner coming to visit me for the first time in my new place. It was so nice to go together and finally get a Pride!

"Love Expanded: How Asexuals and Aromantics are Redefining Love, Life, and Family" by Wren Burke

 Here's yet another book on asexuality and aromanticism that I got my hands on! This was a lovely surprise as these tend to come out in October when Ace Week is. I found this on Twitter also, so I was able to get it right as it came out (important for reasons that will come later). Overall, I don't think I necessarily learned new things, but it struck me that this book is an excellent model of how to blend the ace 101 information along with what to do and what changes to make with this information. 

The book has ten chapters covering everything from what love means to a-spec individuals to gender to family structure and ending with legislation. The author covers plenty of material that I'm already familiar with such as Ace by Angela Chen or Refusing Compulsory Sexuality by Sherronda Brown but also pulls from anecdotes, a survey of 1,900 aces they designed for the book, and interviews with ace researchers. I was really pleased to see that aromanticism was an integral part of the book, with Single at Heart by Bella DePaulo getting its turn in the spotlight. And in general, the book is very inclusive and just feels very queer. It isn't breaking up identities to only focus on one but discusses elements of queerness and what that can look like in other cultures.

Helpfully, the book does not assume that you know much about asexuality and aromanticism, but it does not pander to folks that are new to the community. I find that if authors are writing more 101-type things that there are constant caveats about what they mean. This has its nuances, but I also felt that Burke just had a great handle on the material and was writing about what they were interested in. I also just feel that if you're picking up the book, you know what asexuality is and are likely asexual. But maybe I'm wrong (hoping that I'm a little wrong anyways). 

The ending though talks about what we need to do to make things better. And it starts with changing legislation and writing to MPs. Burke is British, I was honestly surprised how much US law was in the book, so I wasn't shocked by that. I do wonder though how quickly this book will go out of date as a result. Seriously, the most recent reference to the Ace Community Survey that I could find was 2019, it's been going on annually since then. How quickly will those legislative references go out of date? Or even more tragically, how many won't?

All in all, I thought this was a great addition to the canon of works on asexuality and aromanticism. I think it definitely has its niche as an intro text or something for someone who knows about asexuality but wants to start digging in deeper. I hope that it's a model for more works situating asexuality less as its own thing and more as fundamentally queer. And I dearly hope that there's more positive changes in legislation coming for us.

“The Lantern and the Night Moths” by Yilin Wang

I bought this book ages ago when it was published, but then had a friend borrow it and she only just got it back to me (graduate students, oh well). It was a really interesting read, I don’t know much about Chinese poetry or translation as it’s one of those arts that is frequently overlooked. Or put another way, you only notice it when it goes wrong. In addition to a small collection of poems from each of the poets, there are short essays that talk about the process that Wang went through with each of the different works. Each poem additionally is printing in both Chinese and in English for comparison.

The book spans quite a few ages, it starts with Qiu Jin’s poetry. She was a poet and early feminist who was known for breaking gender norms. She’s also how I first heard about this work, I knew that Wang’s work was stolen by the British Museum and I was part of the group that helped her fight that. Wang’s experiences are touched on with her essay on this section, it’s interesting hearing about that again from her perspective.

Most interesting to me was hearing about how there are so many different processes for translating depending on the style of the poet. She talks a lot about preserving allusions and meanings that English audiences wouldn’t pick up on, and keeping elements of ambiguity as well. I’ve heard Wang talk about how translating can be like writing poetry as well, and now looking at the poems she’s referring to really makes that clear, and more real, in my mind. It’s not something that is a one-to-one, there’s so much work happening below the surface here!

I really like to support ace writers, and this was a great book to finally get to. It isn’t entirely poetry, if that isn’t your thing, but it is really interesting to hear about the process of translating poetry.

Turning 30

 I turned 30 years old yesterday! And I also got married on the same day! (I didn't plan it that way, it's just how schedules worked out.) Which leaves me in this interesting position here, as I have now been running this silly little blog for well over a decade, enough that I went back and reread the post I wrote as a 20 year old. Funnily enough, it isn't as cringey as I thought it would be. There is some good stuff in here, things that I still forget most of the time haha. 

