ERegina Posted February 20, 2019 Share Posted February 20, 2019 Hello! I'm an assistant organizer with Aces NYC, a Meetup.com group for asexuals in the greater NYC area. Since WorldPride is taking place in New York this year, along with the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, we're planning an Ace & Aro Conference to take place on Saturday, June 29th, the day before the Pride parade. We've found a location, so now we're fundraising to cover speakers, insurance fees, and other costs. We invite any aromantics and arospec people coming to WorldPride to save the date now; further information about ticketing and events will be forthcoming. We've set up a GoFundMe, and we'd greatly appreciate your support to help make this conference truly special. The link is here: https://ca.gofundme.com/world-pride-ace-amp-aro-conference-2019 Thank you! We hope to see you there! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 What is it with asexual organisations wanting to add "& aro" to their names all of a sudden? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jot-Aro Kujo Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 I appreciate the attempt at inclusiveness, I really do, but... No offense, but if you really want aros to come to your event, you're going to have to try harder. Absolutely nothing about this looks welcoming to aros, other than having a few aro labels tacked on at the very end. It's literally described as an asexuality conference, hosted by Aces NYC and the Asexual Visibility and Education Network, with a graphic featuring entirely ace imagery aside from one word being green. Do you even care about non-ace aromantics? Do you even think of us at all? Does it matter to you that we exist? Because right now it really doesn't feel like it. I am aromantic. I am bisexual. I recognize the historical link between the aro community and the asexual community, and I love and support all of my ace siblings, but I am NOT a footnote in your asexual experience. My experiences, and those of other aros like me, are important and deserve to be recognized, supported, and celebrated without having to put half of them aside and squeeze myself into an event not made for me, hoping that maybe I can catch a tiny bit of support for some of my experiences (but clearly not all). Don't expect me to even think of coming to such an event unless some major changes are made to the way it's being presented right now. I do not feel welcome, I do not feel supported, and I'm also not so rude as to infringe on a space not made for me, so if you want aros of all types to come to your event... You're going to have to open the door, not just leave it unlocked and assume we know to come in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaviM703 Posted February 22, 2019 Share Posted February 22, 2019 They didn't really say much about the events but they did say everyone on either spectrum is welcome. Maybe they'll get some allosexual aromantics to be part of it. Also, other than the logos of the organizations organizing it, there is also only one purple word. So I don't think we should assume yet that it's not designed for us, because they definitely want us to be welcome there. If we find out that all the events are more about asexuality then that will be different but we don't know anything about the events or speakers yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arokaladin Posted February 27, 2019 Share Posted February 27, 2019 On 2/22/2019 at 4:36 PM, Mark said: What is it with asexual organisations wanting to add "& aro" to their names all of a sudden? I imagine they've caught on to aros complaining about the asexual communities aro erasure and either (the optimistic view) this is a first step towards including us more or (the more pessimistic view but what I believe) are slapping a band-aid on the problem and think we won't notice that a name change is in most cases purely performative and only effects appearance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERegina Posted February 28, 2019 Author Share Posted February 28, 2019 Hi everyone, Thank you for your comments expressing your concerns. I'll address them below. You're right, we aren't an aromantic group, and that's why we aren't adding "& Aros" to our group's name, since we don't want to promise anything we couldn't deliver. Our Aces & Aros conference is a one-time special event for WorldPride. We're still an organization for asexuals, but since aromanticism was otherwise unaddressed by WorldPride events, we decided to also include aromantics in our conference, and that's why our conference is planning an full-day aro activities track for interested attendees. If you know of any aromantic groups holding events for WorldPride in New York City this summer, we would love to get in contact with them! Please message me with their contact details, since I haven't been able to encounter any as of yet. As for partnering with AVEN, we did so in order to secure a conference space--as small as we are, we weren't able to do so on our own because we lack nonprofit status. We would love to partner with a US-based aromantic organization as well; however, we couldn't find any. When attendees purchase tickets, we'll have a form question asking which topics they’re most excited to have discussions about, and through that, we'll be able to anticipate and plan for which aromantic-related topics people are most interested in talking about throughout the day. We'll use those replies to plan our aro-track schedule. We are also in the process of searching for aro speakers, and while we've found a few possible aroace speakers, we'd also like to find aro and allosexual ones to lead discussions and give presentations. We are focusing our search on people of color, since the ace and aro communities are thought of as mostly white. If you have any recommendations for speakers fitting that criteria, I'd appreciate hearing them. Thank you again for bringing up the issues you had about our conference. We don't want aromantic and a-spec attendees to feel like an afterthought, and your input will help us plan a better experience for everyone who comes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaviM703 Posted February 28, 2019 Share Posted February 28, 2019 - Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERegina Posted March 1, 2019 Author Share Posted March 1, 2019 Thank you for the suggestions! We'll look into them! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eatingcroutons Posted March 2, 2019 Share Posted March 2, 2019 12 hours ago, ERegina said: Thank you for the suggestions! We'll look into them! Bella DePaulo would be fantastic if you could get her. Doctorate in psychology, has written books and countless blog posts promoting the value of healthy single lives, and given a great TED talk deconstructing false narratives around the importance of marriage. She usually uses terminology like "single at heart", presumably to make her work more accessible, but she's well aware of aromanticism and five minutes on her Twitter feed should be enough to demonstrate her depth and breadth of knowledge of the personal and social psychology that is most relevant to aromanticism. It might also do you some good to read some of the candid thoughts in this thread about ace groups' attempts to include aro people, and why alloaros especially have not been impressed by them, to help you avoid making the same mistakes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERegina Posted March 6, 2019 Author Share Posted March 6, 2019 We'd love to get Bella DePaulo! We're keeping our fingers crossed that she'll be available! And thank you for the thread link--it was very helpful! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 On 3/2/2019 at 10:27 AM, eatingcroutons said: Bella DePaulo would be fantastic if you could get her. Doctorate in psychology, has written books and countless blog posts promoting the value of healthy single lives, and given a great TED talk deconstructing false narratives around the importance of marriage. Another person, along similar lines, to consider would Elizabeth Brake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bananaslug Posted March 7, 2019 Share Posted March 7, 2019 @Mark is Elizabeth Brake actually aro? I know she coined the term "amatonotmativity" so she would probably be a good speaker anyways, but I was under the impression that she was alloro and poly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERegina Posted March 15, 2019 Author Share Posted March 15, 2019 We did consider Elizabeth Brake, but we are trying to get speakers who identify as aro and/or ace before reaching out to others, and currently she doesn't seem to be working on any research regarding amatonormativity or a similar field. But we will keep her in mind just in case. But I do have good news: out of our 4 confirmed speakers so far, 3 are aro-spec! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Posted March 16, 2019 Share Posted March 16, 2019 19 hours ago, ERegina said: But I do have good news: out of our 4 confirmed speakers so far, 3 are aro-spec! How many of them are allosexual aromantics? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ERegina Posted March 18, 2019 Author Share Posted March 18, 2019 On 3/16/2019 at 11:50 AM, Mark said: How many of them are allosexual aromantics? 2! And we've added more speakers--check them out here at our website! https://acesnyc.org/whos-coming/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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