Ace in the UK Research and Activism ft. Yasmin Benoit

Transcript Transcribed by Hannah E.

Courtney: Hello, everyone, and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here, as always, with my spouse, Royce. And together, we are The Ace Couple. And I am delighted to share with you that today, we have a fabulous guest. I cannot wait to talk to her. Perhaps she needs no introduction to those of you who are a part of the Ace community, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock, go ahead and introduce yourself.

Yasmin: Hey, everybody. I’m Yasmin Benoit, very happy to be here. I’m a model, Aromantic Asexual activist, writer, speaker, researcher, consultant, all the things. And we’re going to get into a lot of them today, I’m sure.

Courtney: And I am so excited to do exactly that, because… Remind me, how long have you considered yourself an Asexual activist? You’ve had a lot of projects over the years, for sure.

Yasmin: I feel like I started focusing on it properly in 2019, I’d say. I don’t know how many years that is, and factor in pandemic years — five years? It’s been five years.

Courtney: You know, years are meaningless to me since the pandemic started. I keep forgetting that the years kept ticking on. It felt like everything just got put on pause. So I’m kind of there with you. But I think we should start — because I’ve been dying to talk about this. We mentioned it a few times offhanded on our podcast, but you published a report along with Stonewall called the Ace in the UK Report, and I’m really excited. I’d love to start there. And then we can talk about all of your past projects, controversies, perhaps, even?

Yasmin: [laughs] I’ve got many of those.

Courtney: [laughs] Past projects and controversies. But, yeah, when you mentioned that you sort of really got serious in 2019, that does remind me of the foreword that you wrote for that, where you mentioned there was sort of a moment in 2018 where you were hearing a firsthand account of a fellow Ace who experienced conversion practices, and you said that sort of reminded you of something in your past. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that story and how it all started connecting for you?

Yasmin: Yeah! So I think it was 2018. I was at the Ace Conference; that was in Edinburgh that year. And I was also doing a kind of audio documentary for the BBC at the same time, so they also came over. And we were interviewing someone who I actually later ended up interviewing for the same report; I reached back out to them. And they were telling me about their experiences in health care and how they’d be made to take, like, really physically invasive and unnecessary examinations, like genital examinations, and how they had been convinced that there was something wrong with them and being put into psychosexual therapy and all of that. And that was kind of my first time hearing about that in that sense. But then, you know, I’ve kind of heard anecdotally— I’m sure everybody has — from Asexual people, you know, being made to feel like there’s something wrong with you, either physically or mentally.

Yasmin: And it kind of made me think back to a time when I was in uni. And at that time — when would this have been? 2016, I think? — when I was going through a lot of exam stress, and I went to, like, the school counselor to work on my neurotic perfectionism, and, you know, they were asking me questions about, like, who I am, and asked me about my sexuality. And I was like, “Oh, well, I’m Asexual, but, you know, came here to talk about the exam stuff.” And they were like, “Oh, but surely, isn’t that what you really wanted to work on? Like, overcoming that issue?” And I was like, “No, it wasn’t an issue. Really just want to focus on the exam stress.” Because at that point, you know, I was already pretty content with my Asexuality. I already knew a fair amount about it.

Yasmin: But I did think, well, if I hadn’t have known that much about it or if I wasn’t very certain, then I might have been like, “Okay, the professional is telling me that this is something to be concerned about, so maybe I should.” And that’s kind of how a lot of people end up going down that path. It’s because they either don’t know much about Asexuality or they’re unsure. And when, you know, someone that seems very educated tells them, “You need to be concerned about this,” they’re like, “Oh God, really? Okay, well, let’s see.” Or, if they’re told, “We won’t give you access to the medical care you came here for until you care about it,” then you’re kind of are forced to go down that path.

Yasmin: So that was kind of my first time hearing about that. But coincidentally, that was the same year that the government in the UK had done the national LGBT survey, which was kind of like the biggest survey I think we’ve ever done into LGBTQ+ communities, and that found that Asexual people are 10% more likely to be offered or to undergo conversion therapy compared to those of other orientations — which is a statistic I feel like everyone completely ignored. Like, it didn’t come on my radar until a while later, until… when did I approach Stonewall with this? 2021 was kind of when I started contacting Stonewall and being like, “Hey, I feel like you should be doing more into this.”

Yasmin: And for those who don’t know Stonewall, they’re the biggest LGBTQ+ rights organization in the UK — probably in Europe, to be honest. They were very pivotal in getting gay marriage legalized, equalizing the age of consent, civil partnerships, allowing queer people to be in the military, and all those kinds of things. And they’ve been going since, like, the ’60s or something. So they’ve definitely kind of established themselves, and they know what they’re doing. And they’d expressed interest in being more open to orientations outside of the first four letters. So I emailed them and was like, “But what are you actually doing?” And they were like, “Nothing.” And I was like, “Okay, well, here’s an agenda for you. Here’s what you could be doing.” And then I kind of just, like, harassed them to the point where they were just like, “Okay, screw it. We’ll just let you do it!” And then eventually the higher-ups realized and were like, “Okay, she’s already done a lot. Let’s just [laughing] call it an initiative and let’s just, like, make it official, publicize it. We actually do want to focus on this kind of thing.”

Yasmin: And so we decided that we’re going to launch the Stonewall x Yasmin Benoit Ace Project, and the first thing we’re going to do is release a report into Asexual discrimination in healthcare and the workplace. And we could use the statistics from the government’s research, so that people knew I wasn’t just making it all up — even though they still did think that, but you know. And then we could use the case studies that I had kind of heard about and get in touch with those people again and put all that in there, do some focus groups, do some one-on-one interviews, and then have something to reference when we actually start doing the campaigning. Because no one knows what the hell I’m talking about, so you do need to be able to point someone to something specific. So that was kind of what I was aiming for there.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. And as you share your story, it’s not anything that surprises me. Because, goodness knows — I’ve maybe shared a little bit with you when we’ve had past conversations, but I’ve certainly talked about it a lot on the podcast as well — I’ve had so many just tremendously messed up situations in healthcare. Especially as a disabled woman, I need to use our healthcare a lot, which I understand — US healthcare and UK healthcare, there’s a lot of differences there. But when I read some of the anecdotes from your report, even though we have a totally different sort of financial structure, I see a lot of the same social issues and a lot of the same anxieties that fellow Ace people feel when they see healthcare providers.

Royce: Yeah. Healthcare infrastructure and providers vary worldwide or sometimes even state to state here, but institutionalized bigotry is universal.

Courtney: Yes, absolutely. And I just can’t get over that you were in uni and you were like, “I have stress. I have very normal natural stress from exams,” and they’re like, “But let’s examine your Asexuality.” I’m sure under a psychologist, a healthcare provider, some kind of counselor, they think there is something medically significant, that it’s all connected there. But it baffles me that they never seem to understand that that is not even a full step — it is a half step away from, like, “Oh, you’re stressed? You just need to get laid.”

Yasmin: It’s completely unconnected, so it was quite strange. But it definitely stuck out to me, and I feel like it’s very much, you know, symptomatic of a wider issue. But I mean, even though you’re in the US and our healthcare systems are very different, the medical manuals that are used are pretty much the same. Like, we use the ICD, mainly. You use the DSM. They’re pretty much exactly the same.

Courtney: They both have language in that that, whether or not it explicitly says the word “Asexual,” it basically defines Asexuality, or it can be interpreted that way under the right circumstances.

Yasmin: Yeah. The idea if you’re not experiencing sexual desire towards someone enough, then that’s a medical, diagnosable sexual dysfunction is in both of them. Actually, the DSM has done a little bit more work to tweak that than ours has, but yeah. So I feel like it’s definitely an international issue. I’m sure it’s something that’s happening beyond the UK and the US as well. I just don’t know as much about medical systems in other countries to kind of start doing that. But, yeah, it’s definitely something very widespread. And I know that in combating it here, it’s involved a lot of work with the NHS and the royal colleges who are kind of in control of, like, psychiatric stuff. That’s kind of on my to do list, and obviously speaking to the government and stuff about it. Now that we have something to reference, it’s kind of allowed them to take it a bit more seriously.

Courtney: And that’s what I want to really get into and get some more detail about as well, because… And for those listeners, in our show notes, I’m going to link not only this report but any other reports we talk about so you can review them for yourself. But what I really like about this report is it has the anecdotes, it has some statistics, but then there are very clear policy proposals. And I think that is a key step that we see very infrequently in Asexual activism. And I think it’s incredibly important because in my experience talking about the medicalization, pathologization, and conversion therapy for Ace people — these are things I have been speaking about a lot longer than people have been paying attention. And it was very difficult, for a period of time, to even get other Ace people to listen to these concerns, because there was very much a period of time where everyone was like, “No, the doctors already medicalize us so much that we don’t want to hear about disabled Aces. We don’t want to hear about mentally ill Aces. We don’t want… We just… Like, get out of here. You’re going to be sort of a block in the road for us getting these rights.” So it was very hard to even talk to people who have our own orientation about this, let alone people who hardly know about Asexuality, trying to explain our issues.

Courtney: But that’s all social understanding, right? So to me, the really important key things we need is policy. We need legislation. We need legal protections. And if it’s so hard to even have these conversations within the community and with just the people around us in our life, how do we get through to the politicians, the people who can actually enact change? So I’d love to hear a little more from you about what your strategies have been, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and what some of those issues are that you’ve faced when trying to lobby for these changes.

Yasmin: It’s interesting because — I think this might sound bad, but I think one kind of difference I think in both of our experiences is that I don’t talk to people that much —

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: — unless it’s, like, absolutely essential. Because I feel like if I was to, I would probably get kind of caught up in — like, you know, I’ve had very mixed experiences within the Ace community and into personal capacity, so I kind of just like lone-wolf everything. And I never really asked anyone, like, “How do you do this?” or, like… Because no one else was really on it, and I was kind of used to just doing everything myself anyway.

Yasmin: But I think that fortunately, because of, I guess, other aspects of my work, I would find myself, I don’t know, at like an awards show or at a party or an event or something, and, you know, you would kind of just be there for the drinks and the canapes and all that. But then there would also be, like, a random politician there and, okay, they’re getting tipsy and they want to go on the dance floor. But also, I can make an introduction and be like, “Hey, I assume if you’re here, then you must have quite an inclusive mindset.” And if you can kind of make that initial introduction, then when you send them an email, it becomes a bit less weird, or they’re like, “Oh, okay, I saw you,” or “You know this person who I also know.” So I kind of capitalized on my contacts, on proximity to certain people —

Courtney: Networking! It’s networking, yeah. Absolutely. And that is really, really important. And the thing is — I know we’ve talked about this a bit before, where you’re like, [laughing] “I don’t really talk to as many people as you seem to,” which is very understandable. There have been periods of times throughout my life and career where I’m like, “You know what? I’m done talking with people for a while,” but then I stop for a couple years, and then I always crawl back out of my hole, because I apparently just can’t help myself. But networking is so very, very important. And it’s kind of always seemed to me like that’s what a lot of folks are trying to sort of emulate on social media. And to an extent, sometimes that can work, where social media can be part of a tool in a broader networking.

Courtney: But another thing that your report sheds a light on is that Ace people are less likely to be out. We often feel more uncomfortable about disclosing our orientation with the people around us. And so I feel like so many folks in our community just have never had the opportunity or the comfort level to do that sort of networking in their real-life communities and their real-life careers. And I think that is also probably a tremendous hindrance to getting real-world change enacted.

Yasmin: Yeah. I think that people… I mean, don’t get me wrong, social media is very useful, but I think that having a kind of in-person presence — it kind of makes a difference. Like, often, when I speak to people and they’re like, “Oh I don’t know any Asexual people,” or like, “It’s weird, I haven’t come across any,” I’m thinking, “You have.”

