GSA or GSA

A lot of schools have GSAs, but what does it mean? For years I had known the acronym to stand for Gay-Straight Alliance. This always struck me as weird and just flat out wrong. There are more than just gay and straight people in the meetings and in the world. What about the bisexuals, pansexuals, asexuals, transgender, non-binary, and on and on. Where do they fit in? The intention of these groups are good. They can be immensely beneficial to the queer community. But whether they mean to or not, the name of the group is a form of erasure.

In college we have Queer Club. While this is a very inclusive name, some people are uncomfortable using the reclaimed slur. This is entirely understandable. But where does that leave us? What should we call these groups?

My senior year in high school, they changed the meaning of GSA. The acronym now stood for the Gender and Sexuality Alliance. I find this name to be far more inclusive, and does not use a reclaim slur.

If anyone out there is planning on creating an LGBT+ group, or currently has a GSA, consider calling it a Gender and Sexuality Alliance. I think you would be hard pressed to come up with a more inclusive name.

Anyone have a different name for their group? Curious as to what else is out there.

Aro-Relationships

I have been digging around in a lot of ace and aro stuff on the internet lately. In part for the powerpoint that I posted a while back, in part so that I have some material to bring to ace club, and in part because I really want to know and try to understand all the different ace and aro perspectives.

One thing that comes up a lot in ace forums and pages is an asexual participating in a sexual relationship for whatever reason (they use sex to connect with their partner, they enjoy the act despite lacking the attraction, etc.). What I haven’t seen a lot of (hardly any, almost none) is an openly aromantic person participating in a romantic relationship. The individuals involved would not necessarily be getting the same things out of the relationship, someone would feel romantically fulfilled by the relationship, and someone else would be platonically fulfilled (that doesn’t seem like quite the right phrase, but hopefully my point gets across).

I don’t see any particular reason why this couldn’t work in the right scenario. Being aromantic means simply lacking romantic attraction. This does not make an individual incapable of love towards another person; it might be a different type of love, but that does not make the feeling invalid or any less than romantic love.  As long as the individuals love and respect each other, it seems like the relationship could work.

Personally, I am very much aromantic. I have never experienced romantic attraction. For me, my ideal relationship is a long term queerplatonic one. (I am currently in a QP relationship, long term just happens to be a bit hard to fathom as we have only known each other for 4 months). But looking at a hypothetical scenario, if I felt strongly connected to someone, and they happened to be romantically attracted to me, I don’t think I would mind compromising in order to make them happy. I am not adverse to a “romantic” relationship, mostly I desire stable relationships in which we share a close bond.

Thoughts? Opinions?  If you are aromantic, would you consider a relationship with an alloromantic? If you are alloromantic, would you consider a relationship with an aromantic?

 

 

 

 

Asexuality Education

I  made a powerpoint intended to be an educational resource about what asexuality is, is not, some of the issues, and other information relevant to aces. My club is in the baby stages of a visibility event (well, not far past the idea stage), but I made this in my spare time for the theoretical event.

I have attached the file- Asexuality

If this is useful to anyone, please use it and let me know! Also if I should add something, subtract something, have a typo, etc. please tell me!

This is awesome

This thing popped up on my Facebook feed a few days ago and it is pretty amazing. Basically someone posted a homophobic comment and it was somehow transformed into a sketch for a dystopian story. Everyone should read this. It is amazing. click here to read

I really wish someone would write this book.

Dog Day

I got a call from my mom earlier today. I guess one of our dogs, Cali, had gotten really sick and they put her down today. This was a long time in coming. Cali had been having trouble for the past year or so, bu she had always rebounded.

Everyone at home is quite upset. My youngest brother is taking it especially hard. It is weird though, I don’t feel anything. It seems like just a normal day. Talking to my mom, she was clearly upset, it seems like I should feel similarly, but nothing. Maybe I am overly logical about this kind of thing; Cali was hurting, now she is not. There is nothing I could have done to change things.