On my thirtieth I don't want to do another little listicle just because those are so lame and such simplifications. And I'm just in a more pensive mood. 30 years feels like such a milestone and also I am still in a PhD program, it's wrapping up, but I'm essentially still in school and training for an adult job that I hopefully eventually get. I don't feel that I have read and absorbed everything I want to learn about and advocate for, and I hope that I keep feeling that way. But I certainly don't think I have wisdom to impart.

The past year particularly I feel like I have had to contend with the limitations of my body more than ever. I'm less physically able to do a lot of things I could in the past, and I've been trying to train more to make up for it, but it feels like I'm hyper aware of how I look and my body type. And I super don't love that. Since my 20th birthday I've also had a cancer diagnosis and had to go through that treatment, and there's been a worldwide pandemic. I didn't react to the pandemic particularly well and I still kinda hate myself for that. I haven't always been a great anti-racist advocate and I also hate myself over that. But we keep moving forward and trying to do better.

I am really hopeful for the coming decade though. I will finally get my doctorate and I will hopefully move somewhere that has more stuff in the area for me. I so want to get into ballet more and keep dancing. I want to keep creating. I made so much great art in my 20s and I don't want to peak here; but it is so hard to create as an adult. Especially out of school and trying to find community groups. It's so hard and I'm not looking forward to that but I know that I can't stop choreographing and acting and making! I don't want to give that up and I'm determined to seek out spaces I can do these things.

Oh and I'm married now. I'm finally in a healthy, stable relationship that feels good. And feels like we are on the same page when it comes to asexuality and aromanticism and what we want. It just feels like a comfy friendship where we will plan together and create a life together, and that is the ideal. Getting married itself was more symbolic than anything else, nothing is actually going to change, but hey it is nice we did that.

So yeah, thirties here we come. Here's to leaving my twenties behind.

This Is Beautiful: Pride

 Happy Pride! June is a month for celebrating queerness in all of its glory.

I've had a weird relationship to pride month the past few years, not for any like identity based reason, but because I've been doing Shakespeare in the Arb that kinda just becomes my Pride month. With performances every weekend in June, it's hard for it not to. And I really miss being able to go to Pride, or even better when I was in Pride parades all of the time a few years ago. (Hence me forgetting that last week was the first week of Pride even.)

But Pride is still a special time and a special month. I hope that you're all celebrating in your own way and in your own time out there!

This Is Beautiful: International Asexuality Day

 This past Saturday was International Asexuality Day (IAD)! As usual it was a bunch of last minute planning, but I had a blast joining a 24 hour livestream with a bunch of international asexuals talking about what our countries look like when it comes to aces and ace rights. I had a really good time, and I'm glad that this year I was able to have a smaller commitment particularly. So happy IAD!

“Baker Thief” by Claudie Arseneault

I picked up this book as part of a book club I was in. We wanted to read something with aromantic representation for Aro Week, and this came up as a book with aromantic and asexual characters in a fantasy setting.

The book opens with a police woman, Adele, being robbed by Claire, a purple-haired thief. Claire has taken Adele’s exocore, a sort of generator or power source. As a new officer, Adele makes it her personal goal to get onto this case as soon as she learns that this is a repeat crime. Meanwhile, Claude is the baker at a local pastry chain who is befriending Adele. His twin is in town, and he is anxious to show her a stack of exocores that he recently stole under his female name, Claire. (Claude/Claire is gender-fluid so I’m going to try and use whatever name is appropriate for him/her, but I’ll swap back and forth.) His twin senses that these are people, that those with powers (witches) are inside the exocores. Witches have been persecuted in this society for ages, Claude keeps his powers secret, but this is a new level of hate. Claire and her twin start investigating together, but when Claire’s twin disappears, Claude is distraught.

