The Equality Act

What is the Equality Act? 

If you’ve paid attention to politics (in the US) over the past few weeks, the Equality Act has been name-checked quite frequently.  It was listed as a Day One priority of virtually every major Democratic presidential candidate at a recent town hall.  It was brought up in response to a recent pair of Supreme Court employment discrimination cases, one involving a gay man, the other involving a trans woman, both of whom were fired after coming out.  But what is it?

The Equality Act is an update to a number of federal anti-discrimination laws, primarily the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  This act explicitly provides anti-discrimination protection on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  You can read the full text of it here, but if you don’t feel like it, the basic summary is that it’s mostly a Find-And-Replace job, substituting “sex (including sexual orientation and gender identity)” for the word “sex” in existing anti-discrimination laws.

Why is the Equality Act important?

Right now, across the entire US, it is illegal for someone to be fired due to their sexual orientation or gender identity.  In many states, there is a specific state law prohibiting this form of discrimination.  However, in the rest of the states, where there isn’t an explicitly state law, it’s prohibited because of an interpretation of the word “sex” in existing anti-discrimination laws.

These existing laws prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex.  For a plain, simple example, that means that you can’t reject a qualified candidate for a job, simply because she’s a woman.  Sex cannot be the deciding factor.

And that’s where the interpretation comes in.  Over the years, guidance of federal agencies and findings in court cases have held that this protection on the basis of sex extends to sexual orientation and gender identity.  Let me tell a quick pair of stories to illustrate:

1:  You have a hardworking, recently promoted employee named Alex.  One Monday morning, Alex comes into the office, sporting a shiny new ring.  Intrigued, you ask about it.  “I got married to Elizabeth on Saturday!”, comes the excited reply.  You congratulate Alex and wish him a happy life.

2. You have a hardworking, recently promoted employee named Alex.  One Monday morning, Alex comes into the office, sporting a shiny new ring.  Intrigued, you ask about it.  “I got married to Elizabeth on Saturday!”, comes the excited reply.  You fire Alex and throw the contents of her desk on the street.

In this scenario, the only difference between Alex and Alex is their sex.  Their sexual orientation is effectively irrelevant.  You fired Alexandra for doing something you would have been fine with Alexander doing, therefore you have illegally discriminated against Alexandra on the basis of sex.

Or so says the interpretation.

The thing about an interpretation of this kind is that it’s fragile.  It’s great when you have LGBTQ-friendly people at the wheel.  But all it takes is one fascist dictator wannabe to tell the federal agencies to change their mind.  All it takes is five people in black robes with a lean to the right to say “Nah, I think it means this”. 

And that’s where we are today.

The court cases heard last month will be decided next June, and there is a very real possibility that the Supreme Court will reject the interpretation that sexual orientation and gender identity are protected on the basis of sex.  If that happens, it will immediately become legal to fire people or refuse housing or kick someone off a bus for being gay or being trans in more than half of the states in this country.

So that’s bad.

The Equality Act, by explicitly including protection for sexual orientation and gender identity, will make it clear that kind of discrimination is illegal.  It won’t be open to interpretation, and will be far more resistant to the direction of the wind in DC.

What else should I know about the Equality Act?

It explicitly provides protection for intersex people.  When I did a survey of state-level anti-discrimination laws earlier this year, I found that intersex people were largely ignored.  That leaves them in legal limbo land where maybe they’re protected and maybe not.  The Equality Act includes “sex characteristics, including intersex traits” under the definition of “sex”, and would thereby unambiguously include that in all of the protections provided.  However, while the Equality Act is a step in the right direction, but it does not address specific intersex issues.

It covers the “perception or belief, even if inaccurate” case, which plugs some potential loopholes in protection.

It is worded vaguely enough to protect agender and non-binary people, but it does not explicitly mention them.

