Kansas Officially recognized Ace Week! ...Now what?

Transcript Transcribed by Hannah E.

Courtney: Hello, everyone, and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here with my spouse, Royce. And together, we are The Ace Couple. And I think today’s going to be a pretty short, breezy episode, but we’ve got a little something to celebrate — and then, of course, we’re not going to leave it just there at that. We are going to look on into the future: what comes next in the world of local Ace activism, at least in the United States.

Courtney: So, first of all, some of you may recall, a couple of years ago, we were successfully able to get Ace Week recognized on a city level in Kansas City, Missouri, because the state of Missouri is not as friendly as that city is to queer people in general. And, more recently, we were able to get Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week recognized in the state of Kansas, at the state level, signed by Governor Laura Kelly herself. And now, we have successfully gotten Ace Week recognized at the state level in Kansas as well. So, 2024: big year for Kansas Aspecs. Huge!

Courtney: We, of course, have these wonderful proclamations here that got mailed to us. They are lovely, they are signed, they are oh-so-official. The one kind of bummer is, yes, we got the proclamation passed. Laura Kelly happily signed these. It was not so easy to get a single news outlet to give a single flying fuck about it. [laughs] I wrote so many emails, y’all. And I have relationships with some people in news in the area, because several people have interviewed me for, like, my own business and artwork in the past. And, yeah, none of them would even so much as give a very short little, “Hey, by the way, Ace Week was recognized in the state.” So that was a little disheartening. But I guess, when the news fails us, we must be the news. So here we are, bringing the news to you.

Royce: Well, that wasn’t all that different from past times, right? With needing to report.

Courtney: Oh, yeah, no, it’s not surprising to me.

Royce: Was it Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week that just wasn’t believed online?

Courtney: [laughs] Yes, earlier this year in February. I posted the proclamations on our social media sites just so people could see them, and, yeah, on Tumblr, several people were like, “I hate to burst everyone’s bubble, but I can’t find any record of this in any reputable news site. I think this is a hoax.” Which is actually very funny, because after we called that out on our podcast — when I was talking about how I have no graphic design skills, I couldn’t forge this if I wanted to — several of those comments got deleted, which was fascinating, but a couple of them are still there. [laughs] But also, yeah, people just, like, emailing us or DMing us being like, “What is your source?” [laughs] Me. I am the source. The physical proclamation sitting right here on my dining room table is the source. [laughs]

Courtney: And definitely a reminder for all of you out there that it is not difficult to request a proclamation from your state governor. Every state has slightly different requirements, so you definitely want to be checking how early you need to put it in. Some states are, like, it needs to be a month early. Some it’s closer to two months. So if this is something you’re interested in doing in your own state, I might recommend that you go back to our episode where we talk about getting it recognized in Kansas City, Missouri. We actually went through some different channels to get that done at the city level, but we also have a lot of resources in the show notes for how to do this at the state level.

Courtney: But since we were successfully able to get both of these important weeks recognized in our state, I want to talk a little bit about what is next. Well, I have got my sight set — and I’ve had my sight set on our Congressional Equality Caucus for a while now. This is at a federal level, so a little bit bigger, but also, we’re still not talking really firm, important protective legislation. We’re still talking more a recognition label. As I said in our first episode when we got this done in Kansas City that the proclamations are nice but they’re almost meaningless, or they can be, but I personally see them as just one of many small stepping stones toward larger things.

Courtney: And the Congressional Equality Caucus is… Well, they claim to be a congressional caucus committing to achieving the full enjoyment of human rights for LGBTQI+ people in the US and around the world. Notice the lack of an A. [laughs] Because we have — and actually a lot of Aces, Aros, and agender folks have noticed this. You’ll see this all over in any sort of federal communications. You’ll see — even President Biden, the last couple of years, occasionally there will be a tweet from his account just generally declaring some amount of support for the LGBTQI+ community, and we’ve noticed. That is very strange and clunky, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how and why that became the way it is. But if the Congressional Equality Caucus didn’t have anything to do with it, they might be able to help fix that, or that is my hope.

Courtney: So, obviously, you know, lately, we’ve talked a lot about politics and the way things work in the executive branch of government. And a lot of these things sort of come from various, essentially, style guides that can be declared through executive order by the President, and this is the way the President would like all of the, you know, individual agencies within the government to talk about things and treat certain issues. The Congressional Equality Caucus isn’t one of these agencies, in that sense, because it is actually made up of representatives from across the country. So, much like perhaps you might see, on state levels or even city levels, there might be — like in Kansas, City, Missouri, for example, we went through the LGBTQ Commission of Kansas City to try to get Ace Week recognized, and they were able to then help us go to the City Council to recommend that this get accomplished. We’ve talked to Marshall Blount on the podcast before, who has also worked on LGBTQ Councils within his state of Pennsylvania. So this is sort of a federal version of that. So they do a lot of things for recognition, for recommendations within the government, not necessarily able to accomplish passing protective laws in and of their own as a caucus, but they very much have a seat at the table for a lot of these conversations.

