(Purr)ple (L)ace

This survey is about gray-asexuality and grayromanticism. Anyone is invited to take it, regardless of identity. The purpose of this survey is to investigate perspectives on these identities and how they are understood.

Click here to take the survey. It will remain open until September 15th.

[Image description: An image that says "Announcing Community Survey for Autistic Aces and Aros" on a black background with a green and purple border and a rainbow infinity symbol in the middle. The Asexual Outreach logo is at the bottom.]

Calling all Autistic aces and aros! Do you want to contribute to the inclusion of Autistic folks in aro and ace community spaces?

If your answer is yes, fill out our survey! form.jotform.com/221497455800256

Red text says, “Level A Evidence” next to a red arrow that points to an A on a graph clipping from a larger document, which is white with black text.

The rest of the document says: “Long-Term Weight Management. How effective are lifestyle interventions in maintaining weight loss for adults? Weight loss following lifestyle intervention is maximal at six to twelve months. Regardless of the degree of initial weight loss, most weight is regained within a two-year period and by five years the majority of people are at their pre-intervention body weight. A. Evidence Base: A. Consistency: B. Clinical Impact: A. Generalisibility: A. Applicability: A. References: Dansinger et al. 2007; Schmitz et al. 2007; Stahre et al. 2007; Cussier et al. 2008; Martin et al. 2008; Svetkey et al. 2008; Cooper et al. 2010; Neve et al. 2010.

Return to white text on dark background for source citation, which reads: Department of Health and Ageing, National Health and Medical Research Council, Clinical practice guidelines for the management of overweight and obesity in adults, adolescents and children in Australia, Melbourne 2013, p161

@FionaWiller for Unpacking Weight Science

a healthy relationship with food absolutely involves what we call “fun foods”– foods you eat bc you enjoy them (taste, memory associations, celebration, etc.) even if you’re not in need of their nutritional value. pleasure is GOOD and it’s good to experience it thru food! and if you are in need of calories and free candy can help provide them, wonderful.

remember the intuitive eating concepts of unconditional permission to eat and challenging the food police. you get to have as much candy as you want, whenever you want it. that means you can have some now, and you can have some later, too. there’s no need to freeze it or throw it out to prevent yourself from eating it–the candy is not dangerous or “sinful.” this is a great opportunity to practice following your body’s cues, and to trust them. 

if you’ve been candy-restricted in the past, you might eat more than you’re comfortable with. you might even feel sick to your stomach. that’s good data! note it, and reject guilt–you’re learning. and guess what, you STILL have unconditional permission to eat. if you find yourself wanting more in the future, you can have it (this also lets you stop when you want to, bc the candy and your permission to eat it aren’t going anywhere). experiment. observe. trust.

Native Hawaiians aren’t Native American.

Despite our occupation, we are not American. We are Kānaka Maoli. We are the Indigenous people of Hawai’i. We are Hawaiians.

this is actually a very important thing to keep in mind. a senator has already tried to push legislation that would align us with Native Americans in the legal sense decades ago, &this was an exceedingly divided thing because at the end of the day, kānaka māoli are still fighting for the united states to admit that there is no annexation paperwork. our sovereignty movement is alive&well, &fighting for the admittance that we are an illegally occupied nation, which factually means we are not American, &our land is not USA soil.

However you can also turn this argument right around because there are also a lot of people who DO feel that their asexuality/aromanticism is queer. Just like those who don’t consider themselves queer these people too deserve the recognition of their identity.

I for example as an aroace person do not feel included in the straight community. It doesn’t feel right because I am not straight. My experiences are not straight. I DO however feel included in the lgbtq+ community (not just because of my trans identity) they make me feel safe.

Those who want to be included should be able to show up, acculturate into the community, access resources, help and be helped, and overall make themselves members of the community through voluntary participation. People who don’t want to be included and do not consider themselves to be members of the community should not be bundled in on principle just to bolster the perceived legitimacy of community members who share a few of their labels.

They did this shit at my school way back when Columbine had just happened!

Naturally, we invented all sorts of bullshit ways to carry our shit, because what the fuck, we need backpacks. 

My favourites included: 

-Fishing rod with twine tied around two pencils and a small pocket notebook.

-Tons of people got those little clear plastic bags they have in grocery stores for fruit and shit, and used them as see-through pencil cases 

Note: THEY PROCEEDED TO THEN ALSO BAN THE BAGS AS “CHOKING HAZARDS”. WE WERE NOT THREE YEAR OLDS. OUR HEADS DIDN’T EVEN FIT IN THE FUCKING BAGS, AND BELIEVE ME, WE TRIED AS SOON AS THEY ANNOUNCED THE BAN, BECAUSE MOST OF US WOULD RATHER HAVE DIED THAN BEEN IN FUCKING SCHOOL BY THAT POINT. DID THEY THINK WE WERE GONNA STUFF THE BAGS DOWN OUR THROATS? CHRIST.)