Unfortunately, sexual orientation is defined as a specific, enumerated list:  “homosexuality, heterosexuality, or bisexuality”.  Asexual and pansexual, etc., are not included.  This is a common failure of many anti-discrimination laws.  I doubt it’s born of malice.  Instead, it’s a combination of ignorance and inertia.  So many existing laws define it this way, it’s easy to copy and paste without thinking.  I prefer the language in New York City’s ordinance:  “A continuum of sexual orientation exists and includes, but is not limited to, heterosexuality, homosexuality, bisexuality, asexuality and pansexuality.”

There is no mention of romantic or affectional orientation in the Equality Act.  This strikes me as a huge hole.  Not only does this mean it completely leave out protection for aromantic people, it opens a loophole for discrimination based on romantic orientation of all types.

Nothing in the Equality Act tries to fix unnecessarily gendered language that exists in the law.  That would be a far more involved undertaking.

So where does the Equality Act stand?

The Equality Act has been passed in the House of Representatives, where it was a priority of the Democratic majority there.  After passage, it was sent to the Senate, where it will die, because the Republican majority there wants nothing to do with it.  And the President wouldn’t have signed it anyway.  There is no chance in hell that it will be passed before 2021, and even that would require Democrats holding the House, taking the Senate, and getting the White House.

So, you see, that’s a bit of a problem.  The Supreme Court’s ruling on these cases will come out in June 2020…

What you can do about it!

But Wait…  There’s More!

Another interesting (and unexpected) side story related to this which came up after I’d written most of this post is that ratification of the ERA is now within reach, thanks to Virginia going fully blue.  While it’s very likely that VA will vote to ratify in one of their first actions in January, there’s some haziness about whether or not it will count.  That means it will be a fascinating backdrop for the presidential election, with one side fully supporting ratification, maybe even with a woman carrying the flag for the second time in a row, and the other side being forced to explain why they don’t think women are equal, while they run a disgusting misogynist and/or someone who refuses to even eat with women.  Popcorn time!

But…  What’s the ERA, you ask?  That’s a fair question, because it hasn’t been talked about much since it was killed by a pack of anti-feminists back in the 70s.  It’s the Equal Rights Amendment, a constitutional amendment that reads “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.”

The haziness surrounding ratification is twofold:  First, the original congressional language had a deadline, which has long since passed.  Second, some states which ratified it early on have since rescinded their ratification.  Proponents of ratification will note that the original deadline was extended once, and can be extended again, if needed, and beyond that, a deadline may not even be valid.  As for rescinding the ratification, it’s not clear whether or not a state can even do that.  At any rate, it’s bound to head to court and make a lot of noise along the way.

As you may have noticed, the language is very similar to the vague meaning of “sex” that the Equality Act is trying to fix.  Will the ERA protect gender identity and sexual orientation?  That’s unclear.  It’s open to the same interpretation and court opinions that come up in the Civil Rights Act.  In fact, the Supreme Court decision in those cases I mentioned above, whichever way it goes, will probably be the precedent at work, should the ERA actually get ratified and take effect.

So you know what that means, right?  

Once the ERA is ratified, we’re going to need the ERA 2 to explicitly include what the original ERA leaves out.

We have a lot of work to do.  Time to get busy.

i heard y’all like infographics, so i thought i’d make a little something about us oriented aroaces!! 💙 💙 💙

I’ve been using the description (sometimes label) homoplatonic since 2014 (how is that 5 years ago?!?) but am very definitely aroace. The concept of oriented aroaces is definitely relevant to my interests.

Ever think about whether asexuality and aromanticism are covered by anti-discrimination laws in the US?  Spoiler alert:  They’re not!  (Well, unless you’re in a limited handful of places…)  I wrote this to look at these laws and suggest a few things we might be able to do about it.

(The survey of the laws is here, if you’re looking for the tedious rundown and less commentary.)

Controversial opinion (?) 

I think there is grounds for genuine solidarity between lesbians and aro-ace women on the axis of navigating a culture in which womanhood is (in part) defined by forming romantic/sexual/economic/legal relationships with men, as women who fundamentally cannot experience any desire to do so and who inherently suffer when forced into those relationship structures. 

It seems to me that this is a genuine overlap in experience worthy of at least some discussion in feminist theory, but seemingly one that most everyone avoids acknowledging even within larger discussions on compulsory heterosexuality and its effects on women of all orientations within patriarchal systems. 

