dutch-aro

[dutch-aro]

A little post about aromanticism!

did you know that the first known use of the word "aromantic" as we use it today is here? it was on yahoo in 2002, on a forum that was discussing asexuality and people who identified as "asexual-asexual", before the term aromantic was truly coined as an identity.

the second recorded use of the word (that is often cited as the earliest) was here. it was compared to the term asexuality, and people pointed out that sexual and romantic attraction weren't connected.

however, this isn't the first instance of this!

"In 1979, in her book Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, Dorothy Tennov spoke of limerent and non-limerent people. She, and other theorists, recognized that romantic and sexual love were not necessarily linked. Limerence is an outdated term for feeling romantic attraction and non-limerent people were those who had never felt romantic love. This term ‘non-limerent’ is a precursor to our ‘aromantic’. It is unclear whether this term was ever adopted as an identifier or if it remained solely as a descriptor. So here we likely have a name and no community. " (via aromanticism.org)

because the actual term "aromantic" came around much later than "asexual", it was never classified (officially) as a mental illness! however, lots of people still consider aromantic people to be mentally ill. this is simply not true! but i won't be getting into that now!

this is the aromantic flag! however, this flag that we know and love is not the original!

this is the originally proposed aromantic flag

"The oldest aromantic flag design was proposed sometime during or before 2011, via the now-defunct website of the National Coalition for Aromantic Visibility." (via aromantics wiki)

green is for aromantics who don't experience romantic attachment, yellow represents romantic friendship/friends with benefits, and friendship dating. orange stands for lithromantics, (individuals who experience romantic love but do not wish it returned), and the black stripe is for romantics who consciously choose to reject traditional romantic culture.

this flag was met with criticism! here is just one post on some of the problems people had with it.

in 2014, this flag was introduced:

it was introduced by tumblr user @cameronwhimsy in 2014, as a proposed alternate flag. since the first one was introduced, there had been on and off arguments and flag propositions that never panned out. cameron put forward this post, and the flag took off!

here is the meanings, for anyone curious!

later in 2014, cameron officially changed the colours to the aromantic flag we know and love today. they posted this with the meanings and redesign of the original flag! some people still use the version with the yellow, but it's mostly the second iteration that is used today.

the modern flag includes the entire aro umbrella, including grayromantics, demiromantics, lithromantics, and more!

ily aromantic pals <3

#aro geschiedenis #queer geschiedenis

[dutch-aro]

Ben, 64, Northampton, MA, 2014

I identify as an FTM, non-hormone, non-op, transsexual heterosexual man. That’s the whole string of it. I was in the lesbian community when I was younger, but I never really fit. That was the 1970s and there really wasn’t the language then about transmen or FTMs or any of that. I didn’t have that accessible to me as an identity. I thought, “I’m the only one on the planet like me,” but then in 1985, Lou Sullivan sent his little booklet through the mail to the archives I was working on. It was “Information for the Female-to-male Crossdresser and Transsexual,” a little booklet that he self-published with a little handwritten note that said, “Maybe some people in your archive would want to read this.” Even though he didn’t know me, he didn’t know who he was sending this to, I read it. I read it and within two hours I called him and I said, “I gotta meet you, because now there’s two of us, you know, on the planet.” And I flew to San Francisco to meet him.

When I got there, I dressed up super masculine. I even wore temporary facial hair, because I wanted to demonstrate to him that I was a man. So, he opens the door and he is this little frail ninety-eight pound gay guy with a t-shirt on and I thought, “Well, he’s a man and he’s kinda like me, but he’s kinda not like me.” We ended up talking for five hours straight in his kitchen. In the middle of it, he told me he had to get up and take his AZT. I hadn’t known that he had HIV/AIDS, but I realized then that I was making the closest friend of my entire life, the most pivotal individual for me, and that I was losing him at the same time. We corresponded until he died and when he died, I started the East Coast FTM Group because I had nobody and he had asked me to head up his group in San Francisco, which I couldn’t do.

I always felt some resistance to the fact that I didn’t transition medically, but over time I started to find transsexuals who had not transitioned medically, or who had transitioned partially and then stopped, like my friend Leslie Feinberg. Eventually I found more people with the idea that, “I’m already me, I don’t need any medical intervention to become me.” It took a ten-year journey with a gender counselor to give myself permission around this, because it is not popular, even in our community.