Meanwhile, Adele has not been making much headway in the case. She’s assisting a more senior officer and frustrated that she cannot lead it. A separate journalist puts the pieces together that Claire is stealing exocores, so she also turns her attention to the source of them. Adele also starts up a budding romance with Claude the baker, Claude is aromantic but they have a good time together. Things get kicked up a notch when Adele follows a lead to a manufacturing plant for the exocores and finds many abused witches trapped there. Claire followed and helped her get everyone out, as well as plenty of exocores. They set up base in Adele’s sister’s house for the time being.

Claire then follows a lead right to the manufacturers and gets captured, learning in the process that there’s a witch who betrayed the community and has been kidnapping witches to make into exocores and that the lead officer on the case is behind the whole thing. Adele comes to rescue her, they start kissing, and then Claire reveals her identity as also Claude. Adele is captured, but Claire makes it away. After Adele’s co-workers save her, they all come up with a plan to stop the opening ceremony of a brightly lit bridge that’ll be directly powered by Claude’s twin. They pull it off, everyone ends up ok, and the book ends with Adele and Claude figuring out what a relationship between then could look like.

So the best aspect of the book is the world-building. The characters speak a kind of modified French, with a lot of French words and some messed with a little. The neighborhoods are also very fleshed out and developed, you get a sense of where the characters are throughout the city. Because of what the book gets into, the politics and the political climate are also very present and accounted for as well. It feels very grounded in place as a result.

To get this out of the way though, I do think that the choice of having a cop as the main character is a little odd. For a book that aims to highlight queer experiences and has a pretty diverse cast, it feels out of place. This was published in 2018, so a little before ACAB really took off in the US, but recent enough that I’m thrown off by the inclusion of it. Related, so the characters are pretty diverse, but that doesn’t seem to go too deep when it comes to race. There are characters who are mentioned to have darker skin, but that is all that their race really impacts. There is no discussion of what Black culture looks like in this world, or is there is any racism. So, I don’t know, I’m hesitant to give the book that level of diversity.

There is diversity in terms of queer representation. Claude is aromantic, and Adele is demisexual. Many characters are referenced as wearing binders (including Claude), and Claude’s twin even talks about questioning her romantic identity towards the end. Plus there are instances of neo-pronouns (some that I didn’t even realize were pronouns at first) which highlights the gender diversity as well. And all of these are very natural, there isn’t any real homophobia or transphobia present. There is some explaining in practical terms what the orientations mean, but it doesn’t feel like the book is trying to teach us something.

The relationship between Claire and Adele is a good example. They have a conversation about what a relationship could look like between an aromantic individual and a demisexual (not aromantic) individual. And it is really cool to see that conversation played out! What I don’t love about it so much is that it seems like the relationship is based on adrenaline from them saving each other and things like that. I don’t know if I actually believe that the characters have any chemistry between them. And then also, this is a book that is supposed to highlight aromantic experiences. Why do the protagonists end up in a relationship? It seems to contradict the main point where aro experiences are all about celebrating not wanting a romantic relationship.

Overall it’s a pretty good book, I likely would read a sequel. I would say though that there’s a few too many ideas in it and it could benefit from some focus as well as cleaning up the relationship that for some reason the characters are in. And rethinking the cop thing. Ugh. But we will see if anything else ever comes from this series, right now it’s the only one she’s written.

This Is Beautiful: International Asexuality Conference

 This past weekend was the 2023 International Asexuality Conference as part of World Pride in Sydney! The prep was a bit of a ride, no one did anything before about 3 weeks ago, but it came together and was a nice time!

This year (related to no one doing things in advance) I ended up hosting and leading a ton of discussions. It was really great though to like make connections and meet people outside of my usual circles. I was also more or less in charge of a few panels, I was really proud of the Gender Diversity and Asexuality panel as well as the North American Aces panel. I thought those ended up nicely diverse, and as a result we had some good conversations!

I do need to learn my lesson to not do these big conference organizing roles in the middle of the academic semester. Thankfully last week was also my spring break but my goodness I could not have done that otherwise. But with that over with, should have a decent chunk of time until the next conference!

