Magni

Yeah, I also think it seems interesting but you're not really giving us a lot of information to go on, both logistically and in terms of content. You said "a personal story" and "different perspectives"...are you planning to do one person or multiple? if multiple, do you have plans to represent diverse experiences? (for example, aro ace, aromantic allosexual, alloromantic ace, people who are arospec but experience some romantic attraction, etc?) Basic logistics? can it be done virtually or must it be done in real life; where are you based? presumably people must be over 18, but are there other restrictions such as where people are from? Can this be done anonymously/via pseudonym? what are your plans concerning privacy of participants? I am also curious why you are doing this project/what made you aware of it or motivated you to do it? Also yeah generally more information about the content and what you hope to achieve would be good.

Hogwarts House: Ravenclaw....I've taken the pottermore quiz several times and I've gotten Ravenclaw each time lol....my secondary house would be either slytherin or hufflepuff Ilvermorny House (I don't think others have put this? but it's also from Harry Potter universe): Horned Serpent Divergent Faction: Erudite Godly Parent: Athena (though I reckon I'd end up as a Hunter of Artemis) so uh.....basically all the ones about intelligence, which isn't surprising because for a long time, basically my only personality trait was "smart"

I don't really see the term "transgender pronouns" used? Like....many trans people don't use neopronouns. Neopronouns are basically any pronouns which haven't been regularly established in english, so not she, he, they, or it. Also, what pronouns people use isn't necessarily tied to their gender? People can use whichever pronouns they prefer, regardless of their gender identity. "neopronouns" is a term literally meaning "new pronouns", and while it's commonly used by nonbinary people, they're not named "nonbinary pronouns" because that would be unnecessarily restricting their use to specific gender identities.

I don't necessarily agree with this? I think it's good to have an umbrella term to include these attractions but which is not itself a specific type of attraction. Though, I suppose having another word for a specific type of attraction like this could be useful? But I think currently, "alterous" is purposely vague in order to somewhat fill that role? Having both is good, but I would also like a term which is not itself a specific type of attraction, but which I can use to describe the other specific attractions I feel as a group. Hmmm....perhaps, like, Oblique attractions as the group, and Obverse attraction as a specifically vague type of attraction? at least, based on the terms that have been previously mentioned

Anyone who isn't cisgender, heteromantic, AND heterosexual has a place in the lgbtqa community, so yeah.

So, hir/zir would be analogous to her; these are examples of a possessive determiner, which is a pronoun modifying a noun to show possession. In contrast, hirs/zirs would be analogous to hers; these are examples of a possessive pronoun. The difference: "That is zir computer" vs. "The computer is zirs" Also, these would more commonly be considered neopronouns rather than transgender pronouns

I am generally of the opinion that if someone finds a label useful for themselves, they should use it? Yeah, be aware of context and how you're communicating it and stuff, but if you find a label useful for yourself, you should use it. But similarly, people shouldn't feel forced into using a label, even if it technically applies, and thus people shouldn't try to force others to use a label. Also, as far as the historical context with usage of words: back in the 70's and 80's, there were way less words, and the lines were more blurred between groups? Such as aces being lumped in with the bi community and stuff. Also I think there was something about "bambi lesbians" who were....presumably ace? With butch specifically, like.....I know before I knew I was ace and aro, I knew that I was queer. Before I figured out I was agender, I wanted to appear butch/androgynous, not only because of my unrecognized feelings about gender at the time, but also because I wanted to distance myself from femininity and what would be considered "conventionally attractive", because I did not want to cater to the male gaze, I wanted to do the opposite such that they wouldn't have interest in me. There is a lot of overlap between lesbians and afab a-specs in how we both are....expected to be attracted to men and yet we're not, and subsequently how we want to distance ourselves from that. From what I understand, both butch and femme are based at least in part on these experiences, which also apply to us. And in general like.....we may only recently have the words for ourselves, but we have been part of the community for a long time, we just would've been grouped into different labels? So in general, arguments trying to exclude us because of historical context are just.....completely mis-interpreting context. *** I feel conflicted by the oriented aroace thing for myself in general.....because, like, I think I'm probably attracted mostly to other enby people? or enby and women but not men? But I also don't know, because while I do feel a distinct attraction worth labeling, the only solid descriptor I have of it is that it is very Demi.....so I usually go with demiplatonic. So, I guess technically I could be demi-oriented aroace? But the way it is set up seems to be only based on gender direction of attraction.....and uh considering they way the coiner has excluded arospec and acespec people, I a) am irritated with it on principle and b) feel that if I did consider myself that way, it would be misconstrued as demiro/demi-ace.....which would have backlash. And I can't really label gender direction with any accuracy because like......I have a sample size of 2 and 3 halves? And with several of them, gender knew them to be at beginning changed? So yeah, it's confusing.....Overall I feel really conflicted over the label so I'll probably just stick with demiplatonic since the aplatonic-spectrum is an established thing which I've always related to to some extent, and even though attraction might be less platonic and more.....mix of queerplatonic, alterous, and sensual, it is simpler. (suppose tangent to overall conversation, but had thoughts wanted share and stuff)