I’ve been thinking about this for a while now after hearing bits and pieces of the discourse about how “ace-aro people shouldn’t be part of the community because they don’t understand homophobia”. While I understand the reasoning behind this position, it’s always bothered me because when I was questioning my sexuality, I spent a lot of time considering identifying as ace-aro, and I know several other lesbians who went through that as well.

That’s certainly not to say that we should associate with people who don’t treat us with respect, or that id-ing as ace-aro is just a stepping stone to id-ing as a lesbian, but rather that we share certain experiences and could definitely benefit from ace-aro women and lesbian solidarity in specific contexts, particularly when questioning, but really all the time.

As lesbians, we must confront both our attraction to women and our lack of attraction to men. Some of us realize both at the same time. Others realize we’re wlw before deciding we’re not attracted to men, and others still realize we’re not attracted to men before we figure out that we’re lesbians. 

We stand in solidarity with bi women because we relate on the grounds of being wlw, but we ignore the solidarity we could share with ace-aro women, and I feel like that’s something we as a community could work toward fostering.

Yes! This! I think lesbian and aroace women forming closer bonds of solidarity and more overlapping communities would only help questioning folks. Because ya, I had a similar experience. I figured out I wasn’t attracted to men and it took me a while to sort of if I was attracted to women. I didn’t know if I was a repressed lesbian or an aroace women trying to make myself feel something. Having the lesbian and aroace communities closer together would have helped me. And it would make it easier for people to move between identities. (because shit is hard and expecting everyone to untangle heteronormativity and amatonormativity perfectly in one go is impossible)

Yes, that’s right! It’s time for the Ace Community Survey! Please take the time to participate; it’s incredibly important! You can be of any orientation to take part. Thank you!

Direct Link: https://goo.gl/forms/0iOOOCbD5OX0pT3S2

Aro revisionism

When I’ve seen aro histories on tumblr, I occasionally see an element of historical revisionism, downplaying or erasing the fact that most of these discussions were happening in ace communities, and not aro communities.  I strongly object to this for a few reasons.

First of all, I was there, and that’s just not how it happened.  I’m not aromantic so I wasn’t strongly involved in the conversation, but I still read about it because I was an ace blogger and this was happening on ace blogs!

And I know that the participants would object too.  From Sciatrix in 2017:

Also, from 2013:

I suspect that the motivation for this historical revisionism is that people like to see their own community as having deep roots.  That’s totally fine, and indeed the concept of aromanticism has existed in various forms for longer than I’ve been around.  But those “various forms” do not always resemble modern forms.

And sadly allo-aros would have been left out for quite a while, because, frankly, many aces were very prejudiced.  And even those who could move past the prejudice, nobody really knew what allo-aros were like, how to find them, or how to get them to join a community.  I would rather not erase the “negative” aspects of this history, because I feel it highlights how far aro communities have come.  Of course, as an outsider, I do not have any real say in how people in aro communities choose to view their own history.

QPRs: Terminology Expansion and Other Assorted Tidbits

Introduction

For a while now, I’ve been planning on doing a post about QPRs. Y’all requested this for a long time, so here it is: my thoughts and opinions on QPR terminology. Included inside: a history lesson, discourse opinions, and a call to action. Also, minimal salt (this time).

TL: DR;

The phrase “more than friends, but less than a romantic relationship” and similar phrases need to stop coming anywhere close to QPRs. Because of coinage and other historical factors, QPRs cannot be defined as simply a romantic friendship nor should they be. The aromantic community as well as alloromantics should be careful about how they define QPRs, as defining them incorrectly causes division in the aromantic community as well as isolation for some aromantics. Education about aromantic issues and history and strong community ties can lead to prevention of terminology issues and create a more unified and strong community.