Courtney: You have.

Yasmin: “They just didn’t tell you.” But then I can’t even blame you for not knowing that, because, you know, if no one wants to say anything… And I’ve had that issue, I think, back in the day when I did try to, I guess, be more involved or get other people — like, it was actually a struggle getting Asexual people to do things that are a little outside of the box, especially that involved putting their names and their faces out there. People really didn’t want to do it.

Yasmin: So I do think that that kind of does become — I’m not blaming people for that, but it does become a bit of a hindrance, because I think that having a physical presence in different spaces, kind of, you know, it makes people feel more likely to come out: the people that are there but they’re silent, or the people that wouldn’t have even thought to go there. And then also, I think that for the queer community in general, you kind of need to have that before people start thinking about it. So I’ve just been lucky that I’ve been in a position where I’m like, “Okay, I guess I don’t really feel like I have anything to lose. Like, I’ll just do it.” But I appreciate that not everybody even ends up in proximity to those kind of people in the first place.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, with your career as a model — and obviously everyone’s workplace experience is not going to look exactly like yours, with these events, awards shows and whatnot, but the statistics in the report are very startling. It’s very obvious that Ace people are not comfortable to come out in the workplace. And what are some sort of thoughts or understandings you developed through doing this research about our comfortability when it comes to being out?

Yasmin: Yeah. I think — I mean, it’s definitely a little ironic. I was doing the research, thinking, “I’ve never had a full-time job in my life,” and I’m sitting here, like, researching —

[Courtney and Yasmin laugh]

Yasmin: — asking people about their work experiences and stuff. It’s like, I can’t personally vouch for these kinds of things. But I’ve been to a lot of workplaces. I’ve spoken in a lot of them. I feel like I’ve kind of peeked behind the curtain of — you know, name an industry, I’ve probably been there or know people there. And I see all the great progress that’s happening for people of different orientations and all the workplace inclusion policies and all the work that they’re doing for that, and Asexuality is definitely just being kind of left by the wayside. We’re not explicitly mentioned in any policies. Most employers don’t even know what acephobia looks like. They can’t define Asexuality.

Yasmin: And whenever I’ve kind of done things in workplaces, I’ll often have… Like, either people will kind of anonymously — like, in the kind of Q&A section afterwards — or even during, will be like, “Hey, there’s an Asexual person who works here,” and everyone’s like, “[gasps] We have one! Hold on!”

Courtney: [laughs] “Who knew!”

Yasmin: [laughs] It’s like, they’ve been here the whole time, but it’s like, until you’ve done something that’s made them think, “Oh, okay, I guess it is okay to come out here,” they’re not going to do that. Because, you know, we are more likely, statistically, to be in the closet, but also to experience negative reactions when we do try to come out, because people have absolutely no etiquette when it comes to Asexuality and they don’t know what not to say in the way that you’re literally taught, “Do not say this to a gay person. Do not say this to a trans person at work.” But for Asexual people, they have no idea. So you kind of have a lot of that.

Yasmin: And then if you were to — if it does end up breaching the point into harassment about it or it’s very inappropriate, and you go to a higher-up, and they’re like, “We don’t have anything written about this. HR knows nothing about this. Does that even count?” Because they’re just asking a valid question. Like, I’m wondering that too. And then it just kind of becomes an ongoing issue, because they don’t even have, like, the initial groundwork going on.

Yasmin: So the statistics into our experiences were not very surprising, but it has been good to see workplaces beginning to consider that once I’ve been able to point that out. Because, technically, it was the government’s research that indicated that initially. I just kind of dug into how it was happening and where. But people had just not noticed the government’s research into it at all. Like, no one, I think, read that in depth, or no one paid attention or, like, cared that it said that. Because this work could have been started in 2018, but no one really thought to do it.

Courtney: And it’s really all pieces of the same puzzle, too, right? Because a lot of the public ignorance also does stem from these institutions that have been legitimized — like the medical institution, psychological institutions — where a lot of just everyday people, the only time they may have ever heard of Asexuality is, “Oh, I heard a brain tumor can cause that,” or “Oh, have you had your hormones checked?” And so that sort of leaches into the public consciousness as well and creates these social issues, even outside of those dedicated structures of the medical places.

Courtney: But it’s interesting, too. Because in the workplace… I tried talking about an issue I had in a workplace. And I’ve been self-employed for over a decade now — about a decade now — but I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life, a lot of different jobs. And some of them have such a distinct culture that is very inherently sort of misogynistic, acephobic, queerphobic in general. And it’s really hard to describe to someone who hasn’t worked in a place like that, because they can’t — it sounds so awful when you describe it. They’re like, “Well, surely, HR would have stepped in. That doesn’t sound right.”

Royce: Yeah. Traditional office culture, especially over here, has a heavy tendency to swing in that direction.

Courtney: Yes. When I worked at a banking call center in an office, that was one of the worst, most bro-y — every manager was a white man. They were all obsessed with sex and sports and betting, and they would just say the most awful, nasty comments to not only me but other women in the workplace. And, okay, Yasmin, tell me this: is there a presence of Quiverfulls in the UK?

Yasmin: Of what?

Courtney: Do you know the Quiverfulls?

Yasmin: No, I’ve never heard that.

Courtney: It’s a very, very conservative branch of Christianity, where there is a Bible passage about “if your quiver is full,” and that means having a lot of children. And there are some people who take that to such an extreme that they will say really awful things to you if you are a woman over the age of 20 and don’t have at least two kids yet.

Courtney: And I was managed by one of those people, once upon a time. And it’s really, really fascinating, so. I mean, this manager I had — he was quite a piece of work. But he and his wife had a lot of children — which is their right to do, of course — but she had a baby and was, like, pregnant within three months again, and I was like, “Oh, your poor wife.” And he was like, “Well, we’re going to have as many kids as God gives us, and we are going to give God as many opportunities as possible to give us kids. And, by the way, why aren’t you married yet?” And so, okay. As a direct manager.

Courtney: So I’ve worked in workplaces like that. So if I talk about, “Hey, it is actually important to have Asexual awareness in the workplace,” people can’t really always conceptualize why — why is this important. And just another anecdote: back in the day, when I was still posting on Facebook — so this must have been way back when. I’ve been out as Asexual for quite a long time. Nearly everyone in my life knows this. It’s not a secret. But I found someone on my friends list in Facebook who their bio, just their bio, said, “I have a deep-seated hatred for Asexuals.”

Yasmin: Oh!

Courtney: That was it. That was the entire bio. And even though I didn’t work directly with that person, that person was a manager at their workplace. And so I was just thinking, like, imagine that person has an Ace employee under them when they’re so boldly proclaiming — like, this this is so important that this is what you made your bio. You’ve made this a personality trait.

Yasmin: Out of all the groups. That’s so random.

Courtney: Yeah. And, like, here in the US… Maybe you can shed a little light on employment and discrimination laws in the UK, but in the US, most states are considered right-to-work states, which means that, essentially, they can fire you for almost anything they want, almost any reason, or no reason, often. So sometimes, people do get fired for discriminatory reasons, but officially, it’s a different reason or no reason. And so I always think about that. It’s like, if you have a manager who has a deep-seated hatred for Asexuals and you live in a state where they can just fire you for no reason at all, where are the protections for discrimination on that front?

Yasmin: Yeah. I mean, fortunately, in the UK, I don’t think you can just fire people for… There’s, like, a lot of loops that you kind of have to jump through to do that. And I also think, I guess, culturally, we don’t emphasize religion as much. I think it’d be very weird for someone to, like, highlight their religion and emphasize that onto other people at work. That’d be very strange here. Kind of like how in our politics, we never mention religion, and then your politics, it, like, mentions Christianity every five minutes. Like, we would never do that. It would be really weird here. [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah. [laughs] Which is really funny, too, because sometimes — I mean, the grace and the curse that is social media: you can get out to a lot more people, you can explain, you can have a wider audience in some ways, but sometimes, the bit of context is missing. So even when I’ve spoken about some things, like how our workplaces operate or how our medical system operates — because, you know, needing to take unnecessary pregnancy tests is something I’ve spoken about a lot. And some people have gotten very, very angry at me for talking about that. And I’m like, “Why, in the US, I have to pay for that!”

Yasmin: Oh!

Courtney: If they want me to take a pregnancy test, if my insurance at the time doesn’t cover that, and they’re making me take a dozen of them a year — because I need these X-rays, I need these different tests, and they’re going to pregnancy-test me every time — because also, the hospital is owned by a church [laughs] — then… Yeah, that happens a lot. A lot of our medical institutions are explicitly Christian. Then that adds up over the years. So not only do I have this social discrimination and this, you know, shame and having Asexuality called into question, but you also have a real, like, financial concern there. And so sometimes I’ve spoken about that, and I’ve had some European Aces be like, “What’s the problem? Just take the test. Like, just take it. Just do it.” It’s like, it costs me money!

Yasmin: It’s such a bizarre idea from a European perspective. Like, I’ve never thought of that! I’m sure people just don’t even think of it. Like, it’s such a strange, like, specifically American thing.

Courtney: Yeah. We’ve got a lot of strange, specifically American things, unfortunately. But I do think a lot of the policy recommendations laid out are still policies that would be very good for the US to have, or could be adapted in such a way that would still grant us further protections.

Yasmin: Yeah. I don’t really know, like, if DEI culture is the same in the US as it is here. Like, most of the work-related things I do are always in the UK. I mean, actually, every now and then, I’ve done something with, like, a US place, but it tends to be like a very international place. Like, I don’t know if it’s that normal for your average company to have a pride network, which here, is not that unusual. So there might be some distinctions in how much of a conversation that is over there.

Courtney: Well, sometimes. It kind of depends on the company, but some companies do and some will. A lot are clearly much better than others. But now, our country voted Trump back in. [laughs] Which, by the way, I felt so bad. You texted me, like, the day of or the day before the election, and then I just went underground into a hole of depression for weeks, and I was like, “Oh shit! I need to text Yasmin back!” [laughs]

Yasmin: [laughs] That’s okay. I was sitting at home watching at, like, 5:00 AM, being like, “Yeah! This is going well,” and then being like, “Oh damn. Okay.”

Courtney: Mmm, no, it’s never going well. But what we’ve done… We’ve gone extensively through the organizations, the very right-wing Christian conservative organizations, who are very successful at enacting policy and are in Trump’s pocket. They are saying that, like, day one, they’re going to make executive order — they are just removing the words “DEI,” “diversity,” “equity,” “inclusion,” any mention of race, any mention of gender equality. They want to flat remove all of those words from every branch of government and make sure that no company that has any DEI programs is going to be able to ever access any government money. And it’s probably going to change and get a lot worse before it gets a lot better over here.

Yasmin: That’s a shame. I feel like… I mean, I’m definitely — ever since New York, I’ve been looking to do more work in the US. I probably will have something in 2025, that leads for me to come over — it’s kind of like in the talks — but I imagine it’ll be a very slightly different vibe to, like, you know, a year ago.

Courtney: Yeah, we’ll chat more in the meantime. We’ll get you on the same page with everything going on here. Because we watch it very carefully, and we speak about these things a lot. But that actually brings up another point. Your first trip to the US was a very exciting reason. Tell us about that.

Yasmin: That was such a surprise for me. I literally just, like, got an email one day being like, “We have some kind of, I don’t know, like, a committee, or, like, a vote, and you’ve been voted to be the Grand Marshal of New York Pride 2023.” And I was like, “What?” I didn’t even know I was on the —

Courtney: [laughs] “Where did that come from?”