“Refusing Compulsory Sexuality: A Black Asexual Lens on Our Sex-Obsessed Culture” by Sherronda J. Brown

Just finished this book in time for Ace Week! I have been looking forward to this since I found out early this year that Brown got a book deal and was releasing this. It’s a really amazing book, I’ve been tweeting about it as I go through and it’s been a great experience.

The book is written in a really accessible way, while still getting into deeper ideas and themes. All of the chapters are relatively short, and they open with a quick anecdote or illustration of the topic. This would actually make it work quite well as a series of essays, where you can separate out the chapters.

As you can tell from the title, it focuses a lot on race, and how particularly Black individuals are hypersexualized and fetishized. Many people doubt that Black aces exist because of this, and the book is a really strong reclamation of this identity. Brown in particular focuses on the experiences of Black women, and I think reading this text will be so powerful for that demographic.

My favorite chapter was probably the one on asexuality with historical characters. In it Brown goes into two historically queer, Black figures and creates the argument that they could be read as asexual. However, she doesn't go so far as to force the label on them and put them into this box. Instead she simply creates the space for them to be read as such and that space in and of itself is undeniably queer and ace. Which I agree wholeheartedly with, it was great to see this spelled out while nodding my head vigorously.

This is an excellent read regardless of your orientation, race, or gender. It's so important to understand others' experiences and how these ideas have shaped the way you see others. I hope that there's more books like this on the way, this is hopefully only the beginning of this exploration.

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.

This is Beautiful: Heartstopper

 I'm very late to this party but I started "Heartstopper" on Netflix and it is so wonderful and lovely to watch. This is a tv show based off of a comic by Alice Oseman, who I've talked about before in this post on her book Loveless. Oseman is an aroace writer and creator, and she clearly brings her love of the queer community to this creation as well.

"Heartstopper" tells the story of Charlie, a young boy in high school (his 15th birthday party is part of the show, this guy is young) who has recently come out as gay. He's in an obviously unhealthy relationship with another boy at his school who wants to keep their relationship a secret and pretends that he doesn't know Charlie if he sees him in the hallway. Charlie then meets Nick, a boy a year older than him, but he quickly develops a crush on Nick. 

Mild spoilers for "Heartstopper": eventually Charlie ends his relationship with that abusive guy, and he and Nick end up kissing at a party. Nick didn't realize that he was gay and he starts going through a gay crisis. He also asks Charlie if they could keep their relationship a secret while he works through this. And that's as far as I've gotten so far haha.

What's really nice about the show is the parallels and differences between Charlie's two relationships. Because Nick so clearly cares deeply about Charlie, and hates what he's doing to him by keeping their relationship secret. I bet that they'll stop keeping it a secret by the end of the show, but it's getting at a really nice message that I wish more media got at which is that it is ok to be in the closet. You don't have to come out if you don't want to. Sure it'll have repercussions on those you're in a relationship with, but no one should force you to come out if you aren't ready.

And Nick in general is just such a good guy. He panics and agrees to go on a date with one of his female friends, and Charlie's friend overhears and tells Charlie to stop hanging out with Nick. Nick overhears the warning and instead of trying to say anything to Charlie to turn him away from his friend, or denying it, Nick just gives him a hug and tries to comfort him. Charlie's friend confronts Nick a while later and Nick doesn't deny it then either. He's just such a good guy and wants to be a good friend/partner. 

This is a super cute show to watch and it's so refreshing that a queer relationship is portrayed so positively. I want to go back and read the comics now as well! I'm also looking forward to season 2, which Oseman has said will contain ace representation. I bet it'll be great to watch as an ace myself.

"Elatsoe" by Darcie Little Badger

 This book has been on my list for a while now. It's a book written by and about an indigenous asexual. That alone puts it in a class all by itself, I can't think of any other books about an indigenous asexual, let alone by one. (Although if I'm wrong please do correct me as I'd like to read it.)