Keep reading

Just to follow up about the history of the term “aromantic” specifically - it’s been fairly common on AVEN and the AVEN wiki since at least 2006, and gradually growing through 2010 and beyond, although it’s shifted in emphasis from being about people who don’t want romantic relationship to having more focus on lack of attraction, mirroring similar evolutions in definitions of asexual (source). It was popular long before 2010, but I think that around 2010 there started to be more of a push for separate aromantic forums or subforums, although few of these efforts proved sustainable. In the case of the creation of “QPR”, that was at a point when it was still very much an “aro ace” community, often asexual first and aro second - there simply wasn’t any kind of organized aromantic-specific movement at the time outside of the structure of ace communities. (There were a handful of blogs that emphasized aromanticism, but some of them were notoriously nasty towards romantic people and/or ace communities in a way that turned off many aros who weren’t into that, which I think was a big stumbling block in terms of aro-specific organizing). It took a lot longer for more focused non-ace-dependent aro communication to start forming it’s own parallel communities on tumblr through organic growth. Another thing that I think is important to the context of QPRs is the history of “Zucchini”, it’s more informal and lighthearted counterpart.

I mostly agree with the history in the OP, although this claim is bizarre:

I was personally exploring the possibility of being aromantic demisexual in 2009, and that was not particularly unusual.  Even if it’s only aces talking about being aromantic, that still counts as “aromanticism as an identity”.

Most people at the time would have agreed that aromantic non-aces probably existed.  But IMHO, it was not helpful to discuss them, because too many people were willing to offer offensive and overconfident speculations about what alloromantic non-aces would be like, and we didn’t know any alloromantic non-aces to refute the speculation.

Early aromantic forums might have been open to non-ace aros, and might have even succeeded in finding a few, but they were mostly marketed towards people on AVEN, and thus would have been mostly aro-ace.  That’s not a good thing, but aro communities always had a tough learning curve ahead of them, trying to include a group of people they didn’t yet understand very well.

I would also second @nextstepcake​’s point that the context in which “queerplatonic” was coined, were ace-first communities–specifically the ace blogosphere.  I was personally part of the blogosphere at the time.  Kaz was a well-known ace blogger.  s.e.smith (the coiner) was more of a feminist/disabilities/queer writer, but has produced far more writing on asexuality than aromanticism.  Sciatrix, who played an influential role in spreading these terms, was easily the most important ace blogger of the time.  Yes these bloggers were all aro, but I believe they would strongly object to being characterized as aromantic first.

In regards to these additions (sorry for the rather informal writing, I’m writing this as I have sunburn and much soreness in my legs due to 8 hours a day of band, every day this week); 

@nextstepcake thank you so much for the additions! I will definitely read over these more later and if you’ve got any more info I would love to hear your thoughts; as you can tell, the history of my community is very important to me and it can be rather difficult to find when you’re wandering without a guide. Especially through the internet.

@godlessace, that claim was less “this is an absolute truth” and more a literal “I spent 5 hours at like midnight digging through the internet and couldn’t find jack, because AVEN and Tumblr’s organizational systems can kind of suck sometimes”, ya feel? I absolutely appreciate your commentary on this, because that’s valuable info that I truly could not find (and there’s a note in my drafts doc where I think there’s just a “fucking” just sitting there because I got so frustrated).

As far as Sciatrix goes, while they may have popularized the term in asexual communities, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not particularly relevant to this post? I included the history because it’s relevant to the now of the aromantic community, but as far as I’m concerned, they’re not the person who actually…coined the term…so I’m not sure the point they’re making is entirely connected to the point I’m making? Which I’ll elaborate on in a minute.

Now, to both of you, a couple assorted thoughts in reply, and I’m just gonna bullet point for ease of access: 

I’m not sure if I made that entirely clear in the original post? I emphasized aromantics because aromantics are the primary victims of a sort of historical erasure, not with the intent to erase ace folks, because I am ace, but to sort of outline that “this is happening and wrong because our community was there too and is being hurt by what’s going on now”. 

I’m not sure if that helps clarify my original post or not so I’m sorry if I’m missing the point of what you’re saying, but I did want to do my best to add on to this when I saw it.

I don’t want to put you on the defensive, I’m just an ace history geek (same as nextstepcake) and this is all in the spirit of greater understanding.