Yasmin: — I was part of the thing. I didn’t even think I’d be eligible. I didn’t even know what a Grand Marshal was. I actually had to Google it.

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: Because we don’t have Grand Marshals here. So I was like, “Is that like an army thing? Like, I don’t know what that means.” [laughing] I was thinking, like, “Martial law?” So I’m, like, looking that up. And then I’m like, “Ohhh! Okay!” I was like, “So you’re going to bring me to New York?” ’Cause I was like, okay. Like, that was very surprising. And that was one of those fun things. Because, like, there are some things where I have to really fight to get things done, and then there are other things just, like, appear out of nowhere that I wouldn’t have even thought about.

Yasmin: And, like, while I’d kind of — you know, I’ve done things in lots of other countries, but I hadn’t really thought about doing anything in the US, ’cause I was like, “Well, I don’t even know if they’re, like, that interested over there.” So when they were like, “Oh, yeah, you got lots of fans in New York, and they want to bring you,” that was when I thought, “Oh, should I be doing things in the US? I don’t know.” Again, I think, just as a British person who, like, has watched every single episode of Friends five times over —

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: — and watched Home Alone: Lost in New York and, like, all of our things — like, we see so much New York stuff. Like, New York Minute, Mary-Kate and Ashley — I used to love that movie. So I was just like, “Oh my gosh! Like, I’m so excited to, first, actually go to America, and also to go to New York — like, that’s like stepping into a TV show.” So that in itself was just, like, a total surreal dream. And it was exactly as I thought it would be. It met up to all the expectations.

Courtney: Really.

Yasmin: Like, the yellow taxis, the metro was actually better than I thought it would be. I’d heard horror stories. And I was like, “This is kind of nice here!” Like, I’m not against it. It seemed kind of nice, quite easy to use compared to London’s, so I was pleasantly surprised. And, like, the people were friendly, I thought they wouldn’t be. [laughs]

Courtney: That is the stereotype, that they wouldn’t be.

Yasmin: So I thought that was cool. And then on the actual day, I mean, I was mainly just left to my own devices, to be honest. So I kind of just did a bunch of solo touristy things, like I did the Friends experience.

[Courtney and Yasmin laugh]

Yasmin: Like, ran to Rockefeller, World Trade Center, just trying to see all the things. But then I did Youth Pride, and that was in… where was that? Williamsburg? Or, like, Brooklyn, I think? Kind of more like Brooklyn, but by the Williamsburg Bridge. And that was kind of like the first actual event I did there. And, I don’t know, did you ever watch America’s Next Top Model? Do you remember Isis, the trans girl from there?

Yasmin: Courtne: Yes!

Yasmin: She was hosting it! And I was saying to her — I was like, “I used to, like, watch you as a kid!”

Courtney: Really!

Yasmin: Which, I’m sure she was probably thinking, “Well, that just aged me.”

Courtney: [laughs] No, that is a bit of a flashback. It has been so long since I’ve even thought of that show.

Yasmin: I feel like everything that you hear about it now is like, “Let’s reflect over how chaotic that show was.” And it was, in hindsight.

Courtney: [laughs] Yes.

Yasmin: Yeah, so that was kind of like my first little, like, “Oh, this is surreal. Like, I used to watch you on TV, and now you’re introducing me onto the stage to talk to these kids.” And we got to — like, the waiting room was in an RV, and I was like, “Oh my God, an RV! This is so American! I’ve never seen one of these in real life!”

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: And everyone —

Courtney: Oh, that’s funny! See, because here in our Kansas suburb, like, occasionally, you’ll just see an RV parked in someone’s driveway as they’re getting ready to go out on a road trip. [laughs]

Yasmin: We don’t have these!

Courtney: So they are all over the place here. It’s funny, though. I’m glad that New York met your expectations, because sometimes, expectations are so high that it gets a little disappointing. But it’s all what you’re used to, right? I mean, my first time in New York, I did all the same thing, do the touristy things, you kind of have to. But now, I’ve been to New York so many times for both leisure and work, that I’ve seen all the touristy things, I’ve seen the better sort of hidden underground things.

Courtney: But I can absolutely relate to that, because the very first time I ever was in the UK, I felt like that. I was like, “Oh! Look at this place, this romantic, mythical place! I’m finally here!” But I had such a small window of time to actually see London years ago when I first went, so I was happy to come back over the summer. But when you said, like, “Oh, it was easier than London,” yeah! When I was there over the summer, I was like, “Do I hate London?”

Yasmin: [laughs] You saw me just hate the tube, hate getting around. Even getting in New York, like, I think when I wasn’t on the metro, when they’re like, “Oh, let’s just get a taxi and take you,” I was like, “This is actually the worst thing.” The traffic was so bad. I think the metro would have been faster. Like, it was so cumbersome. But I think the only… I think one fun thing, though, was because, you know, usually whenever I’ve done Pride routes, I’m walking, and that time, they just put me on the back of a Jaguar and I just got driven around. Like, woah, this is the fastest I’ve moved through New York this whole time. There’s no traffic.

Courtney: [laughs] Yes.

Yasmin: We’re on the road. And it was almost like taking, like, a little open-top bus tour. Because I went through, like, Greenwich Village and passed the Stonewall Inn, and I was like, “Oh my God, I wanted to see these anyway!” So it was a very surreal first experience of America. I’m not sure if —

Courtney: And you had the VIP treatment!

Yasmin: I did, at least in part. And, like, I mean, I had the hotel covered. And food, I was kind of just left to my own devices. And food in America is weird. It tastes funny. It costs more.

[Courtney and Yasmin laugh]

Yasmin: I didn’t understand it. I think that was one downside, is that I didn’t have anyone with me, so I was very much just like working everything out. Like, I think there was a point where I actually bribed somebody with VIP Christina Aguilera tickets to show me how to get to Brooklyn. [laughing] So I was like, “You can come with me if you’ll escort me to Brooklyn.”

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: “So, you want to watch Christina Aguilera? Like, come on.” So, yeah, it was a bit confusing in that sense, but, yeah, it was fun. I was staying in Times Square as well, which is probably a very chaotic place to stay. [laughs] As soon as I left the hotel, I was like, “What’s going on?”

Courtney: Yeah.

Yasmin: But it was very cool. I felt like I… It was funny, because my family came from the Caribbean to the UK generations ago. They had a choice between Reading, England, or New York City. Those were their choices. I don’t know why they chose Reading, but I always felt like, in a parallel universe, there’s a Yasmin with, like, a really English accent that was born and raised in Brooklyn and that’s like — like Stewie from Family Guy. That’s my theory. So when I got there, I was like, “This feels weirdly familiar.” I can find my way around easily. I’m going to amp up the British accent so people go, “Oh my God, are you from England?” Like, I just wanted to have that moment for once in my life.

Courtney: Yeah, that is funny, because you don’t sound nearly as British as you are, in fact.

Yasmin: Because I watched too much Rugrats as a kid.

Courtney: [laughs] That’s really funny.

Yasmin: But you know, when I was there, I was trying to sound like Emma Watson. I was like, “I want people to ask me if I’m English so badly.” [laughs]

Courtney: “They need to know! They need to know I’m not from here!” [laughs] See, I have such a weird experience when I travel. Because like half the people I run into are convinced that I am from wherever I am because I’m always dressed, uh, eccentrically, and people are like, “Surely you aren’t traveling like that?” No, I’m absolutely traveling this way. Or they have no idea where I’m from. For some reason, I’ve even had people who can’t place my accent. They’re like, “Where are you from?” I’m like, “The Midwestern United States.” They’re like, “That doesn’t sound like an American accent.”

Royce: I’ve been surprised by that too, but from what you’ve reported, apparently, very distinct American accents are what are known overseas — like, either a very heavy Southern accent or New York or something like that. The middle of the country is very neutral.

Courtney: I’m also so racially ambiguous that people are, like, looking for the clues. They’re like, “What are you? I don’t know what you are or where you’re from.” Which has led to some interesting things while traveling. There was a woman having a horrible medical emergency at an airport in Sweden when I was in Sweden, and she came up to me speaking Farsi frantically, and I’m like, “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Farsi! But clearly you looked around this room of people and thought, ‘If anyone does, it’s her,’ and I don’t. I’m American, and I only speak English and, like, that much Swedish.”

Yasmin: It’s funny, I don’t know if anyone’s ever told you this, but you actually have the exact same speaking voice as Mara Wilson, who played Matilda — not her in the movie, but her as an adult.

Courtney: Really! I haven’t heard that one.

Yasmin: Look at any interview she’s done. It’s like, the cadence of your voice is exactly the same — at least to me, anyway. But she’s from California, so it’s random.

Courtney: It is random.

Yasmin: But the way you talk sounds, like, very similar to me. You can confirm or deny that when you actually hear her. [laughs]

Courtney: That’s fascinating. Well, every now and then, we’ll get a random listener comment that’s like, “Courtney sounds just like,” and it’s a different person every time. But I’ve never heard Mara Wilson, so I’m going to add that to the pile.

Yasmin: She’s, like, a voiceover actress now. Like, it’s a good thing.

Courtney: Oh yeah! She did a voice in Welcome to Night Vale, which is one of the only podcasts that I’ve ever actually listened to — [laughing] because for a podcaster, I don’t listen to that many podcasts. But Mara Wilson plays The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home, which is… It’s a weird, weird podcast. It’s fiction, it’s fantasy, it’s a little bit horror, it’s kind of creepy. But they also make these Welcome to Night Vale novels, which I love. They’ve done three of them so far. And one of them revolves around this character, and there is actually an Ace character in that book, and I don’t hear a lot of people talk about that. And I’d like to talk about that book at some point, but we’ll do that on another day. It’s a very good book.

Yasmin: In the same way as you’re a podcaster who doesn’t listen to podcasts, I’m the Ace activist that doesn’t watch Asexual things, [laughing] unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Courtney: We didn’t either, until this podcast, but you see… [laughs] You see. And this is actually going to be another very interesting — getting into your controversies —

Courtney: [Yasmin and Courtney laugh]

Courtney: This will be a good segue. This will be a good segue to one of those. So we never tried to seek out Ace rep or anything like that, but I happened to see that really horrible House episode back in, like, 2012, I think it was, because I just watched that show already. And obviously, that was not a good case of Ace rep. That was a very medicalized, bad one. And we were big fans of the show BoJack Horseman, but we were watching that before Todd, the Ace character, came out. So that was just, like, frosting — like, “Oh, we already like this show, and now, here is a character that they’re actually doing pretty well.”

Courtney: But we never went out of our way to watch things just because there was Ace rep. And the very first time we did, we were so upset. Because that very first one where everyone was hyping it up — “This is such good Ace rep. This is amazing. It made me cry. It’s wonderful.” — was Sex Education. [laughs]

Yasmin: Florence.

Courtney: Florence. And so, we just knew, “Oh, there’s an Ace character in this show. It’s apparently amazing. It’s the best Ace rep ever. Let’s try watching that.” Because it’s also a rather British show, so I don’t think it, at the time, had the hype over here that it did over there. It definitely has grown over the years.

Courtney: But we sat down to try it and we were convinced that the main character, Otis, was going to be the Ace one, because he seemed to not really have much of an interest. And we thought, “How funny! How cool would it be if this wannabe sex therapist actually has no interest themselves, and they are just observing other people and learning by a textbook, and they end up becoming the expert who doesn’t actually engage?” We thought that’s kind of a cool premise. But the show was also just a little bit hard for us to watch, because I’m fairly on the repulsed side of things, and every single episode opened with, like, a sex scene. Every single episode.

