What's Going On: February 2021
February is upon has and that means Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week is here! We’ve put together a list of the advertised events we’ve found. Keep an eye out on social media for ASAW content in the coming days and email us at contact@aromanticism.org if you’d like something shared.
To improve AUREA’s overall transparency from now on we will be telling you here what you can expect from us for the month. On the third Friday of this month we will be posting part 2 of My Aromantic Fears and some time between now and then we will be posting our ASAW schedule. A new section has also been added to our WGO. Find out more below!
Are you online?
Let’s start with us. We’ve got lots of written pieces planned for ASAW, but something a little different too. On February 27th, to mark the last day of ASAW 2021, AUREA will be hosting a fundraiser stream! We are excited to be showcasing and chatting with a number of guests, from creators to influencers to regular ol' passionate aros. Look out for a post in the coming weeks about our guest line-up and stream time. We hope you can join us for a little event celebrating aromantics <3
The Ace and Aro Alliance of Central Ohio has partnered with three other Ohio based organizations, the Equitas Health Institute, the Newark Ohio Pride Coalition, and GLSEN Central Ohio, to host Ohio’s very first ASAW event! They’ve organized a discussion panel featuring a variety of intersectional perspectives from across the aromantic community. If you’d like to join them for this panel you can head over to the Facebook event page for more details, including how to register.
For our aromantic friends on twitter, @Space_Ro_Bot is creating a new hashtag for ASAW! They’re inviting all aromantic creators (writers, artists, crafters, cosplayers and any other type of creator) to participate in #AroCreatives on February 21st. To participate, all you have to do is be aro/under the aro umbrella, tag your posts with #AroCreatives (and any other appropriate tags), and boost other creators. Given that February is also Black History Month, they’ve also asked that people especially boost the work of black aros.
The beginning of February marks the beginning of AroWriMo, or Aromantic Writing Month. This annual event celebrates writers of all kinds, and encourages them to explore aromantic or arospec themes and characters. For more information on the event and how to participate, if you want to know the weekly prompts, or to read some of the submissions, check out their tumblr!
TAAAP’s Pride Chats continue in February, with a double trouble special this month in honor of ASAW! At the beginning of ASAW, February 21-22, they will be focusing on, of course, ASAW, while February 27-28 they’ll be discussing amatonormativity. For more information on the Pride Chats in general, how they work and how to register, head on over to TAAAP’s website.
Last month’s Carnival of Aros round-up has been posted! Check out the thoughts on stories that people have shared. This month’s topic has not yet been posted and we will update here when it is on the CoA website.
Volunteer Calls
This month marks the introduction of a new section to AUREA’s What’s Going On” articles. Our own need for volunteers to help us run AUREA is growing quickly, and AUREA is often approached by members of the aromantic community asking for help finding volunteers for projects. To address the needs of both our organisation and those who reach out to us, we’re introducing a “Volunteer Calls” section to update the community monthly on who’s looking for help, what kind of help they need, and how they can get involved!
To start this new section off, AUREA is currently recruiting for a number of positions on the AUREA team, as outlined on our Volunteers Page. Please note that these are all unpaid volunteer positions, and you would be expected to dedicate a certain amount of your free time to helping run AUREA. If you are interested in any of the listed roles and believe you have the relevant experience, we’d love to hear from you! Email us at contact@aromanticism.org, and include “TEAM ROLE - {Role Title You’re Interested In}” in the subject line.
AUREA is currently looking to expand our translator team, to assist some of our current translators. In particular, we are looking for Turkish, Hindi, Chinese (Traditional) and Czech translators. If you are interested, please email us at contact@aromanticism.org, and include “TRANSLATOR” in the subject line. For more information on being a translator, please check out our volunteer page.
AUREA is often contacted by organisations or individuals looking to get in touch with aromantic folk for various interviews, events and projects. With ASAW on the horizon, this need is bigger than ever. Our representative team is the first group we turn to when we receive these requests, and we’re always looking to expand! We’d love to diversify our representatives as much as possible, to better recommend people to projects that may require certain perspectives or demographics, and as such we would be especially excited to hear from anyone who identifies as any of the following:
AlloAro
Cis Men
Disabled
People from countries outside of the U.S.
People of colour
Trans Men/Transmasculine
Trans Women/Transfeminine
For more information on what exactly our representatives do, please check out our volunteer page. If you’re interested in being a representative, please email contact@aromanticism.org, and include “REPRESENTATIVE” in the subject line.
Arocalypse is searching for moderators for Australian and East Asian time zones. If you are interested, you can find more information over on Arocalypse.
If you’re aromantic and German, we have something just for you! AUREA was asked to post the below call for german volunteers in regards to a thesis project. If you’re interested, please reach out via the contact information included in the call.
Forschung zu Aromantik: Ich suche Dich!
Du identifizierst Dich als aromantisch und/ oder dem aromantischen Spektrum angehörig? Du hast Lust, bei einem Interview über Dein Leben als aromantische Person mitzumachen und so meine Masterarbeit zu unterstützen?
Was und wann: 60 bis 90-minütiges Einzelinterview – persönlich, telefonisch oder per Videocall – im Zeitraum von März bis April 2021
Dein Interesse ist geweckt und du bist mindestens 18 Jahre alt? Melde Dich bei mir unter breitsam@hm.edu für mehr Infos.
Ich freue mich auf Dich!
Nina (Studentin der Sozialen Arbeit)
Aros in the media
Colorado is making history as the first US state to recognize ASAW! Thanks to the hard work of the TAAAP, who requested the proclamation, and Seattle Aces & Aros, who helped create the template used for the request, Governor Jared Polis has issued an official proclamation recognising the 21st to the 27th of February as Aromantic-Spectrum Awareness Week! This is a huge step for aromantic visibility, and we couldn’t be prouder of the important work our fellow aromantic organisations are doing.
Cambridge Dictionary has joined Merriam Webster by adding ‘Aromantic’ to their dictionary. It has less wiggle room than we aros prefer.
Alice Oseman, author of Loveless, is getting her graphic novel Heartstopper adapted by Netflix! This aro is absolutely rising to fame and fingers crossed maybe we’ll see some of her aro content adapted one day too.
Old Sweaters and Aromanticism by A. is an identity piece about accepting yourself and their journey being both aromantic and sapphic. This was posted to Aspects of Aspecs, a resource/blog about sharing experiences. If you’d like to submit a piece of your own writing to AoA, click here for more information.
Coming Out with Laruen & Nicole is a weekly podcast that does exactly what the title suggests. This week’s coming out story is with PJ Hase, an aromantic asexual. PJ discusses relationship hierarchy, split attraction, and amatonormativity.
Strange Love by Kay
The first time I knew I most definitely wasn’t straight was when I was sixteen. When asked to choose between two leading characters in Oblomov, one of the Russian classics, I said that actually both guys were rather unappealing, since one was nice but lazy and the other one was unrealistically perfect. Hence, the logical choice would be to choose neither and just make it on my own, thank you very much. My classmates, however, were mildly shocked by the coldness of my choice.
A personal piece about Star Trek, amatonormativity, and accepting yourself.
Firebreak by Nicole Kornher-Stace is an upcoming sci-fi novel about capitalism and virtual reality. Kornher-Stace has confirmed that this is an #ourvoices text and the main character, Mallory, is aromantic and asexual. The identities will not be mentioned in the book due to authorial decisions, however the experiences will show.
Aromantics Address
What moments on the screen scream aromantic to you? Holmbo has created two community sourced videos on AromanticMoments and the third is in the works. If you’d like to suggest a character or scene, here’s the place to do it.