-One kid dressed up like a priest and used the loose fabric of the cassock to carry three text books around all day. 

-Someone hollowed out a fucking loaf of bread, pretended to be French all day, and made a show out of pulling a ridiculous number of highlighters out of this fucking bread in the middle of class. 

Now that I think about it, I think that kid invented Panera Bread by accident. Y’know, the little bread soup bowls? This was that, but with highlighters instead of soup. 

Eventually, things escalated, and the principal called the police after he went to the parking lot and found his car broken into– Nothing was stolen, but there were about 5000 fucking backpacks stuffed in his car, to the point that the door wouldn’t even open.

If I remember correctly, the big push to keep it in the DSM came from the pharmaceutical companies who need this diagnosis to exist so that they can market a drug they are currently working on to treat “female sexual interest/arousal disorder”. 

This diagnosis is so fucked up. It not only pathologizes Asexuals, it also pathologizes non-asexual women for having less interest in sex than men. This disorder literally used to be called “Frigidity” and feminist psychologists had to fight like hell to get the DSM to clarify that simply having a lower sex drive than one’s husband was not sufficient for a diagnosis. 

The APA throws in that little disclaimer about being a “self-identified asexual” and the diagnostic criteria of distress, but they did the same thing before they removed homosexuality from the DSM. 

A lot of people think that psychologists stopped considering homosexuality a disorder in the 1970s, but that’s not entirely true. They kept it in the DSM with a slightly changed name and a criteria that the person experience distress about being gay. This was used to justify “reparative therapy” for decades. 

[ID: A graphic in various shades of purple that says "Ace Week" in large letters with "October 24th-30th, 2021" in small text below. At the bottom, there is an ace flag speech bubble in the style of the Ace Week logo.]

Ace Week is approaching! Are you ready?

Caption: [So, you're nonbinary. You've got your nouns figured out, you got your pronouns figured out. What could possibly go wrong? Until, there's a formal setting. You have to use a title. You don't have a doctorate! So you go online, you look "what are gender neutral titles", "nonbinary titles" and everything everywhere says "mx". It's fine. You just don't feel like its right for you. So what do you do?

Hi I'm Tuse, I'm nonbinary and I'm a huge linguistics and history nerd. And I want to share some alternate options for nonbinary titles. Let's start with what we already know. Mister and Missus. Those are the base gendered titles in English. Mrs. comes from Mistress. So, mister and mistress. The ending of those "-ter" and "-tress", those are the modern English forms of the Latin tor and trix.

So one great option is just removing the gendered ending. So just "Mist". I really like this because its simply, to the point. I like to shorten it with "M". But my favorite option is- Latin didn't have two grammatical genders. Latin had a neuter gender. And so, the neuter equivalent of "tor" and "trix", is "trum". So "Mistrum".

I really like this, I use it for myself. I like to shorten it as "Mm". And I really like it because it is unambiguous. It is very clearly not mister, not mistress, not missus, and not miss. That's what I like to use for myself. I love exploring other options for nongendered titles and nongendered language in general.

We have a tendency to come up with one option and then expect everyone who doesn't fit into the two binary options to use that third option. And we don't have to do that. If you have other options for what you like to use as your title as a nonbinary person, I would love to hear it. Please share!]

tomboy, meaning "this child is clearly queer but let's hope it goes away"

sensitive, meaning "clearly neurodivergent and often distressed but let's keep going until they grow numb"

self-sufficient, meaning "next to zero trust in parental figures' ability in various aspects of parenting"

Some things “relationships take work” should mean:

It takes work to learn to identify, effectively communicate, and mesh your needs/wants with those of another person

It takes work to actively listen and learn the other person’s communication styles as well as their needs and wants.

It takes work to maintain a relationship by planning activities together and investing in time spent together

Some things “relationships take work” should never mean:

Relationships take an exhausting cycle of constantly fighting and making up

Relationships require you to compromise your core values or change core aspects of who you are

Relationships take conforming to the other person’s expectations even when you don’t want to

Relationships take constantly proving to the other person that you deserve respect and/or love

Relationships require you to try to make yourself feel and want things you don’t actually feel or want - or at least pretend you do

Simple truisms like “relationships take work” can be misused in harmful ways.

Relationships do take work, but that work is supposed to be a team effort to support and care for each other while still honouring your own needs and desires.

If your relationship isn’t a healthy partnership, don’t feel like you have to stick it out just because “relationships take work.”