Courtney: So we’re just, like, slogging through the show because we’re told this rep is amazing. And I kind of thought it was about to be. And then we got Florence. Under five minutes of screen time. And I wanted to throw something through my television! And I couldn’t find any Ace people talking about how this is kind of tokenizing. Why are there all these other queer characters who have such rich backstories, they’re important characters, and then the Ace character just pops up for a PSA? I was actually mad.

Courtney: So we made that, like, the second episode of our podcast ever. And then all of a sudden, everyone’s like, “We need more Ace rep breakdowns, [laughing] more media analysis from you, please.” So now, I consider it a part of our work that we do engage in Ace rep now. And most of it isn’t awesome.

Royce: Yeah. We do get specific emails, DMs, comments and the like. “Hey, there’s this show, have you heard of it?” And that sparks an investigation. Sometimes it’s something we haven’t heard of and sometimes they’re good, and other times it’s something we’ve already watched and have recorded an episode about.

Courtney: Well, I was so afraid to be so controversial as to say that Florence was actually bad Ace rep. Because I have been absolutely mauled by the community for a lot more important things, [laughing] like talking about disability and talking about my situations in medical contexts. And so to see this widely beloved on the internet (or at least a very niche corner of the internet) character and to go so publicly and be like, “No, actually, not very good” — I thought that might have been our last episode we ever did. I was like, “If everyone hates us this much after this, then we’re just going to call it wraps and just quietly go away.” But it turns out there were so many other people who felt exactly the way we did, and they just felt like they couldn’t say that, because they were like, “It’s crumbs, but it’s still something, and we don’t get a lot.” And then I felt so controversial again when the final season came out and we got to do another episode on the second Ace character, which we actually liked a little more than the broader Ace community, it seemed. So I’m sure you can tell us a little more about that.

Yasmin: Oh, yeah! Well, I mean, I always have to preface — like, I don’t even have Netflix.

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: I feel bad. I don’t have any streaming service. I don’t watch that much TV. I literally just watch, like, Friends and Only Fools and Horses and, like, the news. And so I feel bad that you actually had to slog your way through so many episodes hoping for something and then you got, like, five minutes. I literally just watched the scene on YouTube. I didn’t watch everything. I had not properly watched Sex Education before I got involved, but I didn’t need to.

Yasmin: But it’s funny. So, like, in the season before the one that O was in, the one I was consulting on, Netflix contacted me and they were like, “Hey, we’re doing this YouTube kind of thing about Sex Education, and we’re doing one on, like, fashion in Sex Education. So we want you, Bimini Bon-Boulash from Drag Race, um… Oh God, what’s her name? Mimi Keene, who plays… hot mean girl, what’s her name? The one who ends up with Otis for a bit and then… Oh my God, I’ve completely blanked on her name.

Courtney: Ohhhh! I’m so bad with names, but I’m aware of who you’re talking about.

Yasmin: It’s going to come back to me. Ruby! I think it’s Ruby, yes. Who plays Ruby. Yeah, and Jourdan Dunn, who’s a model. We were supposed to be doing a thing on YouTube together, and we were literally at the hotel where we were shooting it. It was just past COVID, so me and Bimini were in a room, and I guess Mimi and Jordan were in another one. And we were literally about to go on set, and then the cameraman coughed or something, and they were like, “Oh my God, we think he has COVID. Everybody get out of here right now.” [laughs]

Courtney: Oh no!

Yasmin: And so, the chauffeur had to take me all the way back to Reading. And because Bimini was about to go on the Drag Race tour, we didn’t ever end up rescheduling. And I was like, “Damn it, I had a moment to work on Netflix, and it never came up again.” But it was funny, because Asexuality wasn’t in the season anyway, so I was, like, a funny choice for this one.

Yasmin: So then, the next year, they were like, “Hey, Yasmin,” and I was like, [sing-song] “Finally, we can do something again!” I was like, “What did you want me for?” And they were like, “Oh, well, now we have a character. We want to talk to you about it.” And yeah, they kind of had, like, a skeleton, I would say — like, “These are the beats it needs to hit in the season. This is kind of like the vague idea that we have.” And the vague idea, I guess — it sounded quite a lot like me. Like, I kind of get why they were like, “Okay, we want someone… She’s just a lot on social media, and she’s got a really sex-positive approach, and she’s going to be, like, the therapist, and she’s kind of going to be butting heads with Otis throughout the season. And we want her to be a woman of color. We haven’t picked what color yet, but she’s going to be one of them.” And so, they’re like, “We kind of just want you to consult on it.” And I was like, “Sure!” Like, I’ve never done anything like that for a TV show like that, but I was like, “Sure! Like, I would love to.”

Yasmin: But yeah, the idea changed quite a bit. Initially, her name was actually — and I could say the NDA wasn’t for any of this, so I can say it now. But yeah, her name was O, because it was supposed to stand for the oracle. She was supposed to be mystical, which is a silly idea. I don’t know why they wanted to do that. Like, I don’t feel like it would have made any sense. I’m like, “This isn’t Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Why is there going to be an oracle with this supernatural knowledge of sexuality?” And then when they casted the actress, they were like, “Ooh, we can’t have a mystical Asian. It would be…” [laughs]

Courtney: Oh, no!

Yasmin: They’re like, “We can’t have the oracle, you know, being… uh, yeah.” So that idea went out the window. I was like, “Thank God.” And, yeah. So then eventually [laughing] O became for Owen, Sarah Owen, and the mystical stuff kind of went out the window, so that was great.

Yasmin: But yeah! Because you know, like, we didn’t have a full script, but we had, I guess, kind of like scene ideas that we were, like, going over, and it sounded really good to me. I think there were definitely times where I was like, “Is this a scene straight out of Mean Girls?” Are we going to say — like, “I was personally victimized by Regina George” was kind of how parts of it sounded.

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: It was a bit tonally confusing, but I was literally only dealing with O’s storyline. So that’s why, when some people ask me — they’re like, “Well, you didn’t even watch the season!” It’s like, I didn’t need to. I don’t need to watch the series. It’s literally just her part. I had no idea about anything else happening in that season. Which is why, in parts, I was like, “Okay, like, what is this about an elevator thing that keeps breaking down?” Like, what is this school? I can’t quite picture it. Like, there were some things that were a bit confusing, that made sense when I actually saw it all together. But yeah, I mean, I thought the initial idea was really good.

Yasmin: And then, when it came to it actually coming out, the actor’s strike was happening in America, and lots of British actors — even though they’re not with SAG, it’s not a thing here — were kind of worried about, “What if you want to do something in America? Well, then, maybe we can’t promote the season.” So then it was kind of like, “Well, you’re the only other public person that’s attached to it who’s not, you know.” So I was like, “Okay, well then, I’ll just talk about it.” But then they didn’t actually let me see it before I started talking about it. I did ask them, like, “Can I see the episodes?” Because when I did the thing for the season prior, they did contractually obligate me to watch four of the episodes before we did the YouTube thing. So I kind of thought they would let me, but they didn’t. So I had to do all the interviews based on what I thought the script was, based on what we’d agreed on and what we’d written down and what it sounded like it was.

Yasmin: So then when the season came out, me not even having Netflix, I had to find a way to get it for free, because I didn’t want to buy it just to watch those. But other people were already reacting to it in a not positive way. And then my interviews were coming out, of me going, “This is the best. Like, this Ace representation, everyone’s going to love it. Like, this happens and this happens. It’s going to be so cool.” And these things I’m talking about don’t even happen, because it wasn’t in there. And then there’s, like, this awkward juxtaposition between me being like, “This is amazing, everyone’s going to love it,” and people being like, “Thanks, we hate it.” And then that’s when I had to then watch it, and I was like, “Oh, okay.” Time to…

Courtney: Yeah, I remember seeing your Twitter thread. You definitely mentioned, like, “Here are some things that I thought was going to be in. Here are things that would have made it better.”

Yasmin: I felt like I had to because I had all these interviews coming out that said the opposite things. And it’s like, this doesn’t even make sense anymore. And I still had other interviews scheduled in. And the questions changed. Initially, it was like, “What are you excited about for the season?” And then it’s like, “What went wrong with the season?”

Yasmin: Courtney Oh, man.

Yasmin: And I’m like, “Netflix, please help me. What’s going on? What do I do? What did you do?” So it was, like, the most chaotic experience ever. And then I saw the season and I was like, “Ugh, okay.”

Courtney: Oh, man.

Yasmin: “That couldn’t have backfired more than it did.”

Courtney: Aside from the reaction of online Ace folks and people who were talking about how much they hated it, people that were slamming you for participating in it — if you had to set all that aside and just watch it as is with those scenes, do you feel any differently about it, or do you still think that there were some good things that you are glad was there but could have been handled better?

Yasmin: I mean, from my perspective, it’s always difficult, because I can see what’s not there. And on one hand, I think that makes me more bitter, but I think it also means that I can see what we were going for more than, I guess, the average person. I think there were a lot of messages that just went straight over people’s heads, where I’m like, “I could still see that.” But then I feel like the tone of the whole season was very weird, and I feel like that didn’t set the best groundwork for receiving the storyline or the character.

Yasmin: And then there was a lot of behind-the-scenes drama. Like, it wasn’t supposed to be the last season. You could probably tell. I don’t think they officially said that, but, like, I suspected that, I knew that, and, like, I’ve spoken to some of the cast since then, and they were like, “Yeah, it wasn’t.” So there were lots of things that kind of happened that made it very jumbly, and certain things that I feel like, okay, I see why they removed that, because there’s not that much time and you know, this is Otis’s last run. They can’t have him looking like such a dick throughout the whole season.

Courtney: Even though he was.

Yasmin: He was, still.

Courtney: He was the villain, and I was really shocked at how few people saw that [laughing] in commentary.

Yasmin: [laughing] I mean, I think we could hazard a guess as to why people didn’t see that, and, like, I feel like it’s very obvious, but.

Courtney: Yeah, there are some reasons. [laughs]

Yasmin: And it’s awkward, because I can see that theme in there still. Like, you know, when we were kind of writing it and, like, the aspect of white privilege and stuff was very much in there. And even the head writer, Laurie Nunn — who owes me a phone call, but whatever — she’s publicly said that, like, this is what she was going for. So I don’t know what the hell happened in the execution, but that was supposed to be part of it — like, how cancel culture will disproportionately impact minorities. Like, these were things that I think you could still kind of see it. But I think that even the more subtle changes — like, Ruby and O were supposed to make up in, like, Episode 3; they didn’t make up until, like, the second-to-last episode or something. So, you kind of only saw that, like, tension happening with a fan favorite character until right at the end. So I think, by then, people were over it. They didn’t care. Like, O’s redemption was very late in it, whereas it was supposed to be very early on, but they kind of didn’t really have that scene happen. And, like, little things like that, I think, definitely changed the tone with it.

Yasmin: But I think that some parts — like, I think the only thing that was exactly the same as intended was the elevator scene. That was, like, word-for-word what I wanted them to put in there and what we spoke about, and I was like, “Okay, thank you!” I’m glad that that was there, because I feel like that kind of, I don’t know, helps to balance it out.

Courtney: I think that was one of the best scenes. And if we’re not talking about the show as a whole — maybe if we’re talking about the show as a whole — but if we’re just talking about O as a character and her journey and all of her scenes, I think that was very much the best scene. And I was glad it was there because that really gave us a, like, “Oh, he sucks. He’s being very mean to her,” and we get to actually see her feel that.

Yasmin: That was the only scene that kept that tone, I think. The rest of it, they kind of took that out.