I’ve done a lot of organizing, much of it pre-internet. I did it the way Lou did it at first, all by mail. I remember the first big conference I went to, a True Spirit Conference, and I think there were 300 guys, FTMs, from all over the country and Canada, and I remember thinking, “It’s starting. The movement for FTMs is really starting, big time.” Now I have a vision for making the Sexual Minorities Archives a national comprehensive LGBTQ educational resource center with a museum and an art gallery with many rooms to show the collections, to have a youth room, to have a meeting room, to have a community room, and to be the preeminent LGBTQ archive on the East Coast. That’s what I’m most looking forward to as I age and that’s what I want to accomplish before I die.

From: To Survive on This Shore

#queer history

[dutch-aro]

Good morning to aromantics that still like romance, aromantics in relationships with alloromantics, aromantics that are sappy and affectionate, aromantics that enjoy the romance genre, aromantics that don't seem to fit what others expect aromantic people seem like. I love you.

#Q #positivity

[dutch-aro]

hey shoutout to arospecs who do experience some flavor of romantic attraction. to arospecs who exist in the grey area between aro and allo. to arospecs with fluctuating romantic attraction. to arospecs who don't know where they fall when it comes to all that. to arospecs who experience some romantic attraction but less so than other forms of attraction. your experiences are important and you deserve as much respect as anyone else

#Q

[dutch-aro]

AUREA is working on the 2022 Aromantic census and looking for volunteers, including analysts, questions editors, question testers, and/or translators! If you'd like to become a volunteer, please fill in the application form, which will close April 8th, 2022:

#aurea #aro census

[dutch-aro]

Vandaag (1 maart) is de verjaardag van Jacob Schorer. Schorer staat bekend als de eerste homoactivist van Nederland. Hij is onder andere bekend van zijn bibliotheek (de Schorerbibliotheek). In deze bibliotheek verzamelde hij werken waar in homoseksualiteit centraal stond en stelde deze publiek toegankelijk.

[dutch-aro]

The online aro community is very English speaking, meaning language is also English-centric. I think it’s important to remember that at times native English speaking aros and non-native English speaking aros with the same exact experiences won’t be drawn to the same concepts due to language issues.

For example, in my language the word “love” mostly refers to romantic love. “I love you” is a sentence you say to your romantic partner, while you may tell friends and family something that we could translate as “I care about you”. Non-romantic affection is therefore less linguistically connected to romantic affection than it is in English. What in English is the broad “love” in other languages can be split in various definitions. This has implications for example when it comes to terms such as loveless or lovequeer, which were coined in an English setting.

Personally, I consider myself loveless despite this division of love that exists in my language. There have been experiences that have alienated me from non-romantic love. Besides, while my language has elements that English lacks, “love” can still be used as a broad term for all forms of affection in certain contexts. However, while in English I use loveless, in my language I would probably use a different vocabulary to describe myself, if such vocabulary existed (unfortunately, the English speaking aro community is still by far more active and developed).

On the other hand, someone whose native language works like mine may decide not to use loveless due to their cultural context. If your language has multiple words for different kinds of love then you might see them as separate things, while an English speaker may consider all of them different manifestations of the same concept. Some loveless aros have also said they identify as loveless because to them love is a concept too broad and confusing to be understood - in a language with a narrower definition of love, this confusion may not happen.

#asaw #loveless aro #liefdeloos #ik moet eens een post maken over hoe ik verschillen tussen ''liefde'' en ''love'' ervaar als liefdeloos/loveless persoon

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💚🤍🖤💚🤍🖤💚🤍🖤

Happy Aromantic

Spectrum Awareness

Week 2022!

💚🤍🖤💚🤍🖤💚🤍🖤

#aro #asaw

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There are so many things I’ve wanted to know regarding just how different (or not different) aspecs and allos are from each other, and I know I can’t be the only one wondering such things. So I made a survey open for everyone to take! Whether you’re acespec, arospec, or allo. I need responses from ALL in order for the results to be any good. Anyone can take this, and even if you don’t, reblogging or boosting this survey is much appreciated!

(I’ll probably post results once I get a satisfactory amount of responses. I feel like some of this could end up being valuable to aspec communities!)

#enquête #interessant misschien

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MASTERLIST OF ALLOAROS TO FOLLOW 💛🍍

A few months ago, I asked all alloaros to leave a 🍍, creating some sort of masterlist of all my alloaro besties in the comments.

The post is quite long, so reblogging it seems like a pain so I decided to make an updated version of that list!

I'll divide the post between alloaros who post alloaro content, and alloaros who only do so occasionally, or not at all.

