...wouldn't it be great if there was more of a sense of intersectional community, comradery, and identity among aces who are also bi? among aces who are also gay? among aces who are also sans romantic orientation? among aces who are simultaneously a part of any other minority community (sexuality-based or not) in addition to also being ace...?
Over the course of the past few years or so, I've had no choice but to come face-to-face with the fact that I'm not exactly the spitting image of mental health. That, in fact, I never have been, having struggled with persistent depression and social anxiety for years, whether I was conscious of that fact or not. As such, debilitating depression/anxiety isn't new to me. Simultaneous burnout and mental breakdown on account of blogging was, however.
Happy Asexual Awareness Week! I hope you, reader, are doing well. Last month, I had the pleasure of sitting down with two activists in Japan to shoot this interview about a topic that is pretty dear to me; that is, about the current state of the asexual community in Japan. It goes without saying that everything that’s said in the video is nothing but the experiences and opinions of three people and should NOT be mistaken as being representative of the experiences or opinions of everyone, but at the same time, who better to ask than two of the most active and dedicated people that I know in what is essentially the current hub for ace activity in Japan (Tokyo)? In this 23-minute and 10-question long (bear with me) interview, I sit down with 21 year old YouTuber, ace activist and friend, Nakaken of Seisei Doudou / 性性堂堂, as well…
it’s always humbling (for me) to be told by someone that something i made / did / said matters to them, but for whatever reason it feels especially… significant? when i’m told it out of the blue offline. i mean, the last thing i expected to happen going into work today was for a coworker, who happened to be in town for an in-house training event, to approach me about having seen me in a BuzzFeed video about asexuality…
Asexual Awareness Week is a week set aside in October to not only show your pride as an asexual person, but to help raise awareness of asexuality and asexual people. sadly, some of the people who are most in need of increased awareness and resources are those who go unnoticed even within the asexual community itself. it’s no secret that the Asexual Community, particularly in English-speaking countries, has a Whiteness Problem. or at least, i hope that it isn’t. there is more often than not a distinct lack of racial / ethnic diversity in asexual communities and spaces, which is why it ought to surprise no one that there is also a lack of resources and even awareness among fellow aces about the unique and diverse struggles and needs of aces of color. with the bulk of asexual awareness, resources and discourse revolving around white faces and common narratives that…
oodlenoodleroodle: queerascat: for the longest time it struck me as odd, the way that the LGBT community at large upholds “visibility” as some kind of goal or ideal to be fought for. it wasn’t until recent years that i actually stopped and thought about it enough to realize why reference to and usage of “visibility” in this way bothers me so much. as someone who has always been and will always be hypervisible because of their race, it baffles me when people advocate for visibility as if visibility is what we all want; as if visibility is even a means to getting what we all want. this upholding of visibility as something important for all of us to fight for seems grossly negligent of the fact that some of us are already more visible than others and that that very visibility is part of what has gotten some of us bullied,…
self-proclaimed allies look to you for guidance on how they can be a better ally while consciously or not expecting their hand to be held or their fragile feelings to be spared along the way; simultaneously oblivious every time they trample all over your feelings, perpetrating the very thing they claim to be against because they’re so focused on the elephant in the room that they pay no mind to their own everyday microaggressions.
doodled a thing about wanting to be (more) active in the LGBTQIA community, but depression getting in the way zzz…
lots has happened since my last video, so it’s time for a life update. because i talk too damn much: @00:00 – sorry for the lack of vids! @01:19 – Yukihari, my new hedgehog @03:07 – Tokyo Rainbow Pride + asexual pride @05:55 – LGBTQ cafe: gossip @06:54 – Japanese FTM magazine: Laph (full video coming soon) @07:50 – the GENDER book (full video coming soon) @08:34 – my first binders (full video coming soon) @09:10 – (rant) being outted again & again @17:09 – thanks ——————- LINKS ——————- Queer As Cat @Tumblr: http://queerascat.tumblr.com/ Yukihari’s blog; http://yukiharihari.tumblr.com/ Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2014 photos: http://queerascat.tumblr.com/tagged/Tokyo-Rainbow-Pride LGBT cafe “gossip”: http://gossip-cafe.com/ Laph (ラフ) magazine: http://laph-ftm.com/ the GENDER book: http://www.thegenderbook.com/
in the beginning there were but three of us, but by the end there were five. 🙂 three of us actually met in a meetup thread on AVEN where i instigated our meetup and sign making for #TRP2014. then while walking in the parade it just so happened that L, who was walking behind us, happened to be ace herself! after the parade i was lucky enough to catch up with SHYNAMITES, whose non-binary pride sign i’d passed during the parade. when i asked to take zir photo, ze told me that ze’s asexual too! D; ah, it was a great day… note: photos #1, #3 and #4 taken by editingatwork and used with permission. (see also: the #TRP2014 photo gallery)