Courtney: And it was so interesting to watch it, I guess, from our perspective as well, because we were essentially only watching it to get the Ace rep, because I knew people were going to be asking us what our opinions were on it. So I had no fond feelings for really any of the characters in the show, for the most part. There were some I liked a little better than others, but a lot of them I just did not care about at all. So I didn’t really care about the protagonist, and now someone new is coming in and threatening him. I don’t care about him. I don’t care about a lot of these characters. And so I was just looking at O. Like, in a bottle, what does she add and how is she more fleshed out than what we already got in this show that I was so upset about? So I definitely understand that I was watching it with a very different lens than fans of the show were. That is for sure.

Yasmin: I mean, I think that people were still a bit harsh. Because I’m like, “Well, you guys don’t know what wasn’t…” I mean, because, like, partially, it’s like, yeah, there are things that don’t come over so well on the show, but also, it’s like, I’m specifically in tune to those things because I know what was supposed to be in there. But I’m like, I feel like some of the reaction, or a lot of the reaction, was very over-the-top.

Courtney: Oh, yeah. I think there was definitely… There seemed to be some racism. There seemed to be some misogyny. There seemed to be just a lot of favoritism, new character versus old character. And I do think a lot of the criticisms were overly harsh and not warranted.

Royce: Not just new character versus old character, but the fact that they put a new character in direct opposition to the story’s protagonist. And a lot of people have trouble recontextualizing media once their lead character starts [laughing] doing bad things. Like, they will jump through hoops trying to excuse, like, “Well, this person can’t be bad. I’ve been with them for three seasons and several years. There has to be some reason that justifies this behavior.”

Yasmin: Yeah! And I think that it’s — I mean, I always said, like, in the writing process, I was like, “I’m happy for her to be in the drama.” It would make no sense to have a teenager in this school in a storyline that’s not in the drama. Otherwise, if she’s just lurking in the background doing nothing, what’s the point? It’s like, everyone else in the show is dramatic and weird. She should also —

Courtney: Everyone is messy. Everyone is dramatic. Everyone has done shitty things. So what I find interesting is, who does the audience forgive despite all of that, and who doesn’t the audience forgive despite all that? So that was very much the lens I was looking at that through.

Yasmin: And it kind of ended up becoming, like, almost… I don’t know. It almost kind of became a bit more real than it was supposed to be. It’s like, all the kind of things we were trying to tackle ended up happening, but kind of from the audience’s perspective. Like, okay, you’ve got the white guy comes into the school, tries to pretty much take her job, and people are more mad at her. That was what was supposed to happen, but it was supposed to be in, like, a “See that that’s wrong.” But then people were like, “No, we are mad, actually. We are mad.” It’s like, oh, well, yeah, that was the message, but the audience wasn’t actually supposed to do the bad thing. We were supposed to learn not to do the bad thing —

Courtney: Yeah.

Yasmin: — but then people actually just did the bad thing. So it’s like, [laughing] it almost became a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy —

Courtney: Mmm.

Yasmin: — in a weird way. And then I feel like that kind of then ended up… Because, you know, when we were working on it, I was like, “This is so me. This is so my experience. Like, I really relate to this.” And then in the backlash, in the aftermath, I was like, “Yep, that’s me too. That’s also very much symptomatic of, I guess, how I should have expected it would go.”

Courtney: Which, that’s what was really fascinating, too. Because I saw the parallels of that character and you as a real human, and other Aces who are real humans who have gotten similar treatment. And it’s like, it makes me want to care even more for this fictional character, because I’m like, “That happens in real life! I’ve seen it happen in real life!”

Yasmin: It was so strange. It was actually — like, after that, I was like, “One, I’m probably never going to be allowed to consult on anything ever again.” [laughing] That was, like, the worst introduction to consulting. ’Cause then, when I did those tweets, like, I had newspapers printing, “Consultant slams Netflix!” I was like, “I didn’t slam. I just said this is why my interviews don’t match the reality.” [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah. Gotta go with the clickbait title. And then if you actually read the article, [laughing] it’s a very level quote that is not angry, it’s not accusatory. And I totally — it’s interesting to give the audience a little peek behind the curtain at those interviews that come out around press with a big TV show like this or events in general, because we’ve actually had exactly the same thing. Royce and I have been asked to give quotes for articles, for things that we haven’t watched, things we haven’t participated in, and sometimes I’ll turn those down if I really don’t feel like I can comment on it. Sometimes I’ll say, “Alright, I will give quotes, but I am going to be so careful to make this so broad and try to steer it back to real-world parallels that no matter how you use it, no matter where in the article you say this, I’m not going to give you any leeway to try to manipulate the context here.” Because that’s very often what happens, too. They’ll collect quotes from you, and you don’t really know necessarily how they’re going to be used. And I… Media is a mess. [laughs]

Yasmin: I mean, for me, it’s like, “Hey, my quotes were accurate; the show wasn’t,” so. [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah. Exactly!

Yasmin: Everything I said is true, or it would have been true if it had been in the show. But now I’m talking about things that didn’t happen, and it’s confusing, so I have to do a tweet saying, “Okay, this is why this doesn’t make sense. I didn’t see it before I had to do the interview.” And I didn’t expect the tweet to then end up becoming that much of a thing, or I would have, like, spell-checked it more.

Yasmin: [Yasmin and Courtney laugh]

Courtney: Oh, that’s the worst, too! When people use tweets in articles, that’s just… It was a casual tweet. It’s not perfect. It wasn’t workshopped.

Yasmin: Oh, yeah. Oh my God. That was, like, the most stressful experience ever. But, hey, I still like O. I feel like there should be justice for O. I think people were harsh, and they’re still harsh. There’s a whole fandom aspect of it that I kind of underestimated —

Courtney: Ooh.

Yasmin: — because I’m not in any fandoms and I didn’t watch the show like that, and I kind of wasn’t prepared for, like, the vitriol from the fandom.

Courtney: Fandom is scary. [laughs]

Royce: I think most of our experiences with fandom have been neutral at best, negative most often. We haven’t gotten too many direct comments, I feel like, but we get some.

Courtney: Oh, Royce, we’ve been mauled by the Interview with the Vampire fandom on a few occasions. [laughs]

Royce: Ohhh, yeah. That happened outside of our spaces, though. Were you quoted somewhere? Or, I guess, the blog equivalent of subtweeted? Mentioned anonymously in a way that could have only been us.

Courtney: Yeah. That happens a lot. People really, really hate when I remind them that Anne Rice’s vampires canonically do not have sex in the books. That is a cardinal sin to say [laughing] in some areas of the fandom.

Yasmin: I mean, I never really got how vampires are supposed to have boners anyway. That was always something I wondered from, like, teenage years. I was like, “You don’t have a blood flow. I don’t get it.”

Courtney: Anne Rice decided in the ’70s that they don’t! [laughs]

Yasmin: I thought the same thing about Twilight. I was like, “Don’t you have, like, no blood flow? I don’t get it. And now you’re having a baby? How?” I mean, I know we have to suspend disbelief a little, but I’m like, “I don’t understand.” I’ve never understood that.

Courtney: No.

Yasmin: But, again, I don’t really watch anything, so. [laughs]

Yasmin: Courtny: Which is interesting that you say that, too, because we also watch very little TV and movies. I read a lot more books. Sometimes we read books together. We play games. We have too many hobbies, we have so many hobbies, and watching things is usually not one of them. So since starting the podcast, I would say most of the things we watch are for the podcast. [laughs] Because it’s like, “Okay, well, there’s another Ace character, people want us to talk about it. Let’s go see.”

Yasmin: Yeah, I have to just be honest. I think even when they were like, “Oh, will you do a quote about Heartstoppers?” Like, I’ll do a general quote about TV, but I can’t — I haven’t watched. And I’ve told the cast this: I haven’t actually watched the show properly. And it’s like, “No shade, I just don’t — one, I don’t have Netflix, and I just don’t have the psychological capacity to [laughing] watch TV shows that much.”

Courtney: It’s honestly understandable. So there’s no shame in that. But, I mean, the situation with O and the backlash being less than warranted was certainly not the first, only, nor will it be the last… I guess… we’ve said the word “controversy” so many times. [laughs] I’m reluctant to use it again. But I do want to just go back to a couple of things. Because I’m always so reluctant about how much to share. Because I have been part of the community to varying capacities for a long time; I’ve been out as Asexual for a very long time — much longer, even. And I am just very observant, so I see the things that happen, and the internet tends to have a very, very short memory for things.

Courtney: And when we talk about… I mean, to bring it back to policy, I’ve tried to have some conversations with politicians here in the US who have sort of posed a question and say, like, “Oh, what discriminations do Ace people face? What do I need to know about this?” And I’ve tried to say, “Here’s what we know. Here are studies we have. Here are statistics. Here are social anecdotes.” And even providing those things, very difficult to get them to pay any real attention to it. And so, sometimes I’ll try to bring up more anecdotes, even something like, “Maybe you’re aware of this, but not all the details behind it.” But I always try to tiptoe around it because I don’t know what stories are always mine to tell.

Courtney: And so I want to maybe talk a little bit about the debacle with Rolling Stone a number of years ago and your hashtag and a member of our community who was very unfortunately murdered very brutally and in a very public way. And we’ve hinted at this a couple of times, and with you being so close to it because of the hashtag and because of the fallout from the public reception, I think now might be a good time to talk about it. Because I’ll mention anecdotally, without saying her name, and a couple of times we’ve actually had folks who did know her in real life reach out to us and say, like, “I know exactly who you’re talking about. It was her. I knew her.” And I know there are some folks out there that do want this side of the story to be remembered. So what do you remember from that? I know we’re sort of dredging up something a little bit old at this point.

Yasmin: I mean, it’s interesting because until you — like, I had kind of… Like, I feel, as we’ve said, I’ve had a lot of controversies, I think, in my time — I feel like probably more so than most other people. And I think that was kind of one of the early ones, I think. And I kind of like blocked it out. Until something kind of comes up about it, I tend to block it out, out of all of them. But then, yeah, but then when you kind of mentioned it when we were emailing, I was like, “Oh, yeah.” Like, that just kind of brought a lot of it back.

Yasmin: But that was, um… Yeah, ’cause the hashtag was literally one of the first things I did, and that must’ve been 2017, to be fair. So, as I said, I don’t feel like I really started the activism properly until like 2019. So this would have been late 2017. And, yeah, and then, you know, it kind of went viral on Twitter before I was even on Twitter. I wasn’t on Twitter until 2019. Then there were, like, you know, kind of fan pages popping up about it, and people were making little merch about it, and it kind of took on a bit of a life of its own. And that was kind of one of my first things of being like, “Oh, I did a thing, and people noticed. I didn’t really expect it.” And then that was, you know, that kind of started the beginning, I guess, of the activism journey.

Yasmin: And I used to write a series on it where I spoke to lots of different Asexual people on a website called Queer Fashion, and we’d get articles, like, every month or so and yeah. And then there was a page on Instagram which is literally called “This is what Asexual Looks Like.” And I didn’t run the page, I didn’t actually ask for the page to be made or anything, but I kind of, you know, messaged the person running it and be like, “Oh, thank you for starting this!” And they’re like, “No, it’s cool!” So they kind of kept it up, and I would see all the posts, and, you know. And then one person popped up on there; I’d always like it.

Yasmin: And then the story came out about Bianca Devins, and I was like, “Oh!” Like, I was vaguely aware, you know. It was kind of like a big story on the internet. She had lots of different hair colors and stuff. I didn’t initially see it and think anything aside from, “Well, that’s really sad.” And then the page was like, “Oh, like, you know, rest in peace to the person who literally only just…” Because I guess they have a bit of a backlog in the posts. So I think by the time they posted it, it kind of ended up being somewhat near the time of the murder, even if it was actually submitted…

Courtney: If I recall, it was within days. It was… They had Bianca’s photo, #ThisIsWhatAsexualLooksLike, a little bit of information about her, and…

Yasmin: Because people would submit — yeah.