I would make a distinction between aro people and aro communities.  While Kaz, s.e.smith, and Sciatrix were aro (or I guess aro-spec?), the context was not an aro community.  There wasn’t a distinction between aro and non-aro ace bloggers, we were all ace bloggers, and romantic orientation was among our topics.

There were also separate aro communities like Aromantic Asexuals and Aroplane, but I don’t think anyone present was involved in those.  For context, around 2010, there were a bunch of forums that were trying to be alternatives to AVEN, and nearly all of them were short-lived.  I think Aroplane was relatively successful but it’s gone so I don’t really know. :(

I’m sensing that you’re putting a lot of weight into the particular person who coined the word “queerplatonic”, which is fair.  But I see these people as old colleagues, and it’s weird for me to think of them as beyond criticism, or having any control over who has the right to use “queerplatonic”.  But FWIW, Sciatrix, at least, would be happy to see “queerplatonic” used by allo people.

To provide some context on why we keep bringing up the distinction between aro specific communities and aro-ace people in ace communities, I think it’s a very relevant one to aro history  - especially aro history on tumblr - because there has been lot of tension around the subject on tumblr - here’s an example of the kind of conversations I remember having a lot at the time. This was also prompted things like this, though not always in such brief form, in which some early aro-first type blogs often lashed out at aro aces who dared to talk about both identities and basically spent more time complaining about asexuality and romantic people than actually talking about aro experiences (which was a common problem in most reactionary communities that splintered off from larger ones). Other forums like aroplane were much more pleasant and helpful but unfortunately attracted little activity and didn’t stick around long.

I think a lot of aro aces like me - especially those who were around for the periods of history we’re discussing - are therefore wary of trying to cleave the “aro” parts of  aro ace history and experience from the “ace” parts. For many of us, these experiences and our histories are inseparably intertwined, and being asked to tease it apart into just the aro parts feels like ripping off a limb; we cannot be whole without recognizing both the ace and aro parts of our histories as intertwined, interdependent and inseparable. And for me specifically, when I was most active here in the earlier days of ace tumblr, ace communities - even non aro ones - were often supportive of my experiences in a way that early attempts at aro-specific communities often weren’t (partially because they barely existed at all, so not all their fault). That’s changed a lot since then, and I’m really proud of that fact, but I think it’s part of the reason that some people like me get a little salty when people who weren’t involved at the time try to retroactively attribute things to “aro communities” of a sort that didn’t even exist yet, while trying to downplay the extent to which ace communities were the major driving forces at the time.

(I should also clarify that this isn’t just about this post, which is relatively fine as far as this all goes - this is more a trend that I’ve seen growing over time, and this just happened to be the trigger that prompted more discussion at a point where i finally have enough time to blog again.)

Also, I forgot to mention this but I probably should have - as godlessace mentions, some of the people in those early conversations didn’t even identify as aromantic specifically - some, notable sciatrix, identified as “wtfromantic” or as just generally not finding the romantic vs. sexual split attraction applicable or useful at all. So that’s another reason to not just lump them all into “aro”, although I have been guilty of doing exactly that in my own posts, so I stand corrected.

Also, from a linguistic perspective (I was a ling undergrad, so I have way too many thoughts about words), I think it’s hugely important to consider who actually popularizes and currently uses terminology, not just who coined them, especially since terms can shift so much from their original coining (see: autochorissexual) and since many terms don’t even have a known specific coiner (see: asexual, aromantic). Words are shaped by how they are used, regardless of how they may or may not have been intended.

If you do prefer to stick to the original source, though, the coiner has also endorsed it as a term for anyone, not just aro or even ace folks, and explicitly refers to it as ace community terminology: http://meloukhia.net/2011/03/what_does_asexuality_mean_to_you/

And unfortunately problematic definitions don’t just come from confused aces - they come from aro communities as well, and that has been called out in the community before. Briefly defining terms without falling back on years of amatonormative assumptions is really really hard - even for people who are aro.

