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you'll say "i think children shouldn't be forced to eat food they hate" and here comes someone who feeds their kids plain rice and boiled chicken (while eating a nicely seasoned stirfry) claiming that it's okay actually and kids shouldn't be allowed to taste things

[ Link to survey ]

The 12th annual international gender census, collecting information about the language we use to refer to ourselves and each other, is now open until 30th August 2025.

It’s short and easy, for most participants it takes 5 minutes or less.

After the survey is closed I’ll process the results and publish a spreadsheet of the data and a report summarising the main findings. Then anyone can use them for academic or business purposes, self-advocacy, tracking the popularity of language over time, and just feeling like we’re part of a huge and diverse community.

If you think you might have friends and followers who’d be interested, please do reblog this blog post, and share the survey URL by email or at AFK social groups or on other social networks. Every share is extremely helpful!

Survey URL: https://survey.gendercensus.com

The survey is open to anyone anywhere who speaks English and feels that the gender binary doesn’t fully describe their experience of themselves and their gender(s) or lack thereof.

If you can't wait for survey numbers, you can click here for a public spreadsheet of non-secret info with graphs as it comes in, updated manually a few times per day.

Thank you so much!

an aromantic manifesto (full zine here)

pg 2 (full zine at tinyurl.com/aromanticmanifesto)

‘the here and now is a prison house. We must strive, in the face of the here and now’s totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then and there… Queerness is that thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough, that indeed something is missing.’

- josé esteban muñoz, cruising utopia

‘I want a world where friendship is appreciated as a form of romance… I want a world where our worth isn’t linked to our desireability, our security to our monogamy, our family to our biology.’

- alok vaid-menon

This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about when I made that post about activism not being ready for aro-influenced politics yesterday.

Holy shit. This is radical. This is aro-influenced politics. And this is exactly the kind of thing alloros would be enraged about; it would make them feel personally attacked; it challenges amatonormativity in the most direct and bold-faced way possible: DESTROY ROMANCE. Not just the hierarchy around it - the social construct it is.

I have so many thoughts about this. This is so radical that it intimidates me! I don’t know if I believe we should abolish romance entirely - but do I feel that way because I’m afraid of the backlash against such a goal? have I been convinced of romance’s superiority in the way this zine sets out to expose? Now I’m asking myself those questions, thinking about them. I don’t know if I’ll have an answer anytime soon, but I’m thinking about it.

One thing that struck me about this was the structure of aromanticism as a utopia and as a political movement, not an orientation. It reminds me of political lesbianism, which while I am not The Most Informed About, I believe has a sticky history….and deep ties to radfem ideology, so uhh. Idk about that.

I’m hesitant to adopt the idea of aromanticism as inherently political. To me it is first and foremost an orientation; it is not a choice. It is political, yes, but it is not an ideology.

Perhaps it should be. Or perhaps I am misreading this. Or perhaps I’m right.

You can’t choose to be aro, just like you can’t choose to be a lesbian. (I’m not talking about “which label should I use”; I’m talking about the experience of attraction.) Then again, I don’t think this is advocating for everyone choosing to be aro…I think it’s advocating the abolition of romance as a social construct, and therefore the elimination of romantic orientation as a whole. (Which is different from political lesbianism. Though again: I am not an expert.)

I am incredibly intrigued by this concept of social aromanticism. Maybe for now it would need a different name… Aromanticism as an orientation is not the same as what this zine - this Manifesto - proposes. Aromanticism as an orientation is “not experiencing romantic attraction.” This manifesto’s idea of social aromanticism is the abolition of romance and the expansion of relationships. They are linked, absolutely, but…not the same.

I don’t know. This is all an initial response to this mind-blowing document I just read. I will probably end up changing my mind on these subjects, and complexifying my responses.

But this doesn’t have many notes right now - despite having been posted over 6 months ago - so I’d like to boost it. I want us to talk about this as an aromantic community. We need to have these discussions.

Outside our bubble of radical aromanticism, people aren’t ready for this. I admire the OPs of this post; from scrolling through their blog I believe they were handing it out at a convention! Which is great. But alloromantics aren’t ready for this kind of activism.

If we adopt this manifesto, how do we make it palatable for them? Can we do that without betraying the ideals of the manifesto? Queer spaces are built around the reclamation of romance; this will be seen as a threat to that, even though it shouldn’t. And straight spaces…god, I don’t want to think about what my religious mother woudl say about this.

I’ve rambled for too long. @aromanticmanifesto Thank you for your work. I hope that the aro community can have a rich discussion around your manifesto.

[also: I use the word radical a lot in this post. I DON”T want that to be associated with radical feminism, which is bad for reasons i’m not going into now. I use the word in the most literal definition of the word “radical”

radical (adj)

1. (especially of change or action) relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough.

2. advocating or based on thorough or complete political or social change; representing or supporting an extreme or progressive section of a political party.

(thanks google for the def..)

By “political aromanticism,” we are not taking inspiration from white separatist political lesbians, but from queer of color and non-western queer theorists who have critiqued the neoimperialism of modern LGBTQ+ identity politics for positing “lesbian,” “gay,” “bisexual,” “transgender,” etc. as ahistorical identities that have always existed in all communities, when they are, in fact, historically-specific reactions (and only make sense in relation) to Eurocentric forms of gender policing and queerphobic oppression. “Cisgender” and “heterosexual” identities didn’t exist before modern biology/sexology/psychiatry pathologized queerness as a reductively biological, essentialist phenomenon that definitively separated queer people from their “normal” counterparts.

The one thing I did have an issue with is calling romance inherently queerphobic. Not sure what you meant by that but most other LGBTA+ people feel their romance is a defining aspect and an important one in a world that doesnt want you to love those whom you can’t help loving/being attracted to. This can easily come across as homophobic.

Society’s views on romance are mostly based on and enforce outdated gender roles along with some other “rules” that exclude both LGBT+ and polyamorous people.

The UK’s first trans judge, Victoria McCloud, brings action against the UK and has appealed to the ECHR over the Supreme Court ruling.

For the UK peeps!!

i sometimes go pale when listening to some of what my friends have gone through in their childhoods and teenagehoods. they talk about it so nonchalantly, things that would be considered straight up torture if done to an adult, can't fathom the effect this has on children. they are on multiple anti-psychotics and several antidepressants and anxiety meds now that they are adults. medical neglect has legally and effectively disabled them. a timely diagnosis and intervention could have saved them.

1. "Five second rule!" while scrubbed, after dropping a sterile scalpel on the floor (no they did NOT pick it up again but I swear everyone's buttholes puckered)

2. (spoken during the closing of a particularly long and difficult case) "Nurse - my tunes." :heavy metal starts blasting:

3. Gently to a fretful patient, pre-anaesthesia: "It's going to be okay. I promise, I've dealt with worse." As soon as the patient is unconscious: "This is literally the worst thing I've ever seen."

4. [okay this one was a med student] "Wowwww, that's so gross!!" Reg: "Please remember that [patient] is awake for this procedure." Student to patient: "Oh my god. I am so sorry, that was really unprofessional - " Patient, cheerfully, also engrossed with what's happening inside them on the screen: "Nah - it's, like, super gross, right?"