Courtney: Mhm. And then it was, yeah, a matter of days. Then, all of a sudden, you know, “We’re going dark for a few days out of respect for the death of this member of our community who was just featured.”

Yasmin: And that was kind of when I was like, “Ohhh!” Like, that was kind of when I put it together. And then, you know, so I was like, “Okay, like, this is tragic.” And, you know, I remember someone else who was shared on that page who I interviewed for the series died a few years ago, and I did the same thing, like a “Rest in peace” for that person — like, I’d do that for anybody who… So yeah, and I did that for her. I didn’t really think too much of the ramifications of that.

Yasmin: And then a while later, Ej Dickson from Rolling Stone did an article about Bianca Devins and all of the fallout and all of the things, and there was a section on, like, almost conspiracy theories and terrible things that people have said. And it was like, “You know, people said that she was, like, a drug addict,” and had a little link to someone saying that. And “People said this horrible thing and that horrible thing, and they even said that she was Asexual,” and then they linked to my post. And I was like, well, we’re putting that in the same line as, like, drug addict or, you know, all these kind of bad, negative things, mean things that people were saying.

Courtney: And if I recall, too —

Yasmin: And it said “[false].” It had, brackets, “false” —

Courtney: Yes!

Yasmin: — with a link to my thing. And I was like, “Hold on.”

Courtney: Yeah, it was, like, debunking all these things. Like, “Is this thing true, yes or no? Is this thing true? Some people are saying she’s Asexual: false.” Well, she submitted herself to that page to be featured. She used the hashtag. She self-identified as Asexual. And the fallout from that article saying “false” and, being Rolling Stone, such a huge article, I just remember literally seeing people all over the place saying that Asexuals are trying to exploit her death to push our agenda.

Courtney: And I even got a couple of smaller-scale things, back in the good old days of Facebook; I wasn’t on Twitter at the time. But I had made a post about her as well, just like a little “RIP” thing, before the Rolling Stone article came out. And I was getting nasty DMs saying, “Stop pushing your agenda,” and “How disrespectful is this to a dead girl.” And I was just like, we have had major public instances of people saying Aces are pushing our agenda, and yet there are some people who still don’t see the parallels and the issues we face that are very similar, if not identical, to other areas of the queer community.

Yasmin: Yeah! I mean, and it was wild, because I’m like, “All I said was ‘Rest in peace.’” And what annoyed me was then, I was like, “Okay, they need to correct this. They can’t print that and link it to me, because that then suggests that I randomly decided, ‘Oh, here’s a dead girl, let me make up a sexual orientation for her.’” And, like, why would I do that? [laughs] I’m like, “That’s a really wild thing to suggest.” And it’s like, and as a journalist, it would take a very minimal google search to work out where that came from or why I said that. And the journalist — she wouldn’t talk to anybody Asexual. She would speak to the person who ran the page. She would not talk to anybody Asexual. The person who runs the page isn’t Asexual; she was just doing it to be supportive. And she, like, blocked me, kind of started blocking people — I mean, like, the journalist blocked me and started blocking people that were trying to ask about it. And I’m like, “You can’t…” Again, not to have, like, a Will Smith moment, but it’s like, “Keep my name out of your mouth.”

Courtney: Mmm.

Yasmin: “If you didn’t want me to respond, no one asked you to quote me and put a whole picture of my…” Like, you didn’t have to do that. Like, then you can’t be surprised when I then send you an email. Like, why would you do that? Like, here’s the evidence of what I said. Why would you say it was false without, you know, checking?

Yasmin: And I think in the end, after a lot of back-and-forth and talking around me — because, as always, no one would actually talk to me about it — in the end, they put, like, a “potentially” or a “maybe” on the online version in the bracket. But the print version was already out, and by that point, the peak of people reading it had already happened. So they still wouldn’t say “true.” It was just like “maybe.” And, like, okay. [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah. Well, the “maybe,” I think, was also sort of contradicted. And I don’t remember if this made it into the edit on the article or if it was just the journalist, like, saying this on social media. But something came from the journalist, whether or not it was publicly posted, that was like, “Well, this can’t be true, or this probably isn’t true, because, oh, her parents think she might be bisexual.”

Yasmin: It’s like, if there’s any way to find out about someone’s true sexual orientation, you’ve got to ask their parents. No one would know their teenager’s sexual orientation better than their parents. [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah. That’s… So, that was, um…

Yasmin: That was my first. That was a bit of a mess. And afterwards, I was like… Because, again, similarly to you, whenever I mentioned it or whatever, the anniversary came up, and I would post, I don’t know, “Hey, rest in peace” again, like, I would get so many messages and people saying, “Oh, stop spreading lies. Like, stop manipulating this girl’s death. Like, you’re disgusting, blah blah.” I was like, “Okay, I’m not. Someone else can rest in peace, and I’m not mentioning it anymore.” So this is actually the first time I think I’ve mentioned it since then.

Courtney: Yeah. And it’s… I mean, she came out to the community by using that hashtag, submitting herself for that page. Like, the often-cited original use of the phrase “come out” isn’t necessarily be public with everyone, but you come out to the community, you know, even if it’s an underground community. If you’re connecting with other queer people, you are coming out to them. And that is essentially what she did, albeit in an online fashion. But we saw that, we recognized it, we knew her face and her name. And then, very shortly thereafter, she got murdered in a very high-profile case where pictures of her were going viral, and it was disgusting, and anyone would already feel just absolutely heartbroken for this girl — let alone to see, like, “Wow, she was a member of our community and had just come out to us.” So of course, we’re going to take a moment to just acknowledge her and her identity and how she self-identified. And for that to be all we were doing, like, very privately, in our little circle, and all of a sudden, for this to become, like, “How dare they? They’re awful! They’re pushing their agenda. Well, what agenda is that?” Come on.

Yasmin: It was so wild. And little did I know that was kind of just like the beginning of [laughs] multiple, like, you know, chaotic media experiences and things that would kind of take on a life of their own. But at that time, I was like, “Wow, that was…” I was like, “Okay, if I just don’t mention that anymore, then hopefully no one will attack me again.” Didn’t really work out like that, but.

Courtney: Here’s a fun question for you: Do you have any favorite controversies? [laughs]

Courtney: Yasin: Oooh!

Courtney: What’s your favorite one?

Yasmin: Oooh, which was my favorite? I kind of like the Pride ones because it’s kind of like an annual tradition at this point, the going viral for Pride. Yeah, I do like those. Because it’s kind of like — I mean, it’s definitely chaotic because that tends to last the longest in terms of, like, the aftermath. But also, July tends to be a quieter period, so I have a bit more time for it — for, like, the first week of July, because our Pride tends to be at the end of June.

Yasmin: But yeah, I feel like — I mean, part of me does get a bit of a kick out of some of the controversies, because it feels very, like, rock-and-roll to me. It feels very, like, I don’t know, like ’80s heavy metal to have people clutching their pearls and going, “Think of the children! I can’t believe she wore that!” [laughs] Like, “The scandal!” I’m like, “Yeah, I kind of do like that.” See, I’m not against that. As ridiculous as it becomes, and it does get annoying after a while, I’m a pretty thick-skinned person, so I can kind of find the amusement in the controversy over my boobs or whatever, or the shortness of my skirt, or the pattern of my tights or whatever it is.

Courtney: Yeah, I think it’s so funny. Because, obviously, like, your face and name are very well-known, so of course, people are essentially going to use your image to create a spectacle with which to fuel their rage [laughs] that Asexuals exist and they’re at Pride. But I just find it so funny. Because I actually — and this might be interesting to you because you don’t talk to as many people as I do, but I have found there is, I think, a higher than average percentage of Ace goths. Have you noticed this?

Yasmin: I feel like I’ve definitely noticed — yeah, at least quirky dressers, at the very least. Some alt Aces.

Courtney: Well, yes, there’s a Venn diagram. There’s like the quirky dressers and the goths, and that is very much a thing. And I’ve noticed it especially because I have had a gothic aesthetic for a very, very long time. And I’ve tried, at various times, to connect with goth communities. And it hasn’t all been really bad. But when I go to a lot of just like in-person goth clubs, some of them, in some cities, certain clubs are very, very sexual. And not all of them are, but some of them are so sexual that it feels like I don’t even have a place there. So I haven’t actually had a lot of goth friends. I was sort of the lone goth in a friend group for a really, really long time. And it wasn’t until I was somewhat publicly known as an Ace person that I started getting goth friends who were also Ace. So right now, my only goth friends are Ace. And so I was like, “Wow, look at this little community of Ace goths!: So I know so many people who do dress dramatically, do dress with a darker aesthetic. I’m sure you get comments all the time about, like, “Oh, BDSM!” [laughs] And, like, with me, I tend to go for sometimes very Victorian — sometimes I’m literally just in a Victorian gown — but when I’m not in a Victorian gown and I’m trying to go a little more modern, I do the very sort of Elvira, very Morticia —

Yasmin: You were giving Elvira when we saw each other. That was, like, the first thing I thought. I was like, “That dress is giving Elvira.”

Courtney: Oh, that’s right! Yes, I was wearing my dress with the big, like, cape sleeves and the —

Yasmin: I thought you were going to say, “With the big cleavage.” I was like, “Yeah.” But no, sleeves, also.

Courtney: “Big cleavage.” Um, my boobs are massive. We have dedicated an episode [laughs] to my boobs. And, you know, as a teenager who was Ace, that was a big problem for me. As a — I say this in all facetiousness — as an Ace elder and as a goth elder, now I’m like, “You know what? I have these boobs. I can fit these dresses with this massive cleavage. And, honestly, it’s a little more comfortable because I have space for them.” If I don’t have the open cleavage, then I’m so constricted; I have to, like, squish them into my dress because my waist is so much smaller than my boobs or my hips are. So I’m like, “You know what? This is comfortable. I look amazing. It’s dramatic. I am just going for it and living.” So there are actually a lot of Aces like that, though. [laughs]

Yasmin: There are. And I think that, yeah, I mean, people… I guess the untrained eye can’t really see what I’m trying to reference and that, like, the fishnets are more of a goth thing, or that the leather is — like, for me, it’s more of like a metal thing, that people kind of… Or, like, the chokers and, I don’t know, spikes and the big boots. And people kind of, you know, they kind of have their own associations. And I’ve said many times, but I guess being Black as well, [laughing] people very much are not seeing it. They have the very — and the eye’s even extra untrained on me, so they do not immediately assume, “Oh, that must be, like, a gothic thing or a heavy metal reference she’s bringing out.” So, yeah, they just go straight to, like, BDSM. But to be honest, like, I have to say, some of my style is inspired by, like, Rob Halford from Judas Priest, who is also very gay, [laughing] and I’m pretty sure his style is also inspired by BDSM, so I don’t know.

Courtney: Yeah! I’m sure part of that is also just, um, an unsophisticated fashion palette. They don’t understand the references. But also, when it’s lumped in with Pride — because very often, these big discourses will be, like, a photo of you at Pride, and people will be like, “Ugh! Not only should Aces not be here, but look at this person who claims to be Ace dressing in BDSM!” It sort of gets that bleed over from the discourse that also happens at the same time every year, which is, like, “Does kink have a place at Pride?” So I think the discourses kind of converge on you a little bit.

Yasmin: They do. And what people forget is that Pride is in the peak of the British summer. It’s so hot.

Courtney: Yeah.