Courtney: And I want to just impress how strange it is to see this “LGBTQI+,” because it is basically only in our government that I see that acronym. I haven’t seen that anywhere else. [laughs] And the reason why it’s so infuriating is because there are sort of, like, community standards. There are the way queer people and organizations talk about issues. And the most common standard acronym for a while now has been LGBTQIA+. And the IA was sort of the last one to get widespread recognition. But it is there now. But, you know, previously, LGBT was the standard, and is still kind of a verbal shorthand, especially if you’re talking and not typing out, because it can be a mouthful to say it all. But LGBT was sort of, you know, the first one. And so, how do we feel when people start shortening that to LGB? We don’t. Those people are fucking TERFs. When you see LGB without the T, there is a reason, and a bigoted one at that, that someone is shortening that.

Courtney: Now, I tend to not get mad about LGBTQ either, because the reason why the Q started becoming standard after the T was, well, queer. Queer, questioning — that can sort of encompass all others who aren’t necessarily represented in the LGBT. And so I could even be fine — I could be less upset about this if all of their official branding was just LGBTQ+. Because I’ve seen that before. I recognize that. I’ve seen how people use that. And I know that a lot of Ace and Aro people do see themselves as queer and can at least say, like, “Yeah, okay, if we’re using ‘queer’ as a way to say ‘Everyone that comes thereafter also,’ fine.”

Courtney: But then the IA got added, and that happened pretty much simultaneously. There wasn’t a huge period of time where it was just LGBTQI, and then the A got added later. That was not a thing — not in this language, not in this country. That was not a thing. The I and A sort of always went together, at least in the popular lexicon. So, to now see the Congressional Equality Caucus, our own president, every single bit of federal communications in this country cut it off at the I is suspicious.

Royce: We don’t know for a fact that it’s intentional, because we could just have a very ignorant series of government officials who were just handed an acronym and that’s what they started saying. But without knowing where it came from…

Courtney: Well, that’s the thing. Like, this Congressional Equality Caucus — like, it’s made up of queer representatives. So, like, at best, someone was like, “Oh, well, we shouldn’t put the A because the A stands for ‘ally,’ and this is just for the queer people.” But that is… If that’s the reason, that is so antiquated and false [laughs] and needs to be corrected.

Courtney: And especially now, it is important to have at least representatives who are fighting for the rights of queer Americans to understand these issues. Because how many times in the past several years have we talked about Republicans condemning platonic marriage, have we talked about judges and lawyers talking about the legal concerns about platonic marriage, how many states still have marriage consummation laws on the book? How many times have we talked about conversion therapy being a concern, or invasive questions about one’s sex life being part of the process to immigrate to this country or to seek asylum? These are all very real concerns that we, as Aces, want our government to understand and recognize and work toward equality and protection.

Courtney: And my big concern is that the people representing us don’t know these issues. They don’t understand our concerns. They might say, “Oh, yeah, you know, Ace people are valid. We want you to live your true, authentic life.” They might say these things, but do they actually know that we do have genuine political concerns, we do actually need legislation and protection? I don’t actually think so.

Courtney: And this came back on my radar because I have been watching the Congressional Equality Caucus for some time now, but they made a little tweet for Ace Week. They said, “Happy #AceWeek. In Congress, our members are working to protect Ace Americans’ rights to live openly and authentically, without judgment or fear,” with a little heart with the Ace flag colors saying “Ace Week 2024,” with the little Equality Caucus logo. Okay, that’s all well and good, but everything they say leaves out the A in their acronym. And they did not pass a resolution recognizing Ace Week. This is just a tweet. It is just a tweet.

Courtney: And for comparison’s sake, they actually made a press release on October 26 called “Equality Caucus Celebrates Intersex Awareness Day.” And I’ll put a link to this press release in the show notes so you can see it yourself. But it says what day Intersex Awareness Day is, that “the Equality Caucus stands with the intersex community, not just today, but every day,” saying they’re “valid and valued members of the LGBTQI+ community.” And then it says the background of Intersex Awareness Day. It talks about how the Congressional Equality Caucus members have introduced a number of Intersex-inclusive bills within this Congress.

Courtney: And they didn’t do this for Ace Week. They didn’t do this for Ace Week. We got a tweet. And I’ll bet you, if we ask them outright, “What Ace-inclusive legislation has this Congress passed?” they probably couldn’t answer. But they also… pffft, I don’t know, I’d be willing to bet most, if not all, of the people on this caucus probably wouldn’t even know what we want or what we’re asking for, what we need. Which seems so silly to me because it is so obvious to me, as we watch politics and the current climate of things, and you can see we have a history of talking about these explicitly political concerns.

