in some ways, the following post is a departure—an aside, if you will—from this blog's usual content matter, while in other ways it's entirely not. either way, i'd like to take a moment to share a random snippet of my dealings with reverse culture shock as a repatriated Black American...
...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...?
in 2015, i wrote a random, word vomit of a post about being “WhenTheStarsAlignHyperRo[mantic]” while offhandedly reflecting back on what little ‘data’ i had to work off of in trying to figure out my own experience of romantic attraction (or lack thereof). it was the first second (in so far as i remember) time i had questioned not being (allo)romantic outside of my head (& journal) while shrugging off identifying as being on the aromantic spectrum.
six months on testosterone and navigating having a (over)active libido (or “sex drive”) to show for it. as an ace, suddenly having to navigate having a high libido for the first time in my life has been…. interesting, to say the least.
the following post was written for the May 2018 Carnival of Aces on the subject of “Nuance & Complexity“. it may or may not be cleaned up and cross-posted to the YouTube channel Queer As Cat in the future. —— some feel that people in (English-speaking, anglophone) ace communities are “overthinking” things. that the amount of words and identities (also referred to as “microlabels”) which have been coined in such communities is not only “overdoing it,” but even potentially harmful. i’d hope that this would go without saying (but understand that it doesn’t), that i disagree with the former and vehemently reject the latter. regardless of whether i or you or that random person over there petting the stray cat that’s out in the street right now feel such terminology to be useful to us personally, the fact remains that others do and there is immense value in that.
so i finally got to see Black Panther again ( #WAKANDAFOREVER AHHHHHH–) and am now at a Starbucks basking in the afterglow of the movie, about to attempt to herd my thoughts into a more coherent cacophony of words than exists in my head at present. wish me luck.
as usual, i find myself turning to YouTube as a resource for information only to be reminded that…. YouTube is So Damn White. most things non-binary and / or trans are So Damn White. a search for “non-binary” and “testosterone” turns up almost nothing but skinny, short haired, white, non-binary people, none of whom i can really see myself in. which is nothing new. that’s part of the reason i’m on YouTube in the first place.
blaqueer: gaywrites: Yesterday in Philadelphia, LGBTQ activists and city officials gathered to kick off Pride month by raising a new official flag. It’s the traditional rainbow flag we all know, with two additions: a black stripe and a brown stripe. The flag is part of a local initiative to address a history of racism in the city’s LGBTQ neighborhood and community groups. It’s the first time an American city has embraced the flag with brown and black stripes. G Philly covered a leaked video last year that showed a White local club owner repeatedly describing Black patrons as n-words. Backlash to the video, combined with the collective’s ongoing activism, ultimately led to a city council bill that gives the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations the authority to penalize discriminatory businesses. Amber Hikes, a queer Black woman, now heads the Office of LGBT Affairs, and the office’s new commission includes mainly…
anonymous said: this sounds dumb but i really wonder about – i’m trans and there are a lot of times when i feel hopeless, like i will never be totally validated and accepted like cis people are even if i completely transition (sometimes i even wish i was cis so i wouldn’t have to deal with the things i feel). occasionally i wonder if maybe i really am faking it even though it’s been a couple years since i realized that being trans felt right. am i the only one who has these thoughts? am i faking it? i can tell you with 100% certainty that you’re not the only one who has such thoughts and who feels this way at times, anon. it’s not at all uncommon to feel hopeless sometimes; to wish that you were like those around you who do not have to deal with the things…
…today America decided for me that i can’t “come home” for at least another 4 years. i might not have anyway, but at least the option was there. there’s a lot of talk of people wanting to leave America. i get that. i said the same thing living in America when Bush was elected. if only i’d known that leaving America doesn’t actually mean escaping it. not like i’d thought, anyway. next year will be my 10th year of living abroad. i never imagined i’d ever live abroad at all let alone for as long as i have, but the longer i do the harder it becomes to envision a life back in America again. even so, 4 more years on top of the time i’ve already spent abroad puts me that much closer to having spent half of my life abroad… but perhaps that doesn’t even matter, because after today…