Yasmin: And, like, this year, I was thinking, “I should have worn less.” I was so hot in my chaps. Like, they were a choice, I could have just not worn those and I would have been a somewhat normal temperature. I think the year before, when I wore less, was actually more comfortable. Like, it’s so — like, most people I was with that day had to go home and get changed. That’s how hot it was. So it’s like —

Courtney: Ugh.

Yasmin: — when people are like, “Oh, why don’t you just wear jeans?” Like, it’s hot!

Courtney: So hot.

Yasmin: It’s bikini weather! It’s central London in the sun. It’s like, [laughing] what do you expect people to be wearing?

Courtney: Yeah, I feel that way about Pride. It is too hot. It is always too hot. [laughs] It often hurts my body. I need to walk too much. I need to stand too much.

Yasmin: Exactly! And I’m walking a whole parade route.

Courtney: It’s kind of exhausting.

Yasmin: I’m walking a whole parade route, and it’s like, I need to be wearing something that isn’t going to roast me as I walk through London.

Courtney: Absolutely. So, let’s… To sort of round things out here, not all of your controversies have been acephobes coming after you. I genuinely think most people I know or have seen who have intersectional marginalized identities, who have tried to speak out publicly as an Ace person, have gotten some amount of flack from the Ace community as a whole. I’ve seen it a lot, with many people. I’ve certainly faced it myself. And I would venture to guess, I’d feel pretty comfortable saying, maybe none more so than you, just because of how visible and prominent you are. So let’s talk a little bit about different discriminations sort of within our own community, because I really do feel like there is an issue of racism. I often feel like there is an issue of misogyny, even within our own community. Among other things: ableism’s one I talk about a lot as well. So what are your thoughts with your experience?

Yasmin: I mean, I kind of mentioned before that, like, interpersonally, I haven’t really had the best time within the Ace community, and that’s kind of why I don’t really talk to people unless it’s absolutely necessary, which I also think was kind of what became a bit detrimental at the beginning. Because I think — I mean, I don’t know when you would classify when you kind of first became involved in Ace things, but I like never really was before I started the activism. I think I just kind of came out of nowhere as far as a lot of people were concerned, and I think there was kind of like a bit of, “Okay, who is she and where did she come from?” And I think that that kind of initially got some people’s backs up. But it kind of takes until you do something that they don’t like for them to voice all the things that they’ve been holding on to deeply from the moment I first appeared.

Yasmin: I mean, I’d always noticed — like, one of the reasons why I didn’t get involved in the Ace community initially and why I didn’t come out for so long was because I noticed, when I would Google “Asexuality” and watch all the YouTubers and read all the blogs or all those things, I was only seeing like one demographic of person. And I felt like that wasn’t unintentional, and I kind of questioned how accepted I would be within the community.

Yasmin: And then, you know, the kind of activism kind of kicked off, and then people kind of became more aware of me. And I kind of was like, “Oh my God, people do like me! Like, what a surprise!” And I kind of went into things with a much more, like, optimistic perspective and started — you know, I kind of quite quickly joined the Board of AVEN and kind of, like, you know, I was doing other podcasts and other things of different Aces and it was all going, like, pretty well.

Yasmin: And then… And I knew from the beginning that, like, the way the public, the non-Ace public, perceived me was harsh, but I kind of was like, “Well, at least, you know, the Ace community, they’re very accepting.” Until I phrased one tweet wrong once, [laughs] and let me say, the cross came out, so did the nails, and they were ready to hang me up and crucify me right then and there. And I was like, “Oh my God.” Like, I feel like I could do, like, the most minor things, and people were like, “You know what? I never liked her.” And then it’s like, all this stuff kind of happened, and I was like, “This is crazy.” People that I liked or thought I was friendly with — like, people would just turn on me so quickly. And I was having other activists being like, “Oh, yeah, Yasmin said she was going to hunt me down. Yasmin’s very aggressive. Yasmin’s going to attack me.” And I’m like, “I don’t even know you. Like, what are we…? How are we saying this?” People were like, “Yeah, I believe that. She does seem like the type to be aggressive.” And I’m like, “Okay. This is getting very weird.”

Yasmin: And it was kind of like — I would say, I guess, probably 2019, I think, was kind of when that started happening. And I feel like it kind of almost directly coincided with me almost getting more attention from outside of the community. I think some people kind of held a bit of distaste towards that, I think. And, I mean, this isn’t a theory. Like, I know David Jay — like, we’re friendly — but I remember we were talking, we’re doing a thing for, like I don’t know, Ace History Day or something, and we were talking about how he started in an activism. And he didn’t fall into it as such; he was very much chosen for it. The Ace community said, “You’re the right person to do this because you’re the most palatable person for the audience, and, I guess, for the community.” And I couldn’t be more different, [laughing] I think, demographically speaking, to David Jay, so I guess it was only a matter of time before people were like, “You know what? I don’t relate. I don’t like her. Why is she the one?”And that kind of started popping up in everything. Like, when I was on the board of AVEN, to this day, I have people being like, “Why her? What does she even do? Like, out of all the board members, why is she on the board?” And it’s like, I feel like I have enough credentials, but okay.

Yasmin: So, yeah, I kind of noticed that. Like, I’ve always joked that someone could literally say, “Yasmin eats babies,” and guaranteed, there would be a group of Asexual people that are like, “I feel like she’s the type. She gives that. I think she does eat babies, and I’m upset.” And that’s kind of like the thing where I realized that, like, I don’t know, people could say the wildest but I guess most stereotypical things, and people just bought it, and people were very ready to kind of come for the jugular with me. And it made me very, very quick… Well, actually, the first time that started happening, I forgave people, and then the second time it started happening, I was like, “Okay, I’m not talking to anyone anymore.”

Courtney: Been down this road before. Yeah, it’s interesting, because I feel like my first attempt to, like… I had been out in my real life. People around me knew. I’d done some things locally. But my first attempt to say, like, “Yeah, let’s actually try speaking out a little more broadly, a little more publicly online, wider audience, and all that,” I feel like people immediately came for my jugular and nobody knew who I was yet. I was just a random person with hardly any following at that time, and I was like, “What the hell is going on?!” Because I suspected that I would get hate from outside of the community. I was like, “I can handle that, no problem.” But then just brand new, emerging, all of a sudden, everyone, seemingly — at least in my little corner of the internet at the time — was slamming me. I was like, “What did I do? I don’t understand!”

Courtney: And since then, part of me wanted to just not do this work anymore. This was well before we started the podcast. I was like, “I’m just not even going to mention it online anymore. I’m just going to…” Which is funny, because it’s kind of the opposite of most Ace people I know. Most Ace people are like, “I’m very out online, but no one in my real life knows.” I was exactly the opposite. And I was like, “Maybe that just needs to be me. Maybe I’ll just be the real-life Ace that some people know, and that’ll be good enough for me.”

Courtney: But I have tried to sort of work with some more actual Ace people since. Because I thought, “Well, maybe if they know me, maybe this won’t happen. It won’t feel like just a random person who’s popping up and talking. Maybe we can work together.” And maybe that was a bit naive. Because some, admittedly, have been much better, but some, I’ve just felt very, very unwelcome. Either you don’t get a seat at the table, or you do, but we’re going to keep an eye on you and we seem a little suspicious of you and it just doesn’t feel very welcoming.

Courtney: And then there’s, like, the social media cold war of, like, all the big Ace accounts. Like, all the big Ace Twitter accounts — at least, two years ago, there was an Ace Twitter where you knew who the Ace accounts were, basically. And it’s like, some of them knew each other, some of them didn’t know each other, some were completely one-off and didn’t talk to anybody else, and then others, it’s like, I kind of feel like they hate me and I don’t know why, because I’ve never spoken to them. [laughs] So it’s been very, very odd. And I’ve actually found it very difficult to work with other Aces and Ace organizations, save for the ones that I already developed, like, a personal friendship with. I feel like that’s kind of the only way I’ve seen anything sort of work, is I had a personal friendship with this Ace person and we collaborated on an idea. But other than that, it’s like…

Courtney: And I’ve kind of said this before, but maybe it’s worth warranting going into some more detail: Royce is agender. Most people refer to Royce with they/them pronouns or no pronouns. And we’ve talked a lot about genderqueerness and various things that a lot of people in the community have resonated with. But Royce is white. Royce is Autistic but is able-bodied, and I am very disabled. But being assigned male at birth, there is a perception of gender that I think a lot of people do have, even the ones who really get it, and I have never been taken more seriously — whether I was on my own or trying to work with other Aces — than I was when I started a podcast with my white, abled spouse that a lot of people perceive to be a man. Now I can say the same things I’ve been saying for years, and more people listen to me, and that is just because Royce is in the room.

Yasmin: And it’s strange, because I feel like you know, within the Ace community, like, they can spot acephobia from a mile off. Like, the slightest little thing, everyone is on it. Everyone is so attuned to certain types of discrimination. Other types, it’s like absolutely nothing. Like, it goes right over their heads. Even when I’ve explained it to people, they just can’t, they can’t get it. And I’m like, “You know that exact same energy you have for this thing? Just keep it.” But they really don’t.

Yasmin: And it has kind of meant that — like, I mean, as I said, I’ve always kind of had a bit of a lone wolf approach anyway, just, like, in life. It’s kind of my approach to my work. It’s easier when there’s less cooks in the kitchen. I could just be like, “Surprise! I did a thing.” But, yeah, I think, especially last year, I was so anxious around anything Ace-related, and that’s very counterproductive given the job. I mean, to this day, like if anything pops up on my feed, I mute it. Like, when you were talking about BoJack Horseman and how you were watching it just because and then an Ace storyline popped up, for me, I would have stopped watching it when that happened. [laughs] Like, I would have been like, “Nope.” Like, I’m not…

Courtney: “Not in my personal time.”

Yasmin: Not in my personal time.

Courtney: “We’ll save that for work.” [laughs]

Yasmin: Not in my personal time! It’s like, I was like, muted everything. I ignored everything. And whenever I had to do anything and Ace people would be there, I was so uncomfortable [laughs]. And I mean, I would still be friendly. Like, I don’t think people noticed. But on the inside, I was so uneasy, and I was like, “This is so…” Like, I’ve had to actively train myself to stop feeling anxious at the mere mention of Asexuality because part of my brain is, like, associating it with all the things that have happened and continue to happen. Like, I have people, to this day ,that are Ace activists who will reach out to places I work at and say things like, “You know, Yasmin’s racist against white people. You shouldn’t work with Yasmin.” Like, people have done that. And people will message me and be like, “You know, no one actually likes you. You know all the Ace activists talk about you.” And I’m like, “Okay…” Some of this might be true. I don’t know what to do with that. So it does kind of make you uneasy, I’d say.

Courtney: Yeah, that is very uneasy. And that’s really interesting, because I don’t think I’ve had anyone contact me and be like, “These people hate you,” but I’ve had a vibe from certain people or certain organizations where it’s like, mmm. [laughs] But yeah, I’m telling myself that there are reasons for that. Like, I don’t get vibes out of nowhere.

Courtney: But it’s so funny to me where people who, like, don’t know you personally are just so aggressive. Because obviously, like, racism aside, I try very hard not to develop opinions of people until I know them personally. And part of my mind just works that way because I’ve never really had heroes that I’ve looked up to, whether they be fictional or real-life people, and I don’t really understand the cult of celebrity, because my brain just doesn’t really do that, and it never really has. So I don’t understand… There’s something parasocial about it, even if it’s hatred instead of admiration. There’s still something parasocial where someone is telling themselves that they know more about you than they think they do.