Hmm I would've wanted to add more options for things...on one hand, stuff like non-SAM aro and also like....aplatonic-spectrum or nonamorous or partnering or oriented/angled aroace, etc. But yeah, polls are good! Would be nice to find out more regarding demographics and stuff. It would be nice to do a "census" at some point, but that requires....time, energy, and organization. I have a discord server for aro survey stuff.....which isn't particularly active, but it does generally have people who have interest in doing aro surveys and stuff. I don't want to post link publicly per ce, but if you're interested in joining you can PM me and I can invite you. (this is general/plural "you" btw).

Oof yeah....I haven't had any mental health professional who I've come out to, and stuff like this is part of why I'm wary and mistrusting of therapists because I wouldn't be able to talk about my issues without incorporating the fact I'm aro, but coming out to them seems...difficult. I doubt they would have made a big deal out of someone just happening to be single. If anything, there tends to be a healthy perspective that you need to take care of yourself before able to healthily enter a relationship. But society is such that NOT wanting a romantic relationship at all is seen as a weird or bad thing so...yeah. Tbh them saying a romantic relationship would improve your depression is....a really unhealthy attitude in and of itself? The narrative of finding a partner to fix you and make you happy is bad and could lead to over-dependence. I hope stuff goes well and you're able to actually talk about what you want to. Also, if they expect you to educate them about aromanticism, during the time they're supposed to be helping you, remind them of what you're supposed to be talking about and tell them to do research on their own time (though possibly useful if you can recommend sources).

That's a good one! Also, "aurea" specifically translates to golden, which is cool because yellow/gold is kinda an aro color (since yellow symbolizes friendship and also is in the aro allo flag). It's also cool because I think a lot of people like AURA because it sounds nice and this sounds similar to that but would likely be a lot easier to search.

I tend to come out whenever I know the other person is also queer. I also was a leader in my college's lgbtqa club and in general wanted to create more visibility for aros (and aspecs in general) and educate others about stuff, so I often would come out and educate others as a part of that. And yeah I always explain with the actual words in these instances. On the other hand, if talking to straight people, I'd be far more likely to just shrug it off as me not being interested in dating. Overall, I don't think people should feel they have to come out to increase visibility, but if you're comfortable coming out in a space anyways, it's useful to feel confident in explaining things and it can be rewarding to educate others and increase visibility.

Yeah...in my experience with irl lgbtqa communities, people have accepted aromanticism but that's not the same as including it? Like....to start with people aren't well informed and need to be taught that it isn't just a subset of ace and stuff. Then there's the casual amatonormative language, assuming everyone wants romantic relationships. Then there's people simply forgetting to mention aromantic stuff. The thing I've had the most trouble with is that romance repulsion just....is not respected. I can't establish boundaries about being repulsed by romance at all without being attacked for it. At one point in my friend group I tried to request we limit or move romance in a d&d game because it made me uncomfortable and unable to enjoy it....and one of my friends at the time, who herself is ace (but biromantic), didn't respect that at all and basically said it was homophobic because it would "limit their ability to express their queerness"....clearly not caring about how it made me feel. (I previously wrote a tumblr post pertaining to this)

Summary of Suggestions: ANREA (Aro-spec Network for Recognition, Education, and Advocacy): Is a unique acronym but is a bit long, hard to pronounce, and kinda awkward feeling. AAN (Aromantic Advocacy Network): Is concise and the words are relevant, but it cannot easily be pronounced as a single word ACARE (Arospec Community Alliance for Recognition and Education): is slightly long and less intuitive; focus on recognition & education is a bit specific whereas advocacy is more open ended. Might be hard to search for since auto-corrected in "a care". ACURE (Arospec Community Union for Recognition and Education): Similar issues to ACARE, but "a cure" has bad connotations/can comes across as ableist. AURA (Arospec Union for Recognition and Advocacy): Is relatively concise and clear; is a recognizable word which has a good aesthetic BUT it also makes it harder to search for. ASAC (Aromantic Spectrum Advocacy Coalition/Center/Community?): similar to AAN but can be pronounced aloud; also emphasizes spectrum more; last word for "C" is unclear. (switching out Network to avoid overlap with ASAN). ARENA & ARNA ( @running.tally what did people suggest these stand for?) Overall People like the word "Advocacy"; it is clear, relevant, and broad Factors to consider: clarity & conciseness, acronym being pronounceable, acronym being recognizable and easily searchable People seem to prefer AAN, ACARE, and AURA the most...I also think ASAC is a good one to consider (I don't know how many people noticed it/it hasn't been commented on).

