QAC 60 – Race, Culture & [A]sexuality: Support Asexual People Of Color
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…
a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian
…soooo, i just had a 1.5 hour conversation with a random Nigirian guy at Starbucks and i need to let off some steam. so, as you’d predict, i met random Nigirian guy completely randomly when i got off a train one night after work and he came chasing after me to strike up a conversation. me being the overly nice person that i am who finds it hard to say “i’m tired, go away.” ended up engaged in a short conversation with him. he seemed like a nice enough guy and i couldn’t help but feel for his situation of being the sole non-Japanese person at his workplace and not having anyone to talk to because he can’t speak Japanese. when he asked to keep in touch after i finally got up the nerve to tell him i had to go i obliged, although i knew well enough by now not to…
Q&A: “I had someone who was a POC tell me [maverique] was appropriative of POC cultures…”
anonymous said: This is probably a complex issue, so apologies in advance if I have to send multiple asks, but I’m white l, and recently I have been identifying as Maverique, it is the best way I’ve found to describe my gender and it sits very well for me, but I had someone who was a POC tell me it was appropriative of POC cultures and was basically just ‘white people taking it and making it okay to id as a third gender’ and, while I disagreed with them and it was very upsetting, (pt 1) I know it is not my place to argue with them over what is and isn’t cultural appropriation. I’m not really sure what to do, because they told me it would be racist of me to continue id’ing as maverique and that I should use neutrois or something similar instead, but neutral terms aren’t…
sigh.
edited 05/19/2018 to note that while i still stand behind what i was trying to say with these posts, i now find how i went about saying it beyond embarrassing…. but am not deleting it because Accountability. blaqueer: i’ve screencaped these posts and made an original post as to not derail the posts in question or come across as calling out anyone in particular, as that is not at all my intention behind this post, but… i’ve been seeing these flags (and variations of them) floating around both Tumblr and Twitter for over a year now and every time i do, i can’t help but think to myself… people who are not American and thus would not be familiar with US history aside, do [young] people these days not recognize the symbol on these flags as being a re-purposed Black Power Fist….? do [young] people not know that this fist…
that feel when
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.
Q&A: “I’ve heard it called “queer straightness”…”
dear anon from this post, upon hitting “post” after typing up a response to your most recent asks, Tumblr decided to be a Piece Of Shit and not actually post the ask at all. i have no idea where that ask even went, but thanks to a browser extension i still have my response to the asks word-for-word, so here it is without the first part of the ask and thus missing a lot of context for everyone else, but oh well… (2) I’ve heard it called “queer straightness”. Imo that’s not a reason to banish anyone from anywhere , but then again, I don’t know how things work over there. Thanks again for answering, now I understand this whole situation better. ( re: this post ) thanks for coming back and responding to my response, anon, and i apologize from totally running away with your ask. my response was…
Q&A: “I’m thinking about using the meaning of my given name as my name…”
anonymous said: I’m thinking about using the meaning of my given name as my name, but it sounds a little odd. So I was going to remove a letter, but removing a letter made it identical to a name from a culture I don’t belong to. Since it’s a deliberate variation of a word that isn’t culturally specific is it okay? Or should I leave it be an look for something else? Would using the variation as a nickname and the other as the official name be better? I’m not sure and it’s giving me anxiety. no matter who you ask this question to, i feel like the answer that you get is inevitably going to be a subjective one dependent on the personal opinion of the person answering the question because there is no rulebook for names and cultural appropriation. in other words, all i can do is tell…
…limitations of intersectionality
…so earlier today i was interviewed for an upcoming podcast for queer people of color. it was great! i spilled my guts all over the place in a rather embarrassing way and it’ll be available for your amusement in the near future! but now i feel a need to unload some disjointed, messy feels about intersectionality. tl;dr: it’d be nice if intersectionality could happen on more than just two (occasionally three) axes at a time, but that’s unlikely to ever happen.
Tokyo Rainbow Pride 2016 musings
a long and rather pointless post in which i write out some of my thoughts and experiences along with photos from last weekend’s Pride in Tokyo. this post is photo heavy. for more photos from TRP, see these posts: ☆ ace & nonbinary photos ☆ general photos warning: slurs, scantly clad men and mention of genitalia. this year i went to TRP on both Saturday and Sunday for the first time. while i’m glad i did, i’m really kicking myself in regards to how i did it. i ended up being ridiculously exhausted both days before i’d even boarded the train to Tokyo all because i called myself saving money by not booking myself and Yuki (my hedgehog) into a hotel so that i could spend the night in Tokyo. the result was 5 hrs/day of riding trains two days in a row. i’m still not recovered and this entire post is…
Q&A: “In your experience, does the culture in Japan label asexuals as “otaku”, “shut-ins”, or with mental illness?”
anonymous said: In your experience, does the culture in Japan label asexuals as “otaku”, “shut-ins”, or with mental illness? Or is there not as much discrimination as there is in the asian-american community? i can’t compare Japanese culture to those of Asian American communities because i’m not Asian American myself, so i can’t comment on what happens within Asian American communities. having said that, in my experience, asexuality is even less heard of in Japan than it is in America. since society for the most part doesn’t even know asexuality is a thing, i myself am not really out outside of LGBTQIA spaces and the majority of the Japanese aces that i know aren’t out outside of LGBTQIA spaces either, i have no experience with and haven’t heard of asexuals in Japan being labeled as such. yes, there certainly is stigma towards “otaku”/オタク (which doesn’t mean the exact same thing…
