Pride Recap
Written by the AUREA Team
Word count: 603
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
A small aromantic pride flag lying on wood and moss
Pride Month, blessed Pride Month. What colour you bring to our lives. We’ve seen the celebration the world over, whether in person or from afar, and with so much moving and shaking it’s easy to miss a triumph or two. It is with great pride that we welcome you to the aromantic highlight reel.
This year WorldPride was held in New York City, where the first Ace & Aro Conference commenced! More than a hundred a-spec folks attended the event, and for those of us that couldn’t, here is an overview of six of the sessions, two of which talk about community building. This conference was hosted by Aces NYC and AVEN, and we thank them greatly for their efforts! Their comprehensive schedule had something for everyone, including cake and a-spec swag.
It seems Aces NYC has had themselves a delightfully busy Pride Month. Here they can be seen preparing to march in the NYC Pride Parade. Check out those aro flags in the mix! The green/white/green striped flag standing solidly in the centre is the rarely sighted greyromantic flag.
Not to be forgotten: ol’ reliable TAAAP were in attendance at the Ace & Aro Conference, Capital Pride Parade and Baltimore Pride. Their advocacy is, as always, a joy to witness.
TAAAP marching in the Capital Pride Parade in Washington DC, USA
TAAAP marching in Baltimore Pride Parade, USA
As promised, Seattle Aces and Aros could be seen marching in the Seattle Pride Parade and their booth at the Capitol Hill Pride Fest was an a-spec-tacular place to be.
Seattle Aces & Aros’ booth
Seattle Aces & Aros march in Seattle, USA
For the Marche des Fiertés LGBT, or Paris Pride Parade, @robase joined the march, hoisting their banner for the first time. As a newly established group we hope to hear more from them in the future.
@robase march in Paris, France
And in your local area, no matter where you are:
Emerging LGBTQ Labels Allow People To Feel More At Home In Their Identity - Jay Polish
“It's important to note that most terms in LGBTQ canon aren't terribly old: queer linguistic history is all about reclaiming slurs, such as ‘queer’ itself, and coming up with new terms to describe feelings and experiences that people have had throughout history.”
This article discusses labels, community, history, and how the queer letters interact. Its a line of thinking you may know well, but the 80 million people who subscribe to Bustle may not.
On a more interactive level: like the many years previous #Aggressively Arospec had a wonderful turnout. In answer to their list of prompts you can find eight pages worth of aro creations. We’re talking beautiful works of art, emotive fanfiction, and headcanons galore!
To top that off, if you thought a week of aro pride already sounded delightful, Aromantic-Offical hosted for the entire month. Take a scroll down this artists’ alley, the place to be for original aro-centric art. (It’s greener on the other side of that link).
For those of you looking for more information, particularly on the Ace & Aro Conference, we unfortunately don’t have it. Our aim with this recap was to collect the various events and achievements in one location and we’re acting within the limit of hosts’ and guests’ coverage of the events. In light of this we will aim to work more closely with groups we report on and ensure that these events can be shared online as much as they are offline, so that more people can see what the aros are doing.