i know i’ve mostly been M.I.A. this Asexual Awareness Week, but @buzzfeedlgbt made a really nice video for their Facebook page in celebration of AAW that i was lucky enough to be a part of. check it out, if you haven’t already. browse the comments that people have left at your own risk, however. a huge thank you to Sarah at BuzzFeed LGBT for putting this together and to whoever may have pointed her in my direction. 🙂
happy Asexual Awareness Week! last year for AAW i made this video in support of younger aces. this year i’m putting the focus on older aces, because i genuinely feel like the asexual community in general does not do enough to raise awareness of and support for aces who older than the majority of the more visible, active ace community at present. this video is first and foremost a positivity video that hopes to offer words of encouragement to older aces, but i also try to bring light to the unique things that older aces may face, including the desexualization of older people, the taboo of sexuality as an older person & how older aces may struggle with reconciling asexual identity with the identity(/ies) that they already had for years prior to discovering the word “asexual.” i also touch upon things that one may find relevant regardless of age, such…
this year was the third consecutive year that myself and aces in the group that i somehow inadvertently and haphazardly manage walked in the Tokyo Rainbow Pride parade and it was the best year yet! among the many awesome things that happened includes running into two of my Japanese ace Twitter friends who also walked in the parade this year and who were apparently so inspired by our signs last year that they made signs just like them! also, thanks again to Nijiiro Komachi’s awesomeness, it was so much easier to show one’s ace (and non-binary, etc) pride! which in turn not only helped raise awareness about asexuality (and gender diversity), it helped increase visibility and made it easier for aces and non-binary people to find each other! during the parade, i was even able to spot a few onlookers who had ace flags. after the parade, the most awesome…
…annnd it’s finished! it’s not perfect, but whatever. it’ll do. tomorrow is the start of Tokyo Rainbow Pride and thanks to this flag, there’ll be even more ace visibility in the parade this year. 🙂 the flag was made using the fabric that i found at Yokohama Pride last year and i still have enough leftover to make two more flags if i wanted to. the long-since-retired ‘born this way’ flag that i got at Las Vegas Pride years ago was only used to check proportions. next year’s mission: find or make a non-binary flag because apparently flag manufactures do not know or care that the non-binary flag is not the same as the genderqueer flag and i want a non-binary flag goddamnit.
youtuber @ashleymardell just released part 1 of her long awaited trilogy on asexuality and aromanticism! this video series is about both asexuality and aromanticism and is part of a larger series of videos called “The ABC’s of LGBT”. you might be thinking that this is probably just another one of those asexuality or aromanticism 101 videos made by someone who isn’t ace or aro themselves, but that’s the thing. it’s actually not!
like last year, a handful of us gaijin aces went to Tokyo Rainbow Pride and walked in the parade with Stonewall Japan. this year, i personally decided to raise non-binary / Xジェンダー awareness at the same time. 🙂 also like last year, we started out small with there being only three of us, then we ran into an old friend from last year, becoming four. THEN while lounging around someone on Tumblr messaged me that they were there and had seen us walking in the parade, so we meetup with that person and became five! w00t! we even ran into the-shynamites again this year, but i wasn’t able to get a photo of their awesome ace pride sign. ;( i even ran into the author of the forthcoming, crowd-funded book about Xジェンダー / non-binary people in Japan!! D; the asshat that we ran into later aside, we had a great…
today some ace friends and i went to Tokyo Rainbow Pride where we were approached by a smug as fuck acephobic asshat. this video is dedicated to those who do not believe that acephobia and/or asexual erasure are a thing and to those who struggle dealing with people belittling the shit you deal with. let there be video of acephobia & asexual erasure in action for the world to see. content warning: misogyny, asexual erasure, acephobia, offensive-level ignorance, etc etc ※ what is acephobia? fear, prejudice or discrimination against people within the asexual (ace) spectrum; the belief that asexuality is “unnatural”, “wrong” and/or a health issue that needs “correcting”. ※ what is asexual erasure? denying the existence of asexuality, asexuals and/or other sexualities and people within the asexual spectrum; the lack of representation and misrepresentation of asexual spectrum people in the media. edit: later we came across Mr. Asshat again interviewing people…
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)
got my custom made shirt in the mail yesterday. 🙂 had to take these photos a million times as my hair was always covering something. ;( see also: this post and this post about the design of this shirt