My parents think I just hide my emotions, but some times it is really that I just don’t feel anything. Maybe I am hiding my emotions from myself? This makes me seem really cold hearted, but I just don’t have strong emotional reactions to things. Sometimes I wish I did. Sometimes I feel like a robot imitating how someone is supposed to act.

Anyway, RIP Cali. You were a good dog.

First Meeting

Today was the first meeting for Western Aces! It was so cool to get people together. There was decent turn out. (7 people). We had a really relaxed meeting. The campus was closed today for the holiday, so we met at the bagel place in the library. It’s not really my preference, but it worked for today.

We discussed what we wanted out of the club. It mostly seemed that people wanted a place where they could be with other aces, and discuss ace issues. I guess that makes my job easy as president. I am interested to see what this evolves into.

Everyone also shared coming out stories, which was really interesting. Each person had a very different experience.

Eventually everything devolved into looking at random things on the internet, but we were still having a great time.

I can’t wait until next week when we can get our own space (hopefully anyway, the room reservation system is not currently giving me permission).

A Month of Posts

Tonight marks one full month of blog posts. I have been posting once per day since October 12th. This is my 31st post.

It has been an interesting personal exploration. I have never done anything like this for any measurable amount of time. To be honest, I used to think blogging was kinda dumb. I have realized that it can mean a lot. My blog has become a place where I can spell out my thoughts and think over what I did that day.

I looked over all my posts earlier. So much has happened. I have become much more comfortable with myself. I have created deeper friendships over the past month and a half then I have over the past several years. My life is so different now then it was just a few weeks ago.

I think I will continue to post every day; for now anyway. It is a nice way to end the day, and I have learned a lot about my life in doing so.

Western Aces!

Well it is official! My school now has an asexuality club!

It wasn’t as hard to start as I thought it would be, but it took a while and there are still a couple more things we need to do before we are fully functional. There is no defined purpose for the club other than to be a safe gathering place for people who identify as asexual (as well as allies). Maybe that is enough.

Our first meeting is this Wednesday, assuming we can find a place to meet. The school officially closes on Veteran’s Day, so we can’t reserve a room like we normally would. I am sure we will figure it out.

I am really glad that we were able to get this together. Just by setting this up I have met a lot of cool people. I still have a little prep work to do before Wednesday, but I am definitely looking forward to the meeting.

Muddled

For the past few days, I have just felt…off. I am not sure why exactly. It might be some combination of homework overload and spending a little too much time up in my own head.

Part of the problem may be that I haven’t found anywhere I can escape to. When the weather was still nice I would spend a couple hours wandering the arboretum alone. Now that it is November, it is a less viable option. I miss having somewhere that I can call mine. My dorm room is fine, but I don’t know, there is something about it that prevents me from calling it home. To be completely honest I feel most comfortable sitting on the floor in Jordan and Sarah’s room. I appreciate quiet company, everyone together is too much sometimes but I am also not really familiar with being completely alone. Growing up, my brothers were always around. I like having people nearby even if no words are exchanged.

I have had a lot of things on my mind lately, though I don’t have a good way to articulate my thoughts right now. I have been so busy, or so brain-dead because of homework that I haven’t been able to sort through everything.

My life feels cluttered. In a lot of ways I am happier than I have ever been in my life, but I find myself sorting through my past, and I am realizing that I have built a lot of walls. Most of them are there to protect myself from pain, but some of them keep me from feeling much of anything. Anger, grief, despair, joy, emotions that just seem muted when I compare what I feel to that of the people around me.

These walls have been there a long time, and I don’t know if I will be able to break them down.  I don’t know how much is simply who I am and how much I have constructed to protect myself.

Story Time

Scott, one of the guys in our group has a great reading voice and is often requested to read for everyone.

Tonight’s book of choice? A human sexuality text book to help Jordan study for a test. Not exactly a conventional choice for Scott-io, but it certainly made for an interesting topic. There are so many facets, and so much variation in people’s sexuality.

I am actually considering taking this class. It seems very interesting. As I do not experience sexual attraction and have no desire to have sex, I find the entire concept fascinating.