Aromantics and Asexuals of the Emerald City
The Seattle Aces and Aros marched in the 2022 Seattle Pride Parade, marking our third appearance in the parade. Thank you to everyone who joined us and everyone who cheered us on from the sidelines. We hope to see you all again next year!
Asexual Awareness Week has again been recognized by the State of Washington this year!
We were the first state in the country to recognize it (possibly the first place anywhere!) last year in 2019. This year, we have been joined by Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Oregon! 5 down, 45 to go!
Here is the full proclamation (click to zoom):
I am very pleased and excited to announce that Gov. Jay Inslee has proclaimed that October 20th-26th is *OFFICIALLY* Asexual Awareness Week in the state of Washington!
I want to thank all of you in this group for helping make this happen! I also want to thank Governor Inslee for signing this, and giving Washington the distinction of being the first state in the nation to recognize Asexual Awareness Week.
This is a BIG deal for the ace community. As far as I’m aware, this is the first time Ace Week has been officially recognized anywhere.
Here is the ceremonial proclamation:
Full Text:
The State of Washington
Proclamation
WHEREAS asexuality is an often unknown and misunderstood sexual orientation; and
WHEREAS people who are asexual but have not heard of asexuality may often feel confused, discouraged, and lonely; and
WHEREAS discovering asexuality can be an affirming, positive, life-changing experience; and
WHEREAS the goal of Asexual Awareness Week is to promote education and understanding about asexuality; and
WHEREAS there are estimated to be at least 70,000 openly identified asexual people in the State of Washington; and
WHEREAS the inclusive and diverse State of Washington is proud to be at the forefront of LGBTQIA+ recognition and acceptance;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Jay Inslee, Governor of the state of Washington, do hereby proclaim October 20-26, 2019, as
Asexual Awareness Week
in Washington, and I encourage all people in our state to join me in this special observance.
Signed this 15th day of October, 2019
[signed]
Governor Jay Inslee
ETA: Click here to see pictures of the physical copy they sent!
Here’s a video to share with your friends for Asexual Awareness Week!
We’ve started a fundraising experiment! We’re now selling some designs on Zazzle and proceeds will go toward paying for the Seattle Aces’ Meetup costs, parade fees, printing costs, that sort of thing. (The best part is that if this is successful, we’ll have people all around the world helping to fund our group!)
Need a “Totally Ace!” bumper sticker? We have one of those!
How about a magnet that lets people know it’s okay to “Be Who You Are“?
Or maybe you need a shirt that proclaims you’re “Strictly Netflix, No Chill“?
(Heck, we even have a pack of 12 cake flavored ace flag tubes of lip balm! Because, I don’t know, maybe someone has really really chapped lips?)
The Seattle Aces marched for the first time in the 2018 Seattle Pride Parade! It was an awesome experience! Here are some photos from the march:
The Seattle Aces will be marching in the 2018 Seattle Pride Parade! This will be the first time there has been a dedicated ace/aro group marching in Seattle. Come march with us! (It’s free and there’s no time commitment outside of the parade itself.)
The parade is on Sunday, June 24th, 2018, and runs through downtown along the mostly flat 4th Ave, from just south of Westlake Center up to Seattle Center.
We are contingent #148, and our staging area is located about halfway between Cherry and James along 4th Ave, below City Hall. We are located between the Cascadia Now and Kimpton Hotels groups and are next to the Fred Meyer Group. Our staging time starts at 1:00 PM.
Here is the map of our staging location:
RSVP on Facebook or Meetup, or stay tuned here for more details.
Facebook Event: https://www.facebook.com/events/579306545763860/
Meetup Event: https://www.meetup.com/Seattle-and-Surrounding-Area-Asexuals-Seattle-Aces/events/247077790/
These are notes from the Seattle and Surrounding Aces Discussion Group meeting of July 9th, 2016. These are notes about what we talked about, relevant links, and other information about discussion topics. This is not meant to be a transcript and is not necessarily even meant to be a coherent recounting of the discussion.
Privacy of group members and keeping that room a safe and open place is important to me. I will try my best to not post personal information or individual stories without permission. If I write something that you’d rather not have on here, please let me know immediately and I will remove it.
We started the meeting by discussing a possible screening of the documentary (A)sexual. (A)sexual is a 2011 documentary about asexuality, featuring David Jay, founder of AVEN and Julie Sondra Decker, author of The Invisible Orientation, and including Seattle’s own Dan Savage as the film’s main villain. It is available on Netflix and other streaming services, and locally, Three Dollar Bill Cinemas has a copy.
It was suggested that we try to tie the screening into the TWIST Festival or Asexual Awareness Week, both of which are in October. Also floated was the possibility of using the screening as a fundraiser for the group (Likely to help raise the entrance fee for marching in the 2017 Pride Parade) and trying to get someone from the film to come to the screening. If we screen the documentary, we’ll probably pair it with a panel discussion afterward, to address some of the problems with the film, as well as to answer any questions that might come up.
We also talked about alternative/additional things to feature. I mentioned a new documentary that’s being made by asexual people (The (A)sexual documentary was made about aces, but not by aces), but unfortunately that is not going to be released in time for TWIST/AAW this year. There is also the recent Telus short out of Canada, called Asexual: A Love Story, which features several people who come to our group!
One thing I’ve seen over and over again is where someone thinks that a friend or partner might be asexual, but not know about asexuality. We came up with several tips for approaching this situation:
This again shows the importance of visibility. People can discover that they’re gay on their own because the possibility of being gay is common knowledge. It’s more difficult for people to discover that they’re asexual on their own, because people simply don’t know that it exists.
Definitions of various ace-related terms came up. I have a glossary here, but it’s old, it’s missing some terms, and some of the definitions it does have are a problem. I’m working on revising that page, and I’ll get some pamphlets printed up when I’m done with that.
There are many, many lists of potential and confirmed aces in fiction. We talked about some characters who didn’t get it on.
Also mentioned were Bones and The X-Files, both of which had strong platonic relationships between the leads, and both of which were ruined when they were unnaturally forced into a romantic/sexual relationship.
The Huffington Post Infographic