(Disclaimer: I've only skim-read this thread so might not be consistent with things previously said) I think it's kinda because....for example, society (especially in the US) doesn't really value friendships that much; people don't consider it normal to be affectionate with your friends. Because of that, the word "friend" has been kinda watered down to be a weaker relationship than what it should mean. Therefore, terms like queerplatonic were created because it's not considered normal to be super close to friends and be affectionate, much less prioritize each other as part of life plans. So it's not just trying to make terms that are "closer to romance", it's that platonic isn't considered as strong as it ought to be. I think some elements of it have been formed with internalized amatonormativity, and that has been complicated due to conflicting definitions...especially between the aro community and parts of the ace community. Part of it might also be from trying to explain it to others in a way they'd understand. But yeah I think it's generally useful to point out how the terminology has evolved in response to the surrounding culture; I know I've had previous conversations where it was realized that americans tend to use these labels even more because our culture has made it so taboo and weird to be genuinely close with friends.

oooh yeah! That makes sense....tertiary is umbrella of types, new term is for mix. That also gives me ideas for where to possibly start looking for etymology/word ideas (I won't put here yet because need actually take time to research it). I think I already covered this? Basically the term would emphasize tertiary attractions but it can include romantic or sexual components since that is often blurred for aspec people. But like....it needs to include tertiary attraction? It wouldn't be used for blur between just romantic and sexual. I think to an extent romantic and sexual each implicitly include elements of tertiary attraction, thus why allos generally don't differentiate them. However, I also acknowledge there are a lot of aspec people who do sometimes experience romantic and sexual attractions and that for them it might blur with tertiary attractions and I want to leave that open for them; basically, I want the term to be accessible for aspec people who find it useful and overall I trust people to use the term in a way that is consistent with it's intent? And overall I'd rather err on the side of overly broad use that might dilute original meaning rather than exclude people from a term they find useful.

(I started talking about this some in this discussion, but wanted to make new thread to elaborate on it more) Tertiary attraction is a term to describe forms of attraction other than romantic and sexual. This includes: Aesthetic, Alterous, Platonic, Queerplatonic, and Sensual. (wiki with basic description) I can't seem to find info on the exact origin of this term, but I know I've heard it around for a while. I acknowledge some people may dislike the term tertiary, but for simplicity's sake I will continue to use it unless another term is established/agreed upon. Criticisms of "tertiary" and my perspective 1. Some people do not see why there’s a need to group these different types of attraction. I think it is useful to be able to group them because: There’s a lot of overlap or blurred lines for people experiencing these types of attraction, and often people personally define them a bit differently These types of attraction are linked together as a group because they're generally more “invisible” than romantic and sexual; they've only really been established in aspec communities as we try and discuss the nuances of how we do experience attraction. This doesn’t mean they must always be grouped for everyone, but that it is useful to have terminology to describe them as a group rather than listing them out individually 2. Some people dislike the term because they feel like it implies these attractions are less important than romantic/sexual We can acknowledge that these attractions are relatively invisible compared to romantic and sexual attractions which are most widely known. I think it's more a statement of how visible/well known they are rather than of their importance Tertiary is also used to describe precise colors that aren’t strictly just one of the 6 “main” and most well known colors; this doesn’t mean these colors are less important, just that they’re more specific; generally they get rolled in with one of the more prominent colors. Similarly, these types of attraction generally aren’t acknowledged since most people fold them in as part of romantic/sexual attraction. How I personally experience tertiary attraction: I experience a mix of tertiary attractions in a way I would describe as demi; I often use demiplatonic to describe this for simplicity, but really it's more a mix of sensual, alterous, and queerplatonic attractions. I consider queerplatonic attraction to be kinda a mix of platonic, alterous, and sensual. These types of attraction are grouped for me because I only really feel a single strong attraction which is a group of all these things. I think people generally have different personal definitions of these types of attraction because people experience things differently and also when there is a mix of them people generally want to call it a singular thing rather than listing out multiple things. Developing Terminology: Oriented aroace: this has been becoming more popular recently; the oriented part would be based on how people experience tertiary attraction, and generally there seems to be more discussion recently about what other attractions people feel. (I know this term has had issues with excluding aroaces who experience some attraction, and I do not agree with it because I think it should be more inclusive. However, I would rather this thread not get derailed by discussing that controversy) I think we need a new term which has approximately this definition: A vague type of attraction which can be used to indicate an attraction/orientation which is not primarily romantic or sexual but which involves multiple types of tertiary attraction. (It is primarily for tertiary types of attraction, though aspec people who experience some romantic/sexual attraction can also use this including those types of attractions if they feel it describes their experiences since a lot of times types of attraction blur together). I personally would find this useful to describe the mix of attractions I experience. "tertiary attraction" doesn't fulfill this; I think we need a word parallel to romantic, platonic, alterous etc. which makes sense both as a type of attraction experienced and also as a base for identity labels I don't currently have any ideas for the word itself, just the definition People are encouraged to add more relevant terminology, these two are just the things which occurred to me. Questions/discussion topics/etc: the term "tertiary attraction" in and of itself, things people like or dislike about it, or questions about it Word suggestions for a vague umbrella type of attraction as I defined; also, suggestions for improvement of definition Other terminology/identities related to how people experience tertiary attraction Other things relating to tertiary attraction that I haven't included Question to get people thinking if needed: How would you describe the way you do or do not experience tertiary types of attraction?