Also for @aphobephobe, on the technical issues of trying to drudge up old posts : Regarding finding pre-2010 aro history on AVEN - or any older threads on AVEN - if you aren’t using it already, you can try the advanced search feature:

1. Search for something like “aromantic”

2. On the results page, select “+ More Search Options”

3. Under date created, select “custom”

Unfortunately, you are correct in that it doesn’t actually index everything. There is also a decent amount of lost content (especially from the earliest years of AVEN) due to past server issues, esp when transferring the site to new servers.

Another approach is to use google search you can use the search term site:asexuality.org to only search within AVEN, then include your main search term “aromantic” etc. and a year “2007″ etc. This still requires a bit of picking around, but it can bring up some things that AVENs search doesn’t. Unfortunately, in can only access the public subforums, not the members only ones.

If you are also ever interested in post 2010 discussions, it’s probably easiest to just start with this giant index of aro threads from the AVEN archiving team, lthough I think they only started indexing around 2011/2012 so it may not have as many older posts like you were looking for. If you have questions about specific aspects of aro history on AVEN and make a post, you might be able to find volunteers to help you pinpoint places to look.

Also, I think I’m a little confused by the aromantic community collapse part - if anything, the aro community has been growing from 0-60 in recent times, which is far from a collapse.

I think it’s easy to see a few examples of history and assume things must once have been so much better than they are now. But I don’t think there’s been any kind of a collapse at all; in order for there to be a collapse it would have to exist to start with, and that wasn’t the case at the time these terms were coined. The reason queerplatonic and squish and other commonly aro-related terms are so common on ace community lists is because for years and years there weren’t any aro communities or aro glossaries, so when the people who made and used those terms wanted to share info about aromantic experiences they went straight to ace spaces and just stayed.

Also, I don’t know where you pulled all your examples from, but I would be wary of assuming that flawed definitions on ace focused sites are always because they were written by romantic aces, or that mainstream ace spaces are “alloromantic communities” - in many cases, they are written or run by aro aces who are just struggling to find a short way to define terms that doesn’t require 2 hours and an extensive powerpoint presentation. Aro blogs in the past have have had problems before with erasing the aro-ness of aro aces who happen to talk more about their asexuality, so I want to avoid falling into that pitfall again by accident.

activists at barnard college providing “labels”, photographed by susan rennie and published in off our backs: a women’s newsjournal vol. 3 no. 6, february 1973

Wow, David Jay really time traveled back to 1973 to start inventing asexuality. 😮

This makes my heart so happy

Just for the purposes of authentication…

Here’s a link to where you can view the image in-context (you must have a jstor account, which is free if you’re okay with only reading 6 papers a month, if you do not already have institutional access). It turns out that this image, along with another, was intended to be published in the previous issue of off our backs, but was not received in time.

Here’s the article that that image was supposed to accompany (apologies for the fact that this is another jstor link). It turns out this was from an event called “Lesbian/Feminist Dialogue” that those young women (from the Lesbian Activists at Barnard) were supporting. Now, before we get the hue and cry about “they weren’t really talking about asexuality in the sense that you mean it!!!!11! they were just spitballing label ideas,” here’s what the author of the article, Frances Chapman, had to say about it:

Obviously not quite the definition we used today, but decently close to it. 

Here’s the text in case anyone can’t access it on jstor

“ YOUR-OWN-LABEL 

I can be honest without using the word “lesbian,” she said. Her advice about relating to women outside the women"s movement is worth repeating: Talk about lives, don’t talk about the issues of women’s liberation. She is a teacher in a public girls high school where “girls who come on butch, don’t stay in the school,” and there is little she can do to help them and yet keep her position. 

Topic workshops included workshops on age-ism, how men keep women apart, trust between women, dealing with anger, oppression within the women’s movement, women loving women, coming out, the revolutionary woman, a and black attitudes toward feminism. 

I attended the workshop on asexuality led by Barbara Getz. According to Barbara, asexuality is an orientation that regards a partner as nonessential to sex and sex as nonessential to a satisfying relationship. “The Asexual Manifesto” can be obtained from New York Radical Feminists, P.O. Box 621, Old Chelsea Station, New York 10011). 