The book opens with Ellie (full name: Elatsoe) playing fetch with her ghost dog. Her family has the knowledge of how to communicate with ghosts and can call them back. However when Ellie's cousin Trevor dies, she comes face to face with the rule that no human ghosts can be brought back as human ghosts are violent and not themselves as they were in life. When Trevor dies, Ellie receives a message from him saying that he was murdered and that she has to protect his wife and child. The book then turns into a murder mystery as Ellie and her best friend Jay try to hunt down and prove that the killer did it.

On the way, they discover that the murder is a prominent doctor in a nearby town who is close with vampires in the area. On the night that the murderer is set to hold a fancy gathering for the town, Trevor's son wakes his ghost up. Trevor's ghost heads to the party as well to wreck his vengeance on the town. Ellie and Jay and company have to get there and stop him, plus prove that the doctor killed Trevor.

The coolest part of the book is the world. It's more or less an alternate reality where magic is a fundamental part of life. Having ghost dogs is still uncommon, but Jay is a child of Oberon (the fairy king from "A Midsummer Night's Dream") and can create light. Vampires exist and have entire industries around providing them with artificial blood. There's a branch of government for regulating the magic. It's really cool how she integrates it into contemporary society. 

And then there's the dogs. Ellie's whole family is really into having dogs, there are plenty of legends about her Six-Great-Grandmother and her protective pack of ghost dogs. Dogs and their loyalty factor heavily into the book, and as a fellow dog lover, that resonated quite strongly with me.

Ok so the asexual things, what's nice about this book is that the fact that Ellie is asexual is dropped so casually into the book. There's some references to how she doesn't date and doesn't understand romantic relationships, but the word "asexual" is actually used about halfway though. It's great that we can have books like this that don't have to explain fully what asexuality is and can have a character just exist as asexual.

And the indigenous aspect is wonderful. The book is steeped in Lipan Apache culture, most explicitly in the funeral rites for Trevor. Details like how people can't know the location of the body and things like that become plot points in the mystery. There's also plenty of stories about Six-Great-Grandmother that get into how the indigenous tribes were forced off of their land. There's even a curse that Ellie's mother puts on a vampire saying that he is not welcome on their land. It positions indigenous people as a kind of superhero while on their land, which is quite cool.

I adored this book, and I remember reading a while back that Darcie Little Badger has another book out now! I hope that I can get my hands on it soon.

Pride Month 2022

 Happy Pride, but just to everyone who doesn't feel fully part of the queer community!

Whether that's because you're single, uninterested in romance, uninterested in sex, not a fan of alcohol, closeted, a person of color, not from the US/UK, disabled, "not queer enough," unsure of where you fit in, or anything else. This month is for you! There is a community here to support and accept you!

I hope you're able to do something fun and empowering this month, which might involve attending a formal celebration or not! And if you don't have a supportive community already, then I'm your community now.

"Loveless" by Alice Oseman

 Recently for a book club I finally got around to reading Loveless by Alice Oseman. The book has gotten a lot of attention lately, what with it winning the Bookseller's 2021 YA Book Award, and being a great portrayal of asexuality and aromanticism. I really liked the book! I mean I have a lot of thoughts but it's so nice to see a portrayal of this story and it just highlights the need for more of them.

The story follows Georgia, a high schooler about to graduate and head to college with her two best friends. She's never been in a romantic relationship, or even kissed anyone. It's not something that she's been worried about, but she's starting to get concerned that she's behind everyone else and "not normal." When she gets to college she meets her roommate Rooney, a sex positive Shakespeare-obsessed mystery who slowly turns into a friend.

Georgia decides to try and date her friend Jason, figuring if she can love anyone then it's him. It ends with her realizing through her friend, Sunil, that there's such a thing as not being interested in sex and romance and it's called being "aromantic asexual" or aroace for short. Jason is devastated. Meanwhile Rooney has fallen for Pip, Georgia's lesbian best friend, and Pip likes her back but it's complicated since Rooney hasn't realized that she's queer yet. Rooney then tries to help Georgia out by kissing her and Pip sees. She's also devastated. 