Courtney: So I would like to find a way to get the Ace community’s foot in the door to our Equality Caucus. It would be so, so good if we could at the very least get that A put on the acronym. [laughs] Because I don’t even know if they realize it, but this has been a conversation in the community. Every time we see this federal communication, we’re like, “Why is it I+? Where did the A go?” It seems intentional at that point. And I don’t know what the intention was — if they thought it was “ally” or if they don’t think we actually need legislative protection. I don’t know what the reason was, but there has to be a reason, I think.

Courtney: So, perhaps luckily for us, our representative, Sharice Davids, is one of the Co-Chairs on the Equality Caucus. So obviously right now, in an election year, right — at the time of recording this, there’s about to be an election in a few days. They are all campaigning. They are very busy. They are very stressed. I fully understand that. As the incumbent, she’s pretty well beloved in our district. I’m not too concerned about her continuing in her position. I would like to reach out to her personally and have a conversation about this. I would like her to not only know that, yes, our community finds it very strange and suspicious that the A is not in the acronym, but I also would like to ask, “Are there any conversations about Ace-inclusive legislation? What are they?” And maybe even just give a list of, like, “Here are the actual political concerns of our community. How can we bring this into the broader conversation?”

Courtney: And I would encourage any of you listeners, if you also have a representative who is… If anyone is in the district of the Chair or any of the other Co-Chairs, I’d even say reach out to me and let’s work together and let’s draft something together to approach them and talk about this. The Chair is Congressman Mark Pocan — [trying different pronunciations] Pocan? Pocan? — who is based in Wisconsin, but there are several Co-Chairs. Like I said, our representative is one of them. So, I’ll put a link to information about the Equality Caucus so you can look it up and see if your representative is a part of this. Because if you are directly one of their constituents, you have a much easier foot in the door to having a conversation with these folks and having it be genuinely heard.

Courtney: But since we are now starting to talk about approaching these things at a federal level, I don’t want to lose sight of the smaller bits of work that we can be doing in our own individual areas. I cannot stress this enough. It is so important to be aware of what your cities and states are doing and what the queer organizers in your area are doing. For example, because of the fact that Roe v. Wade got overturned and we have a Republican supermajority in the Supreme Court for God knows how long, we have seen firsthand with Roe v. Wade how quickly protections can get stripped. We talk about these trigger laws where several states had outright banned abortions. It was only Roe v. Wade that was keeping those laws at bay, essentially. So as soon as that got repealed, all of a sudden, boom, immediately, several states have either outright abortion bans or needlessly restrictive bans.

Courtney: So, considering the fact that we know, because of Project 2025, because of these same letters that threaten Asexual rights and condemn platonic marriage also threaten same-sex marriage — I’d refer you back to the Respect for Marriage Act, was a big conversation we talked about at length. There are queer organizers in multiple states who are now trying to get same-sex marriage on the ballot in their states because they are now saying, “We can’t rely on Supreme Court precedents to continue upholding our rights with the current Supreme Court we have.” So people are preemptively planning ahead for what happens if they repeal Obergefell v. Hodges. “Is our state still going to allow same-sex marriage? Let’s make sure that it will if, God forbid, that happens.”

Courtney: So, for example, I know that that is happening in Colorado, Hawaii, California right now. If you’re in any of those states or if you know of any similar movements happening in your area, I’d encourage you to get involved in this. We’ve talked about how unfortunate the marriage system is in this country and how there are way too many rights and benefits and privileges that are inherently tied to marriage. But, unfortunately, that is the system we have right now, and it is going to be a lot easier to continue guaranteeing the rights of those who have it and open those rights up to a wider majority of people. That is going to be a lot faster and more realistic than overhauling the entire system.

Courtney: So I am in favor of keeping these… well, protecting these rights as much as possible, but we should be pushing it further. If there are individual states who are trying to keep same-sex marriage legal, I want to look at what the language is for the laws that they’re recommending. Is it specific to same-sex marriage? Because I would argue, given the current climate, we should also be putting legislation in place protecting the rights of platonic marriage. We see so many articles about how more, quote, “friends” are getting married and Aces are getting married and Aros are getting married, and that is a good, celebratory thing for us in our community for those who want those things. But there are very real people out there who do not think it’s legal, who think it shouldn’t be legal if it is, and we need to be protecting the rights to as many American citizens as possible in this arena. So, look at the movements already happening and get involved in them. And let’s find the places where we can — where there is room to add an additional line here and there to further solidify the rights of our community as well. And we can work together on these.

Courtney: And I can parallel that to bans on conversion therapy, also. Kansas City, Missouri, for example, is one of very few cities in the United States that explicitly bans Asexual conversion therapy for minors. That is fabulous. I am proud of that. The conversion therapy ban was put in place in 2019. And they define sexual orientation as “The preference or practice of homosexuality, heterosexuality, Asexuality, and bisexuality, or some combination thereof.” So, that is right in the conversion therapy ban — mentions Asexuality.

