[mild tw: survivor-exclusive ace 101]

If you’re giving an Asexual Awareness Week presentation or doing any kind of 101 panel this week, here is the number one thing I want you to do to include and support ace survivors:

Tell people how incredibly inappropriate it is to ask others about their sexual abuse history because they came out to you as asexual. Tell people how damaging/hurtful it is for anyone who is actually a survivor to have to deal with that. Encourage people to have some empathy instead, or at least stop being assholes.

Don’t accept the terms that people are trying to set for you when they suggest that people cannot be “real” asexuals if it’s possible that trauma might have caused it. Don’t let them frame the discussion without challenge, and then say things like, oh don’t worry, “those who HAVE experienced traumatic events cannot ‘hide’ in the community”(actual quote from someone’s ace 101 presentation, which is somehow currently still up on the AAW website in 2015).

I wish we (at RFAS) had time before AAW to do a collaborative “how to include survivors in ace 101” guide, but unfortunately we thought of it too late this year, so it’ll have to wait. But in the meantime, I just wanted to at least give that one suggestion. Anyone who has more can post them in the comments.

If you haven’t yet, please read part two of Queenie’s series on using ace survivors as rhetorical devices. I also wrote up some guidelines for how to figure out if sharing something written by a survivor will be okay or not.

For more suggestions about ace 101 stuff, please see Coyote’s reminders.

And if you’re looking for some activism to do but you’re not sure what, you can try making a linkspam, or printing out this info sheet and giving it to a counselor’s office, health clinic, crisis center/advocacy group, HR department, LGBTQ center, or wherever else feels appropriate.

As for me, I’ll be doing mostly local activism this week, which involves a lot of running around In Town, and not so much with the Being Online. But I’ll catch up when I can and after this week is done, hopefully I’ll have time to get to the millions of tasks I’ve been really meaning to get around to as soon as I have enough mental energy left over for them. There’s always something else to do, but only so much I can manage per day!

And maybe soon C will get done with that last question so I can post them! I’d like to get them in before AAW is over.

Have a good week, everyone. :)