Are you referring to difference between singular and plural verbs? Generally, even when used as a singular pronoun, the verbs for they conjugate as if it is plural, similar to how you works. The only change I know of when used singularly is that people use "themself" instead of "themselves"....even though spellcheck objects to it.

There's lots of variations for pronoun sets which start with "Ze". Common ones include: Ze/Zir/Zerself, Ze/hir/hirself, and many others. I know there was at least one of the "ze" pronoun sets floating around before I made mine; it's a logical letter to start a pronoun set with. I personally didn't like any of the existing ones especially because they used the "i" spelling, which isn't consistent with any of the other pronouns? Also they uses the same pronoun for both the possessive and the objective pronoun. My thought process for my pronouns: Ze: he & she both just end with -e Zem: both him and them end with -m; (also I took latin and this noun form ended with "m" in latin) Zer: both their and her end with -r Also, by keeping the only vowel as "e", it made it simpler? plus overall it's similar to they/them pronouns except replaces the "th" with "z"...and then uses different subject pronoun which is more similar to the other singular pronouns. I think I might've seen something listing my specific pronouns or ones very similar once? But I haven't seen it elsewhere. The unfortunate side effect of this is I can't easily buy pronoun buttons, instead I had to make my own

I was going to suggest "Dude" because I initially skim read but then I realized you already mentioned it Oh yeah, I recently found a good list of gender neutral terms (while researching stuff for d&d lol): http://genderqueeries.tumblr.com/titles For boy/girl equivalent, it lists "Neut, Newt, Null, & Gul". I suppose "Gul" sounds decent? I think it sounds like it would sound right for that use in a sentence. Personally I don't see why people need to frequently use a form of address like that in conversation......but that's mostly because I'm very annoyed with my straight relatives' regular use of "girl" in various forms (though I'm not out about gender so don't feel I can correct them).

So I'm agender and I didn't like existing pronoun options so I made my own. While I commonly use they for other people, I didn't like it for myself; I think part of that might've been because of the backlash against it for being plural, but also because the common historical usage of it as a singular pronoun involves has a connotation of vagueness, whereas I wanted to be referred to specifically rather than vaguely? Amusingly, my in-denial 16yo self came up with my pronouns "hypothetically" in the context of trying to think what would make sense. (here is a chart I made for explaining usage):

I ship characters but I’ve noticed that pretty much all of the characters I ship are ones who are friends/have a strong platonic bond....so I think I would ideally ship them queerplatonically but due to the culture in fandom I just go with romance “ships” because it’s easier.

I would like to propose the Demiguise (from harry potter) It keeps with the theme of magical creatures for erased identities (pansexual unicorn, ace dragon) it turns invisible, such that even other magicals can't see them (similar to how even other lgbtqa people often don't know about us) they look really cuddly! they also have divination powers

I put sometimes for Hugging and Cuddling because while I reeeeaaaallly love hugs & cuddling, I only actively want to hug/cuddle one person and in general I'm uncomfortable hugging most people, even those who are friends/family.