Courtney: And I think it is so important for conversion therapy bans to mention Asexuality because we are so heavily medicalized and pathologized. And there are too many medical professionals out there who don’t know or don’t see Asexuality to be a sexual orientation. They see it as a medical concern to be fixed. And, yes, medical conversion therapy or psychological conversion therapy — these are all things that we need to protect our community from.

Courtney: And my concern is always: if a conversion therapy ban specifically says, “Oh, no gay conversion therapy” — there are some that say that, right? “Gay conversion therapy.” And that is good. That is a step in the right direction. But we need more explicit language that protects all areas of the community. And we know from studies that Aces are at an increased risk of being offered or undergoing conversion therapy compared to most other demographics within the LGBTQI+ community. So, conversion therapy bans: definitely a big thing to keep an eye on if your state is trying to pass that or if your city is trying to pass that.

Courtney: And a lot of this will kind of depend on, like, who is your governor? Who is your mayor? Are you in the one big city in an otherwise pretty rural state? That kind of thing. Because if and when you can get things done at the state level, do it. But even if you’re in, say, a deep red state, you’ve got a governor who’s horribly queerphobic, sometimes your city is still able to get things done. That can be with conversion therapy bans like this. It can also be with sanctuary city status. For example, if a state tries to ban gender-affirming care for trans people, for example, there are individual cities within states like that who have said, “No, we are a sanctuary city for this. We are not going to enforce these laws. We are not going to prosecute doctors who do this.” So this is why it’s so important to know not only the political climate of your country, but of your state and of your city, and work within the framework that you have to work with.

Courtney: And underlying all of this is: find the other queer organizers. There are going to be people in every state and every city who are already working on these issues. Find them, figure out how you can work with them, and then find a way to work with them to incorporate Ace-inclusive language.

Courtney: And I guess the final note I want to leave on is: I would like to encourage our community to be more proactive about protective legislations. I think things like guaranteeing and protecting marriage rights, flawed as the system is, [laughs] is an immediate concern that is being attacked politically right now. That is one we can work on. Like I said, conversion therapy, sanctuary city laws, things of this nature. I would encourage our community to focus on those.

Courtney: Because there are queer organizers — and not even Ace-specific ones, just broadly queer organizers — who might fight for things such as stricter hate crime laws, if someone is a victim of a hate crime based on their sexual orientation or their gender identity. I’m personally not very swayed that that is helpful to our community. If you look at it through an abolitionist lens, that can guarantee more funding for police officers and precincts, in some situations. Even if it doesn’t come with added funding, it can further contribute to police state, which, of course, disproportionately impacts minority populations as it is. There’s also just so much evidence I’ve seen that stricter sentences in just about any type of crime doesn’t tend to minimize that crime. So I see things like hate crime legislation to be a little more reactionary — “Something bad happens, so let’s punish it harder. We’re reacting to it” — where I would like to take a very proactive stance. I would like to say, what are we doing to protect people from the beginning?

Courtney: And there are a lot of other areas we can continue to explore, but that’s just a little food for thought. We as a community have got a lot of work to do. And there are a lot of constraints within our current political system. Sometimes we have to get creative. But depending on who you are, where you are, what resources are available to you, there are options. We just need to be aware, we need to stay vigilant, and we need to find the places where we can help enact change.

Courtney: So, on that note, that’s going to be all for today. But, as always, I would love to send you off by giving a big shout-out to this week’s featured MarketplACE vendor, Fenbound: Photography, fantasy art, and fanart designed by an agender AroAce artist. We’ve got a triple-A battery in the house. We love to see it. Links, as always, are going to be in the show notes. I got a fabulous purple dragon sticker from Fenbound, because, of course purple dragon. I am an Ace. What did you expect, that I wasn’t going to get the purple dragon sticker? Of course I’m going to get the purple dragon sticker. But there are several other things in this shop. If you are a fan of Pokemon, there are some very cute little Pokepride charms, so not only Pokemon, but we’ve got some color schemes and a variety of pride flags on them. And there are even some really cool clay pins that look like mushrooms. Very cool for all our mushroom lovers out there.

Royce: You’ve been getting a lot of mushroom memorabilia lately.

Courtney: I have. I thought so hard about getting one of these mushroom pins, but my problem is I don’t use pins. But so many of the fabulous artists on our MarketplACE make such cool pins that I’m consistently looking at these shops going, “Do I need to start wearing pins? There are so many good pins here!” So, if you’re a pin person, check them out for sure.

Courtney: But that is all we have for today. We wish you all luck in your respective local activism, and we will talk to you all next time. Goodbye.