If you don’t see yourself or someone you know is alloaro in here, please feel free to leave a 🍍 in the comments, so that I can add you to the list 💛

Alloaros who frequently post (allo)aro content:

@urpurplehairedsage

@arospecvibes

@arosuggestions

@disasterdemi

@my-sex-journal

@entropy-sea-system

@alloaroworlds

@aro-but-not-ace

@arrow-allo

@aroallo-culture-is

@42-clocks

@hufflesexual

@aro-prince-aj

@lovequeerindigo

Alloaros who occasionally post (allo)aro content:

@probablynotsamantha

@yodamordecai

@gltzgghln

@silver-of-dragons

@elliot-the-bi-and-aro-frog

@moody-b1tch

@crimetimecrow

@homonoromo

@solaropunk

@aimlesswalker

@godmodebeginswithlesbians

@elvandork

@down-diabolical

Alloaros who don't post (allo)aro content, but are cool to follow and sexy regardless:

@jupitrr

@sapphicspaceranger

@trashcatohtrashcat

@chaos-otter

@mariko-san

@kacielis

Anyways, let's go alloaros~! Please reblog to help alloaros find each other easier, hopefully we don't have to scavenge this site for hours anymore once this list gets long enough 🍍💛

-Y.

#alloaro #aroallo

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deze blog is zo cool???? het is goed dat er over de lgbt gesproken wordt, maar het is jammer dat we niet vaak van de + horen. aromanticiteit moet ook benoemd worden! (ik ben aromantisch)

Dankjewel! Ik heb helaas weinig tijd/inspiratie gehad om veel te posten, maar ik wil er wel mee door gaan. Er is inderdaad zo weinig aandacht voor de + in Nederland en dat voelde nogal eenzaam dus ik dacht laat ik iig de aromantische Nederlanders laten zien dat er ten minste nog één ander iemand is van deze identiteit.

Ondertussen heeft dit blog een handjevol volgers dus we kunnen sowieso concluderen dat we niet de enige zijn! 😄

#ask

[dutch-aro]

Post originally by an activist in an aromantic-centric group on Facebook. Who okay‘d and appreciates if this post gets shared into more a-spec related spaces. Also, allo-aros and allo-aces are explicitly welcome! Plus anyone aro-spec and ace-spec! Your diverse and nuanced views of the aro and ace communities (yes, deliberately not talking of a-spec community here) are dearly appreciated!

Original Text Post [sic from Facebook-post]:

“Hello everyone!

In June, for Pride Month, I am organizing an event called Capitalizing the A in Philadelphia. Right now, we are looking for performers for the event (short films, music videos, comedians, etc.)

If you are interested in submitting, please send the information listed in the graphic to [email protected].

We are also looking for aro and ace people to share a little clip (no longer than 1 minute) about your experience as an aro, ace, or aroace person. These clips will go on our event Instagram account. Please email me with the subject "Your name-clip" if you want to participate.

Building representation in our community is vital to me, and I'd be so grateful for any contribution! Thank you!”

[Transcription of the graphics:

First Graphic: The next Capitalizing the A (CTA) event will be in person. We are looking for: Aromantic/Asexual creatives and film-makers to present your work. E-mail [email protected] if you are interested in participating!

Second Graphic: How to submit. E-mail.

Name

Pronouns

Artistic medium

Project you want to submit

Location

Length of set/project

Deadline: March 1st, 2022 - 11:59 p.m. EST

Event date: early June 2022

Location: TBD Philadelphia

End Transcription.]

#events

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December Carnival of Aros Call for Submission: "Attitudes Towards Romance"

Hello everyone!

It's December, and I'm hosting the Carnival of Aros! For those who don't know what that is, it's a blogging event that happens monthly that centers around aromantic and arospec experiences. Anyone can submit--submissions can be in the form of art, writing, video, and any form of media that can be used in a creative way. Check out more here!

To submit, either reblog this post with a link to your submission and tag #carnivalofaros12/21 , or email me at [email protected] with the link.

Submissions are due on December 31st, but let me know if you want me to save a spot! If you have saved a spot and haven't sent me anything by December 31st, I'll accept it within a week.

Attitudes Towards Romance

By "attitudes," I mean how aromantic people feel about romance--whether you identify as romance repulsed, romance favorable, romance indifferent, or romance adverse, your voice is important in this community.

If I've seen anything while running this blog, it's the arguing and alienation of different members of the aspec community based on their attitudes towards romance. There's content that makes romance repulsed/adverse people feel out of place, and there's an equal amount of content shaming romance favorable people for enjoying romance.

So, whether you have a partner, or the thought of kissing someone makes you uncomfortable, or if you just don't think about it that much, your submission is important and I'm excited to see it!

Some prompts to get you started are:

How has your relationship to romance affected your experience in the aromantic community?

