Little Moth Creature

What are your guys bet:

Someone made his outfit with Gabriella's old clothes;

They gave him some of Gabriella's male clothes (and she likes this pattern)

Or

TLDR: I think it's lovely. It's pretty, it's well thought out, and it's already highlighting some really important issues within the community that are barriers to our progress. We can keep 🖤🩶🤍💜, and 🖤🩶🤍💛🩷💜 has a great reason to exist too.

🖤🩶🤍💛🩷💜

I had a bit of a knee-jerk "why bother with change" reaction when I first saw this new flag, but I've spent a fair bit of time with it and its symbolism and that "why bother with change" feeling fell away very quickly once I remembered why I personally didn't really like the 2010 flag (🖤🩶🤍💜) to begin with 😭

I love the aceingrace flag, for a lot of reasons.

🖤 The intention and story behind its creation.

Ashabi (the face behind aceingrace and the creator of this new flag) consulted AVEN quite a bit ago now to ask about the white stripe in the 2010 flag. I've seen bits and pieces of debate over what that stripe actually means and has meant, but the consensus is that the white stripe represents non-asexual partners and allies. Having a whole quarter of the asexual pride flag be dedicated to non-asexuals feels strange to a lot of people. Ashabi's concerns were dismissed by the AVEN board, and so the next logical step was to survey ace people to see what ace people actually want from an ace pride flag.

🩶 It was a community effort lasting 3 years.

Surveys. Literal fucking surveys of over 1000 people were conducted to make this flag as good as it could be and yet I'm seeing people dismissing this as a one-person fan-art project. I wasn't there for any of those surveys but I know they happened because people are talking about them and the results are out there. 82.7% of those surveyed said that the meaning of the 2010 white stripe needs changing, along with a whole bunch of support for represntation of all kinds of diversity within the ace community.

🤍 It keeps clear ace identity in its design.

If changing the meaning of the white stripe in the 2010 flag isn't looking like it's gonna happen despite clear support for doing so, then alternative flags are going to surface. It's remakable that the ace flag has lasted so long without any kind of revision honestly, given how so many pride flags are now several iterarions deep.

This new design keeps the funamentals of the 2010 ace flag. Black/grey at the top, white-ish in the middle, purple-ish at the bottom.

🖤🩶🤍💜 and 🖤🩶🤍💛🩷💜

It's really not a million miles away. It's not reinventing the weel. It's using the 2010 purple base and expanding on it to centre and spotlight more asexual experiences than ever before.

(And a bit more of a personal gripe that I had with the 2010 flag is that it's just so desaturated. I didn't think it was particularly fitting for such a vibrant and diverse community, especially given ace stereotyping about how we're all saddos with lonely and depressing and lives.)

💛 Intersectionality and multiculturalism really do matter and it's concerning that people think they wouldn't.

Everything exists in context, especially sexual orientation and marginalisarion of it. It is so invalidating when people, especially white people, cis people, non-disabled people, neurotypical people, systematically privileged people, insist on taking asexuality out of wider context. For so many people, their experience of aceness is so woven in with other parts of their identity that it cannot be separated, so having a stripe dedicated to intersectionality on this new flag just makes sense.

🩷 The colours are so pretty～!!!

And, crucially, all of them are for the aces. Ashabi said it very neatly that the point of allyship is to uplift, not to take up space, so the colours on the ace flag should be for ace people. This flag has gone above and beyond with that thought.

💜 It's already raising really important conversation.

I've seen people say that this flag is a major setback to the ace community, particularly on Reddit and Instagram, but I'm not convinced. The massive backlash and harrasment that Ashabi has faced for daring to modernise the flag by spotlighting more diverse asexual voices and experiences is disgusting. So much of the criticism she's faced has been misogynoir, repackaged and poorly disguised as criticism of the flag. For people to then go, "Disliking the new flag is racist now?" is just missing the point on purpose. Ashabi has welcomed critical feedback, hence the surveys and revisions the flag has gone through to get to this point. It's devolved into just straight-up shitty and racist behaviour by a big chunk of the asexual community.

This is something that has existed for years now. This is not new. Asexual People of Colour have been saying that the community has a racism problem for years. It's disgraceful how so many POC have felt unwelcome in the ace community by how much it centres whiteness. As a white ace, it’s important to me that the ace community feels safe, welcoming, and representative for everyone, not just people who look like me. It's also just so ironic and embarassing, especially since some of the most influential advocates for our community are Black women. So, if it's gonna take a new flag to (fingers crossed!) make us white aces actually pay attention to these issues, start taking them seriously, and work towards having a better and safer community for all of its members (and the immediate pushback here is very telling that this is something we haven't been doing), then that's a blueprint for a better future, not a setback.

🖤🩶🤍💛🩷💜

And the very fun part that a bunch of people seem to be missing is that nobody is forcing anyone to use this flag. It isn't intended to be a blanket replacement. Much more of a "yes, and" situation. Both Ashabi and AVEN have said that the 2010 flag still stands and have encouraged people to use whichever flag they like more, including those who want to stick to the 2010 design. Nothing is getting destroyed, just added to. No one flag is going to be competely perfect and immaculate and hit the mark for every ace person, so this "yes, and" thing is a practical solution, imo.

I don't know if it will catch on, and I've seen far more rejection for this flag than support, but this update is already so much more than "just another fan work" to so many people and I love it for that.

<3

The asexual community has been advocating for YEARS about the asexual spectrum, and this flag covers so many of those main talking points. "Asexuality is a spectrum" "Aces can still experience love" "Aces can still have sex and/or experience sexual attraction", "The meaning of sex varies across cultures" and, finally "the asexual community is inclusive". Yet, ironically, it seems that the last point is standing out as blatantly false yet again as another new aspec flag has caused the bigots in the community to shine through more than supporters.

Funny thing, some time ago i made one with Armand