Final part of the book mostly centers on Georgia getting her friends back together again. And coming to terms with her identity. She isn't necessarily "proud" yet, but she knows that she'll have the love of her friends for the rest of her life. 

One of the things that this book does really well is with giving an explanation of asexuality and aromanticism that doesn't feel like a lecture. It gets woven in with the characters journeys and understanding of the concepts, taking the reader with them. She also shows the breadth of the community by having characters that aren't white and discussing that intersectionality, as well as characters that are asexual and not aromantic or aromantic and not asexual.

I really liked the book for a more personal reason, which is that it reminded me a lot of my own journey. Not because I'm also asexual but because the book takes place in the UK, the first place I joined a queer org. The discussion of drinking and clubbing culture, Fresher's Week, the structure of the college, even the formal event really brought me back. I realize that this is super specific to just me, but it speaks to how realistically the characters and the setting are portrayed. 

The book doesn't get into queer platonic relationships at all, or how aromantic individuals can still date and form partnerships. I think in some sense this is beyond the scope of the book, a lot of it is simply about how you don't need to follow the trajectory that everyone else does, and it's alright to mourn this, but you have to do what makes you happy. It does feel in some ways that something has been left out though. But I'm not sure, it works on its own without that just fine.

My only issue is at the end of the book Rooney says that she's going to be Georgia's best friend for life and that they can still be each other's special person even if they aren't in a romantic relationship. Which is cute, but I have to be honest, that's something that I think everyone has said to a friend in college and then stopped talking to them. Plus Rooney just got into a romantic relationship which is a good sign for people about to leave their friends behind. Not to mention that the book ended right after that so we didn't see them navigating these relationships or anything like that. It's cute, I get it, but I think it detracted from the intensely realistic depictions in the rest of the novel.

Read Loveless! It's so important to support aroace stories and aroace creators! There's so many good things about this book.

International Asexuality Day 2022

 Oh my goodness I totally forgot to post for International Asexuality Day this week! International Asexuality Day (IAD) is a day for celebrating asexuality all over the world! This is the second annual IAD and probably my favorite this far haha.

Personally, I celebrated the day by participating in a panel on sex education in schools. It was host by an asexual group based in the Netherlands (NOA) and featured other panelists from Argentina and Italy. It was really cool to hear about everyone else's experiences and thoughts on sex ed, and to get at the differences between countries.

You can watch the panel here! Happy IAD and hug an asexual today.

Aro Week Planning

February 21-26th this year is Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week! I'm super excited for it, it's always fun to have these advocacy weeks in my schedule. It's more challenging with Aro Week since it's less well known, but that doesn't make it less important. If anything it means that this work is more important than ever.

This year putting together some events were a bit of a struggle. Originally we wanted to do a student panel, similar to what we did for Ace Week in the fall. But no students were interested. So then we tried to do a panel on aromantic research, and no one was free. Well one person was free but she wanted a LOT of money so that wasn't doable. (Seriously everyone I asked said that panels didn't come with monetary compensation most of the time so I don't know what was going on here.) It has ended up being a presentation on aromantic research that I put together myself and I think it'll be a lot of fun anyways!

Which is an important aspect of activism: flexibility!!!

Our other event is a workshop on aromantic identities as well as healthy relationships! We had to work really closely with the organizer here since they aren't aromantic themselves but it's really cool to see this shaping up! I think it'll have a lot of good information in it and it definitely isn't stuff that gets talked about very often. How do you communicate what you want in any kind of relationship? What about having sex when you aren't romantically attracted to your partner? That sort of thing.

I'm really excited! I think this'll be exciting. It definitely is the biggest Aro Week that I've been a part of.

The Phrase "Love is Love" Is Harmful to the LGBTQIA+ Community

 Every once in a while I go off on a rant about this phrase and the problems it presents. I don't think I've ever written it down though, so here's a post about why using the phrase "love is love" actually negatively impacts most of the queer community and needs to be retired yesterday.