What things are romance-coded to you?

How does amatonormativity affect you based on your attitude towards romance?

What's are some pros and cons you've experienced based around your attitude towards romance?

How do you feel with other members of the arospec community?

Happy Carnival of Aros, and good luck with your submissions!!

#carnival of aros #reblogged

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Oké. ik heb een nieuw pronoun idee door deze post van @marjolijnmakes: ik las generlei en dat is heel erg gender, dus bij deze: geen/geen/gener

voorbeeld zinnen met nl.pronouns.page gemaakt:

Ik denk dat geen erg mooi is.  

Ik vroeg geen of ik gener potlood mag lenen.  

Dat huis is het gene.  

Geen ziet zichzelf in de spiegel.  

ik vind zichzelf zelf leuker dan geenzelf, maar dat kan natuurlijk ook.

#nieuwe pronouns #👀 #geen/geen pronouns

[dutch-aro]

Dutch is a very gendered language, we don't have many neutral options. So this video inspired me to go digging for a genderneutral option for "meneer" (mister) and "mevrouw" (misses, miss).

I used the website etymologiebank.nl to look up the etymology for the words "meneer" and "mevrouw", hoping to find a third option like in the video, but alas. It is as straightforward as it seems. "Meneer" comes from "mijn heer" (my lord, distinguished man), and "mevrouw" comes simply from "mijn vrouw" (my woman, distinguished woman). There is no third gramatical gender in Dutch.

So I looked up "neutraal" (neutral), it comes from the latin neutrālis, so it would give us the option of "metralis", however, compared to our other two it is a syllable too many. "Mealis" would be an option, but is also a name/nickname connected to names like Melissa.

But this did bring me to the word "neutrum" (neuter, gramatically neuter) an old word which has since been replaced with "onzijdig". "Metrum" would be a cool option, and close to the one used in the video. However, it is also a term in poetry (link in Dutch, metre in English).

This page also said that "generlei" was a gramatically genderneutral term meaning "onzijdig", and I must say, I love this one. "Generlei" has the suffix -lei, which comes from -leie, meaning "soort" (kind or sort). Gener- comes from "geen" (none). So "generlei" in this context means "of neither sort". The fun part is that the suffix -lei is used in many other words, like "allerlei" (of all kinds/sorts).

Which brought me to the title "merlei". It still fits the structure of "meneer" and "mevrouw" and doesn't seem out of place. And the best part, next to "generlei" (neither sort), we also used to have "enigerlei" (van een of andere soort. Of one or a different kind/sort), "velerlei" (van vele soorten. Of many kinds/sorts), tweeërlei, drieeërlei, etc (van twee, drie soorten etc. Of two, three kinds, etc.)

Which makes "merlei" way more inclusive, because bigender people can use "merlei" as meaning "tweeërlei", agender people as meaning "generlei", genderfluid people (such as myself) as meaning "velerlei", etc.

So, TL;DR: Some Dutch genderneutral options for titles, such as "meneer" and "mevrouw" are "metralis" (from neutral), "maelis" (from neutraal), "metrum" (from neutrum), and "merlei" (from generlei, gramaticaal onzijdig).

#👀 #zeer interessant #gender neutrale taal #(sorry dat ik niks post trouwens ik ben afgeleid door van alles in het echte leven)

[dutch-aro]

COVID is slowly becoming a "third world" disease. While first world countries are hoarding vaccines, having doses for populations many times their size, third world countries can't get any because pharma companies want to sell to the first world countries first. Even then, first world countries will receive them first. While rich countries recover from COVID, they will forget about the pandemic while many other countries live the absolute worst moment of the pandemic without being able to vaccinate their population.

#petitie #Nederland heeft nog niet de grens gehaald #coronavirus

[dutch-aro]

[Image ID: A poem in white text over a moodboard with succulents and plants in the aromantic flag colours.

The older ladies always said I’d be a heart breaker

And I guess that’s what I became

But it’s not what I intended

I didn’t mean to

/

The people I dated

They handed me their heart

And like a fool

I took it

and held it close

but once I realized

I could not give my heart back to them

I dropped theirs

and ran

The words “I love you”

felt like a knife

The guilt was too much

I didn’t mean to break it

I never wanted to hurt them

I’m sorry

/

And so now

I’m done

I won’t break hearts anymore

Whether it’s someone elses

or my own

I’m too tired to play this game

of love

That I don’t even understand

/

~A.A.S

/end ID]

#poetry #aro poetry #poëzie #apparently tumblr doesn't like blank lines :/ #added some slashes to keep the structure