#flag discourse

What’s covered in this new flag is already covered in the original. More importantly, we don’t need to emphasize on love in order to affirm our experiences as true. That’s just my opinion as an alloace person. The yellow stripe is the only added meaning I can get behind since a lot of queer discussions— be them on Tumblr or on other social media platforms— are largely dominated by white americans. Some of whom could really stand to learn what intersectionality is.

At the same time, people are worrying too much about it “replacing” the current flag. Whether or not that’s the intention isn’t a concern to me because I don’t think it’s going to happen. I still see people using two aroace flags floating around, the original and the black-and-blue one. But usually, it’s the original. That sort of change isn’t happening overnight. These same worries happened when the Philadelphia Pride Flag was revealed, and evidently that did not happen. What did happen was racist backlash against a flag literally designed to confront racism within Philly’s queer spaces. People still rep the usual rainbow pride flag, Gilbert Baker’s pink-and-lavender pride flags, the Progress Pride flag, etc. People have options, the Philly Pride Flag being one of them. I digress.

Personally, I won’t be using it because I like the current asexual pride flag as is. The only addition to this proposed one I like is the emphasis on multiculturalism and intersectionality. Otherwise, there’s not much else I’d consider. No one’s obligated to use it either. I’m sure y’all know that, but I think folks are getting worked up over something that they ultimately won’t see outside of social media for a while. And if they do, they’re still going to see the current one in usage as well. Why? Because very self-contained online discourse over a single flag isn’t going to undo what people are already familiar with.

Im saying this as an aroace lesbian interested in dating!!! Im all for trying to improve understanding of aspec people who pursue relationships or feel other types of attraction, but I truly feel the flags should be a universal symbol for ALL aspec people. We shouldnt include a stripe on a flag meant to represent the love we feel, because aspec people should not be forced to define or validate themselves through that!

another issue i have with the flag is the reason behind the redesign. i understand that having the white stripe representing allos is uncomfortable (i honestly didnt know the stripes had a meaning), but i feel like completely reworking the flag is overkill. since the stripe meanings are arbitrary and arguably not that important, simply sharing awareness of the meaning and encouraging people to adopt a new meaning would have been way better. as far as meanings, i think the original flag could have been reworked to have one stripe represent all the nuances and spectrums of asexuality without having each stripe represent a new idea

and lastly, and this is where i think my opinion is a bit controversial, but i felt like the redesign wasnt necessarily community driven. maybe im not on enough ace spaces online (which would be my fault tbh), but i had never heard of this redesign until the flag was already made, and according to the creator, it was based on a set of surveys sent out? never got the memo at all and i would have loved to be included in this when it was being processed. whenever others talk about the flag in a (rightfully) critical way, both the creator and close friends of the creator accuse people of being racist since the creator of the flag is a black woman. like i said, i am also a black ace individual, and while i have learned to recognize when racism against my community happens, i have to say that a lot of the criticism isnt racist. its simply feedback about something that came out of left field for a lot of ace people and they are reasonably upset about it. if the creator did get racist messages, obviously thats one thing. but a lot of the negative discourse about the flag is solely on the flag, its design, and the reason for the change. its frankly disappointing to see this being weaponized

(edit from my phone since I remembered this just now: I remember the creator saying that AVEN rejected her proposal at a new ace flag a while back, and while I do think it's disheartening from a creative project perspective of having your work be seemingly ignored by a large collective, my guess (and it is just a guess, don't take my word on it) is that AVEN probably saw that she was the only representative of the flag and thought that only having one person back up this sudden newly-proposed flag was not enough to warrant having it changed/included as an alternative, so that's why they rejected her. Like I said, I know nothing about what happened between her and AVEN so this is just a guess, but considering the backlash of the new flag being made (assumingly) without other community input, I think my guess makes sense)

(Another edit since time has passed since this: a lot of international asexual communities and organizations have also come forward to say they will not be adopting the flag since its meaning is solely based on English-speaking/USAmerican terminology on various social constructs like race and gender. This makes a lot of sense and why less is more. Had there been less drastic change in the redesign [less stripes, less changed meaning of said stripes], it would have had a higher chance at being accepted. But alas this will all be a mark on online asexual discourse)