The conference drew a whole constellation of women’s movement stars. In addition to Jill Johnston, in chevrons, and Gloria Steinem, Barbare Love, author of “Sappho Was A Right on Woman,” Grace Atkinson, who now calls Joe Columbo “Sister,” and Kate Millet were spotted. 

The New York straight press didn’t think the conference was a story. Maybe it wasn’t for the male everydailies, but for women who survived the sexuality splits within the movement, an attempt to unify with allowance for sexual variety was an herstoric occasion. Why didn’t someone think to rent a hall in Seneca Falls?

by frances chapman”

Also, the article mentions “The Asexual Manifesto” which it says can be obtained from New York Radical Feminists. I would love love love to be able to find that. Anyone know how I might be able to get my hands on it? (The group disbanded in the 1970s and I have no idea where their writings would have gone) 

I did a little digging and it looks like Duke University has a collection of their papers in the library archives, although the catalog listing doesn’t mention that piece specifically. Curiously, I also found some mentions of “The Asexual Manifesto” being read on air during Margot Adler’s show on WBAI-FM radio in New York in the early 1970s, so there might be some leads from that direction, too? One person who recalls hearing the broadcast writes that “The general idea had to do with the liberation of people who are into solo sex.”

thanks @bi-gray !

i got over excited and actually emailed Margot Adler and Jim Freund, who’s hosting the (still running!) radio show. It’s a long shot they would have copies or remember anything from then, but it doesn’t hurt to ask i guess?

You never know! It seems like you and @redbeardace are doing a pretty efficient job of filling in different pieces of the story so far. :)

Update: 

Sadly, Margot Adler passed away a few years ago and Jim Freund doesn’t have access to the old airchecks. So no luck there. There might be mention of it in Adler’s book Heretic’s Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution. 

There is:

And according to Google Books, that’s the only mention in the book.

I don’t know anything about anyone mentioned here, but it reminds me of another article that we already knew about, “Asexual and autoerotic women: two invisible groups,” by Myra T. Johnson (1977).

We talked about this in a journal club many years ago.  One thing we observed was that Johnson seems to take it for granted that the reader already accepts the existence of asexual and autoerotic women.  If these words were in circulation in radical feminist groups in the 1970s, that would certainly explain why.

Another reference I found, which I haven’t looked into yet, is “Radical Refusals: On the anarchist politics of women choosing asexuality” by Breanne Fahs (2010).  It also looks at radical feminism in the 60s and 70s.

activists at barnard college providing “labels”, photographed by susan rennie and published in off our backs: a women’s newsjournal vol. 3 no. 6, february 1973

Wow, David Jay really time traveled back to 1973 to start inventing asexuality. 😮

This makes my heart so happy

Just for the purposes of authentication…

Here’s a link to where you can view the image in-context (you must have a jstor account, which is free if you’re okay with only reading 6 papers a month, if you do not already have institutional access). It turns out that this image, along with another, was intended to be published in the previous issue of off our backs, but was not received in time.

Here’s the article that that image was supposed to accompany (apologies for the fact that this is another jstor link). It turns out this was from an event called “Lesbian/Feminist Dialogue” that those young women (from the Lesbian Activists at Barnard) were supporting. Now, before we get the hue and cry about “they weren’t really talking about asexuality in the sense that you mean it!!!!11! they were just spitballing label ideas,” here’s what the author of the article, Frances Chapman, had to say about it:

Obviously not quite the definition we used today, but decently close to it. 

Here’s the text in case anyone can’t access it on jstor

“ YOUR-OWN-LABEL 

I can be honest without using the word “lesbian,” she said. Her advice about relating to women outside the women"s movement is worth repeating: Talk about lives, don’t talk about the issues of women’s liberation. She is a teacher in a public girls high school where “girls who come on butch, don’t stay in the school,” and there is little she can do to help them and yet keep her position. 

Topic workshops included workshops on age-ism, how men keep women apart, trust between women, dealing with anger, oppression within the women’s movement, women loving women, coming out, the revolutionary woman, a and black attitudes toward feminism. 

