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astriiformes

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  • Name
    Nate
  • Orientation
    Aromantic
  • Pronouns
    He/him
  • Location
    Minnesota, USA

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  1. This has been on my mind as something important as well. Getting connected to other queer people (even ones who aren't aro, but who are good at being aro allies due to having an earnest desire to support the idea of a truly broad-spectrum "queer" community built from people of many different identities) has been pretty revolutionary for me, personally, and I've been thinking a fair bit about how to try to expand those communities and make it clear they're welcoming/bring some of their strengths into online spaces. The other challenge, of course, is accessibility. Even if we succeed in making certain groups more welcoming to aros, people will have barriers to joining them. I've identified as aro since 2013, but I didn't get involved in any queer groups for a diversity of reasons that I know still exist for many other people (and sometimes, still exist for me). In high school I didn't feel safe coming out and also lived in a conservative suburb with few transportation options and even fewer opportunities to get involved with the queer community. In college, anxiety kept me out of queer clubs as the Discourse was really starting to take off and I was worried I wouldn't be welcomed there, and while one of the schools I went to had one specifically for aros and aces, I had a class that conflicted with their meeting time and it wasn't possible for me to check it out. After leaving school, I again was living in the same suburb where I'd lacked options previously, and while I was starting to try to make the trip to the larger city it was near more often as an escape and even sought out a job downtown, I eventually had to abandon the idea of getting more involved with queer groups because my chronic illness made it possible to make the four hour round trip there on public transportation, which was my only option as assorted issues related to neurodivergency have made it so that I still don't have a driver's license (and wouldn't have had a car, anyways). All that, of course, is coming from someone who agrees wholeheartedly that offline communities and activism are life-changing and critical to acceptance and progress on aro issues, but it also means that happy as I am now to be starting to find ways to be more involved in that (though some of the barriers, like my anxiety and chronic illness and a strange work schedule, at the moment, still exist and still make that challenging), I also know what it's like to be on the outside of that, sort of wistfully looking in. Online sources were my only option for aro community and they did accomplish helping me discover and connect to my identity, undeniably. I think talking about how to bring aro issues into offline LGBTQIA+ or even aro or aspec-specific spaces is one step, but figuring out how best to transfer/replicate/provide some of those same benefits to people who have barriers to involvement -- aros in rural areas, disabled aros, aros who feel they can't risk being outed as queer, or any other reason -- in order to help the whole community, as well as to make sure some of our most vulnerable members are included and taken care of and given resources is an important, horizontal priority.
  2. Aha, this is super old but I figured it was probably still worth replying -- yeah, it's my handle on a few other sites, tumblr included.
  3. Hey, I haven't used a forum in what feels like forever, but my name's Nate and I've been really hoping/wanting to try to connect with more aro folks and more of the aro community as a whole, so I thought I'd finally give this one a swing after hearing it mentioned occasionally for a little while. I'm very aro and in my early twenties, trying to get the hang of this whole adult thing, but I've identified as aromantic since I was 16 or 17, so for a pretty significant portion of my life. That being said, I feel like I'm in the middle of having to understand and figure a lot of things about my identity out even right now, which is why it seems like such a good idea to try to talk to other aros more.
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