"Love is love" implies that the only reason people are queer is WHO they love, full stop. Which isn't the case anymore, there's the aromantic community (who do not feel romantic attraction), trans community (who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth), and the intersex community (whose biological sex does not fall neatly into male/female). All of which are queer and none of these identities are based on strictly WHO they love. You could easily have a straight trans individual, who is still a cherished part of the queer community.

To take a closer look at these identities, let's start with the aromantic community. It's true that some individuals within the aro community do identify with "love is love" because they love their friends or because they date, but there are plenty of aros who describe themselves as being loveless and say that they don't love at all. Just because a subset identify with this phrase, doesn't mean you can use it to apply to the community as a whole. Like everything else, it is a spectrum. You can personally identify with a phrase without tacking it onto everyone. It feels really gross to me that part of the aromantic community is alienating another part over this. 

Not to mention that emphasizing that aromantic individuals can love misses the point entirely. The existence of the aromantic community indicates that love is not an essential part of human existence and that space needs to be made for those who want to stay single and on their own. Turning that around to make it about "hey we aren't that different from you" reflects what the queer community did to the trans community (more on that later) and it's a brutal way to get acceptance.

I'm also unconvinced that anyone saying "love is love" is actually thinking of the aro community which isn't enough for me. I personally identify as aromantic, and I even date and am in a romantic relationship. Seeing this phrase around Pride Month doesn't make me feel included. I don't think anyone is using to explicitly include the aromantic community. It's more the case where some aromantics have reclaimed and adopted it. Which is fine, but it indicates that this phrase isn't being used for the whole community. Which is more reason to not use it for that.

Trans individuals are queer because of their gender identity. They could identify as trans and heterosexual. This is directly excluded by "love is love." In fact, post-Stonewall, this phrase has directly been used to exclude the trans community. A big part of marriage equality was making the case that queer people are exactly the same as straight people, they just love different people. Since the trans community doesn't fit into that, they have been thrown under the bus. Recently efforts have been rectifying this, but there is a lot of history there.

Intersex individuals are queer because of their biological sex and they are also excluded by this phrase. The intersex community has time and time again been marginalized within queer spaces. It's often forgotten about, or tacked on as a last-minute addition. But again, intersex people are queer and belong in queer spaces.

This phrase can be wielded in a very bi/pan-phobic way as well, in that people are quick to revoke "love is love" the second a bi/pan person is in a relationship with the opposite gender. And bi/pan people don't stop being queer once they're in a "straight passing" relationship"! So here these identities may not be queer based on who they love! What a concept.

With all that in mind, the only communities that directly vibe with "love is love" are the gay and lesbian communities. And if that sounds like TERF nonsense, that's because it can be! Again, "love is love" has been used to directly exclude the trans community, and separate them from modern queer rights movements by insisting that queer people are the same as straight people, we just love someone else. This is an attempt to water down queer existence to make it more palatable by alienating part of the community.

The bottom line is that people are queer because of WHO THEY ARE and not WHO THEY LOVE. Any attempt to say otherwise is likely gatekeeping queerness, and we need to be mindful of this to be supportive of everyone in the LGBTQIA+ acronym. To that end, I suggest that we abandon this phrase, and instead pick up something more inclusive. There's plenty of options, "we're here, we're queer, get used to it" or "LGBTQIA+ pride" or anything else. Doing this will allow many people to feel more comfortable within the queer community, and create more acceptance for us. So drop this phrase, get a new inclusive one instead.

“The House in the Cerulean Sea” by T.J. Klune

My family has been recommending me this book for ages now. My sister actually bought me a copy as a Christmas present and that’s how I got my hands on it. I had heard about it before, good things of course, and had heard that the author is asexual. So of course I wanted to read it!