I attended the workshop on asexuality led by Barbara Getz. According to Barbara, asexuality is an orientation that regards a partner as nonessential to sex and sex as nonessential to a satisfying relationship. “The Asexual Manifesto” can be obtained from New York Radical Feminists, P.O. Box 621, Old Chelsea Station, New York 10011). 

The conference drew a whole constellation of women’s movement stars. In addition to Jill Johnston, in chevrons, and Gloria Steinem, Barbare Love, author of “Sappho Was A Right on Woman,” Grace Atkinson, who now calls Joe Columbo “Sister,” and Kate Millet were spotted. 

The New York straight press didn’t think the conference was a story. Maybe it wasn’t for the male everydailies, but for women who survived the sexuality splits within the movement, an attempt to unify with allowance for sexual variety was an herstoric occasion. Why didn’t someone think to rent a hall in Seneca Falls?

by frances chapman”

Also, the article mentions “The Asexual Manifesto” which it says can be obtained from New York Radical Feminists. I would love love love to be able to find that. Anyone know how I might be able to get my hands on it? (The group disbanded in the 1970s and I have no idea where their writings would have gone) 

I did a little digging and it looks like Duke University has a collection of their papers in the library archives, although the catalog listing doesn’t mention that piece specifically. Curiously, I also found some mentions of “The Asexual Manifesto” being read on air during Margot Adler’s show on WBAI-FM radio in New York in the early 1970s, so there might be some leads from that direction, too? One person who recalls hearing the broadcast writes that “The general idea had to do with the liberation of people who are into solo sex.”

thanks @bi-gray !

i got over excited and actually emailed Margot Adler and Jim Freund, who’s hosting the (still running!) radio show. It’s a long shot they would have copies or remember anything from then, but it doesn’t hurt to ask i guess?

You never know! It seems like you and @redbeardace are doing a pretty efficient job of filling in different pieces of the story so far. :)

Update: 

Sadly, Margot Adler passed away a few years ago and Jim Freund doesn’t have access to the old airchecks. So no luck there. There might be mention of it in Adler’s book Heretic’s Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution. 

There is:

And according to Google Books, that’s the only mention in the book.

activists at barnard college providing “labels”, photographed by susan rennie and published in off our backs: a women’s newsjournal vol. 3 no. 6, february 1973

Wow, David Jay really time traveled back to 1973 to start inventing asexuality. 😮

This makes my heart so happy

Just for the purposes of authentication…

Here’s a link to where you can view the image in-context (you must have a jstor account, which is free if you’re okay with only reading 6 papers a month, if you do not already have institutional access). It turns out that this image, along with another, was intended to be published in the previous issue of off our backs, but was not received in time.

Here’s the article that that image was supposed to accompany (apologies for the fact that this is another jstor link). It turns out this was from an event called “Lesbian/Feminist Dialogue” that those young women (from the Lesbian Activists at Barnard) were supporting. Now, before we get the hue and cry about “they weren’t really talking about asexuality in the sense that you mean it!!!!11! they were just spitballing label ideas,” here’s what the author of the article, Frances Chapman, had to say about it:

Obviously not quite the definition we used today, but decently close to it. 

So, everyone’s treating this as if it were untouchable ancient history.

But it was 1973.  There’s a good chance that many of the women involved here are still alive.  They’d be in their mid-late 60′s now.

So.  Who wants to go find them?

I found a recording of some of the speeches/talks from the event:  http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums741-b268-i004

No mention of asexuality, but do yourself a favor and listen to the poem Jackie Early reads at around 51 minutes in.  Very relevant today.

activists at barnard college providing “labels”, photographed by susan rennie and published in off our backs: a women’s newsjournal vol. 3 no. 6, february 1973

Black an white photo of two women, one standing, one seated. 

Behind them is a hand-written sign reading, 

“YEA - It’s a heavy trip. BUT! This is a chance to CHOOSE YOUR OWN LABEL instead of having someone else do it for you:

straight, asexual, lesbian, bisexual, anti-label, dyke separatist, ?, lesbian feminist, anti-sexual or whatever”

Aces on the march!

Seattle Aces on the march!