It is a light read to be sure, but it’s enjoyable. The story follows Linus Baker, a caseworker for the governmental department in charge of magical youth who evaluates the orphanages that magical children live in, to make sure that they are being cared for. He does everything by the book, to the letter, and exactly as the rules and regulations dictate. He is, in fact, so thorough, that Extremely Upper Management assigns him to a case where he must live in a remote orphanage for a month, and report back on whether he thinks it should remain open or not. This orphanage is different though, one of the children is the Antichrist, and the others are just as unusual. He is reluctant and frightened, but during his stay there he learns about the children and about himself. He also learns that the man in charge of the orphanage, Arthur, is a magical being himself. By the end of the book, Linus has convinced Extremely Upper Management to keep the orphanage open, has moved into the orphanage himself, and is getting married to Arthur!

So the main conceit of the book is not too hard to guess. It’s all about prejudice and deciding that you know a person before you even speak to them. The children have had everyone decide who they are and what to do with them since they are born, it isn’t until they come to the orphanage and meet Arthur that an adult actually lets them be children. There’s a scene at an ice cream shop that directly parallels images from the civil rights movement in the US of course. But the gang finds allies in the mayor of the town that the orphanage is in, and they manage to start some change and win some hearts.

It's also really nice to see a queer romance from a queer author that doesn’t veer into unhealthy tropes. Linus is never unsure of his sexuality or deals with internalized homophobia. He simply deals with the fact that he’s scared to take a leap of faith on another man, something that we all deal with regardless of our sexuality. It’s nice to see, for a change. Not every book has to deal with all of the hardships of coming out and being yourself. And it’s written by an asexual gay man!

If you need a feel good gay story, this is just the book to read! Nothing serious, but all around enjoyable with a good message. One of the reviewers said that it’s like being wrapped up in a gay blanket and I really think that’s a good way to describe it.

Queer Webseries

 There's a huge vacuum when it comes to representation of queer identities in media. So it's understanding that many people have turned to indie webseries to make their own representation. Or to just look there for representations of what they're experiencing. And in theory this can be really cool, many more stories can be told a lot better when people make them themselves. But I've found that there's plenty of reasons why these can... fall flat. Lack of a budget for one, and using people who are figuring out what they're doing as they go isn't always the greatest. Regardless of these reservations though, I think there's a reason why so many of these speak to people, so don't let my critiques here stop you from watching them.

One production that I think can highlight the highs of webseries really well is "I Put the Bi in Bitter." It tells the story of a bisexual high schooler with coming out, having a crush on a female classmate, talking to her family about being queer, and navigating college applications. I tend to promote this show to anyone who will listen to me, because I think it's a really great show and a lot of fun to watch. The cast is diverse, there's bi, gay, lesbian, characters and allies, and while the acting isn't sublime it's quite good. The writing also is great in that the writers know how to take their time. Most webseries only have about 10 minutes per episode and instead of cramming a whole arc in there, this show knows how to give us a single scene or interaction per episode. It shows that they have a great sense of timing and how to tell this story. Finally the cinematography is fun in that characters' emotions will appear as emojis around their heads. It's super simple, but really effective and helps the show to stand out from others that play it more conventionally.

To contrast, a show that I think misses the mark is "BIFL." I had heard a lot about this show since it features both an ace lesbian and an aro bi, neither of which you see often. I finally watched it and honestly, I didn't think it was remarkable beyond that. The characters seemed a little two dimensional, the ace lesbian is mostly mad all of the time, and the bisexual main character just pines over her best friend. The straight guy just wants his roommate to get together with his friend. There are some interesting side points, but the show doesn't have the time to flesh them out fully, like one character's struggle with mental health. For sure this show has less of a sense of how to effectively tell a story within 10 minutes. There's a reconciliation between two characters that felt really rushed and made their whole relationship difficult for me to believe after that. Plus, and this might just be my preference, the plot revolves entirely around romantic relationships. And there's two of them! You could have at least had one be romantic and pick anything else for the secondary plot. 

Having said all that, "BIFL" only has 1 season while "I Put the Bi in Bitter" has 3. So they've had more time to find their feet. And whether the show is good or not, I'm still glad that it exists and that people are making this. So if you check out the show links, they are crowdsourcing for money to make more episodes. Watch what they have, and if you like what you see, donate to get more produced! It's well worth your money dollars.

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.