Courtney: And, like, now it’s even funnier because, I mean, audience: picture, if you will, my, as Yasmin mentioned, very Morticia Addams gown, purple top hat in London — like, we had a lovely tea, we were shopping in Camden, we were hitting up shops for goth T-shirts. I found some Victorian hair jewelry for very cheap. We were getting half an inch away from birds, thinking they were going to be crawling into our palms, and we were hunting down statues of horses. It was such a fun, wholesome day. And to see people online who do not know you at all be like, “She’s so mean! She’s so aggressive!” Mm.

Yasmin: It’s so weird. This stuff is very parasocial. And I think I’m also not too much — as I said, like I don’t really like fandoms, I’m not really in any fandoms. The kind of cult of personality, I’m not into it. I don’t have any parasocial attachments to people. And there’s a certain way that people communicate on the internet that is very strange and is so different to how they communicate in real life. And unfortunately, the Asexual community is particularly active on the internet.

Yasmin: And thus, a lot of my — like, most of my in-person reactions range from positive to meh, and that’s fine. But online, it’s like, people are just so strange, and the way they talk to me is so strange. And I think that because I’m not — like, I don’t have that same mindset, I’m not even particularly perturbed by what they’re saying. I’m perturbed that they had the audacity to tell me. Like, that’s the thing. It’s not even like, “How dare you say that?” I’m like, “Who are you talking to? What?” Like, that’s what kind of gets me. When someone’s like, “Oh, I’m disappointed in you,” and I’m like, “And you are…? That’s so weird that you would even approach me to say that. I’ve never heard of you before in my life.”

Yasmin: But you’re kind of expected to care or be invested on the internet. And I’m like, “In real life, I bet you wouldn’t have said anything.” So I’m so not good at that, I’m sure. I don’t think I’m, like, the best responder to these kinds of things and controversies that happen on the internet, because I just struggle to, like, almost empathize with it. I’m like, “This is just so weird and I can’t even wrap my head around it, let alone handle it in all seriousness.” I’m just literally like, “What are we even doing? Is no one else finding this weird?”

Courtney: Other people are finding it weird. [laughs] Trust me, there’s a reason why we basically have not posted anything on social media in, like, a year.

Yasmin: I wish I could. I don’t really, like… That’s why I kind of had to train myself to get back into community things. And sometimes to this day, like, I mean, Sarah can vouch for this. I remember once, we did something together, and, like, people just don’t talk around me. [laughs] Whenever I try to do Ace things in this country, it’s so uncomfortable. Like, people just won’t talk. They won’t look at me. I’m just standing there and everyone just seems so uneasy. I’m just like, “Okay, I’m gonna head out because I feel like I’m just ruining everybody’s vibe in trying to be here.” It’s like, I don’t know, people just react to me in such strange ways. I think, even if I — like, I’ve had people criticize me, like, “Oh, why aren’t you more, like, I don’t know, on forums or in discourse or in these things?” It’s like, because people are weird every time I do something, so I don’t want to do it. [laughs]

Courtney: Because people are weird. Yeah, there is something interesting. And let me ask you this, because, as you pointed out, the Ace community is very, very online. We congregate online a lot more often than we congregate in real life. And online can be very, very toxic. Do you think that the toxicity of some of those online spaces at all contributes to Aces feeling less safe to come out in their real-life communities?

Yasmin: I mean, I kind of — I definitely see it from, like, an outside community perspective. Like, I always feel bad whenever I do go viral for going to Pride, even though I do get a bit of a kick out of it. I know that, like, when people see all of that hate towards me for being there, they think, “Well, I’m never going to go, then, because I see that.” And it’s like, you probably would have had a much better experience. I think people are specifically hating because it’s me, partially. Like, other people probably would have been fine. But yeah, I do feel like that kind of thing makes a difference.

Yasmin: And I think that — I mean, I can only really speak for myself in terms of, like, I know that it’s made me not want to do things so much. I don’t know what impact it would kind of have on other people, because I really don’t go on the forums and stuff anymore. I try not to pay any attention to it. But I know that for me, it definitely made me not want to do things.

Yasmin: And, you know, when you get one message saying, “Hey, you know, people don’t like you,” it makes you paranoid when you then go into spaces, because you’re like, “Well, who here posted that?” Because, like, I think the Ace community also is so small, really, in a sense. Like, I feel like there’s only maybe like two degrees of separation between most people, especially in the UK. Like, most people know each other, to an extent, or at least probably even live somewhat in proximity, because everyone’s always in London or in the south. And England’s small; you can get from one side of it to the other pretty fast.

Courtney: Yeah.

Yasmin: So when things go down, it definitely has a big kind of knock-on effect, because it’s like, the community’s too small for me to have this paranoia.

Courtney: Yeah. It is interesting, too, because it is very small just in general — like, the Ace accounts that people might know and follow, the Ace people, the prominent figures. It has seemed maybe a little less so now than in the past, but at various times, it has seemed very, very concentrated in the UK from, like, an outside of the UK perspective. Are you aware of that? Have you also seen that or heard that from others?

Yasmin: Yeah! People are always like, “Oh, it seems like there’s a lot going on in the UK.” But I think, you know, in the US, it’s probably a lot more spread out. The UK is not that big. Most of our LGBT stuff is in London or Manchester or Brighton. And, like, they’re all driving distance from each other, so it is quite small. And that’s kind of why, like, you know, when things happen online and Americans get involved, and I tell them, “Please don’t,” because you’re thinking this is an online thing; it’s not as online as you think it is. These things have real-life ramifications. People really know each other, and these things mean that I can’t now… The Ace Conference is coming up. Can I go? Like, there are things that happen that it’s like… I don’t know. It’s very small here, and people really do know each other. And even, like, you know, on the AVEN Board. Some of them are — like, three of them are American, so it’s like, I think the activists — it definitely is very small.

Courtney: Very small, yes. And that’s something that I think a lot of just casual participants in or observers of the Ace community who haven’t really locked into, like, the activism or the public educator sphere, but do sort of watch all or a lot of us — I don’t think a lot of people are aware that there have been genuine safety concerns for some of us at various times. Like, everyone sees the online drama portion of it. That’s what people see. But especially in the UK, where things are close, people are real. They are actually showing up to events. And then, since nearly the start of our podcast, we’ve had a couple certain people who have exhibited, like, genuine stalking behaviors toward me. That’s the funny thing, too: when I say I’ve never been taken more seriously than when Royce is just sitting next to me, if anyone has any gripe with our podcast or anything we say, it’s me. I’m the one they hate, [laughing] and I’m the one they specifically call out. So that’s a thing that does happen. But yeah, I’ve observed stalking behaviors in the community as well. That gets to be a real, genuine issue of safety.

Courtney: And it’s hard to say that, because I don’t want other Ace people to feel less safe, because, just like you’ve said, and I agree, your average Ace person going to an average Pride event is probably going to have a fine time. There are some areas of the queer community that do feel exclusionary, but in my experience, not a lot of the in-person ones. If you show up and they see your face and they know your name, you’re going to encounter a couple of shitty people here and there, because that’s what it’s like to be a part of a real-life community. But most people are lovely, and most people will learn, and it will be fine. But when you do get into sort of what people perceive to be a position of authority or a position of leadership, I think that’s when things get really, really toxic online.

Yasmin: It is. And it’s like… I think that’s kind of what’s weird, because I’m like, sometimes, it is very much a me thing. I’m like, “Don’t think that, ‘Oh, this happened to Yas, so this is gonna happen to me.’” But also, sometimes, I’m like… Some things are so specific to me that I’m like — it’s not even like, “Oh, well, it’s criticism,” or “Oh, this person doesn’t like me,” or whatever. I’m like, “Can we just apply the same energy to everybody else? Like, why is it just…? Why are we, like, lying in wait, waiting for me to do something we don’t like? Or why are we kicking off all of this drama because of me, when this person’s saying the exact same thing and no one’s saying anything, or this person did this, which seems kind of crazy, but no one notices?” Or I’ll say something and no one will believe me, and then someone else will say it, and then, all of a sudden, it’s true, and I’m like, “Okay.” Like, if we’re going to keep that energy, just do it for everybody, is what I find strange.

Yasmin: And it was in 2019, I think, when I kind of noticed that everyone’s justification for harassing me was pretty much like, “Oh, but you’re a leader, you’re a community leader, you’re this, you’re that.” It’s like, I just graduated. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. [laughs] Like, I honestly had no idea what people were talking about. And I was like, “Is this the…?” Like, people have literally said, “You’re fair game now.” And I’m like, “I didn’t… I don’t feel that…” I don’t know, I don’t see why, all of a sudden, I’m fair game just because I’ve done more work and you’ve heard about it. Like, I don’t see it, I don’t get it. To this day, I’m kind of coming to terms with it, but there is still times where I’m like, “I don’t get why people feel like it’s okay to do the things just because they’ve heard about me more.”

Courtney: Yeah, it’s disproportionate. And often it’s an overstatement of harm, too. Like, you mentioned, there was a poorly-worded tweet. Everyone’s made a poorly-worded tweet. Everybody has said something they should have phrased better. That’s what it is to be human. But when it is someone that they view as fair game, that they view as a leader, that has multiple marginalized intersections, there becomes this overstatement of harm. Now, all of a sudden, you’re evil, you are the worst, you need to be deplatformed. And I’m really not — it’s not even cancel culture. It’s, who do we have a higher standard for, and who gets the harsher punishments?

Courtney: And I always find that very interesting. Because in the Ace community, all of the sort of surveys, studies that come out, do show that there are fewer men who identify as Asexual than women, and we have a higher than average percentage of nonbinary people in our community. These are things that are fairly well-known to a lot of Aces. But it hasn’t happened that I’ve seen, and maybe it’s because I haven’t been on social media the last year. But a couple years ago especially, I was seeing all these Ace content creators, organizations who are trying to get things together either for an Ace Week or a Pride event and wanting to interview people or talk. And there was sort of a bit of buzz about trying to be intersectional that had a lot of steam for a period of time on Twitter. And I saw these lists going around that just had me facepalming because the way they’d be written out, it’s like, “I especially want to talk to Black Aces, disabled Aces, Indigenous Aces, and Ace men.”

Courtney: And I would see Ace men on the same list as these other oppressed identities, and I would be like, “I know why you did that.” It’s because there are fewer Ace men and you want to spotlight that experience as its own and unique. But for me, observing the community for so long, if you are an Ace man, especially if you are a white Ace man, you may be fewer in number, but you have this built in amplification of your voice that a lot of us do not have.

Courtney: And that goes for gender perception as well. There are a lot of situations where, if someone perceives you to be a white man talking about Asexuality, you will get a lot more of the benefit of the doubt. People will share your things more often. People will heap praise upon you a lot more than even Ace white women, it seems, but especially Ace women who are women of color, disabled women. So it’s been very, very hard, I’ve found, to try to talk about, like, “No, I actually do think there is a bit of misogyny in the community,” because people are like, “But Ace men are the minority!” But then you talk about David Jay being the one who is carefully chosen to be the palatable face of the community, and it’s like, that’s what I’ve been observing. Those are the people who do tend to be quite palatable and have this amplification of their voices.

Yasmin: I’m very aware of how, like to this day, like, whenever, you know, I get media requests and they’re like, “Okay, we’re gonna be speaking to a bunch of Asexual people,” I’m like, “Unless I’m the only person in the article, I’m not doing it.” And I know that sounds really pretentious, but, to this day, if I do or say something and I’m in proximity to a white Asexual person in the article, I won’t make the cut. Every single time. It doesn’t matter how much work I’ve been doing. It doesn’t matter what it is. I won’t. And, yeah, my part would be, like, this long, Like, it would be like — I’ll have, like, the tiniest line. Everyone else will have a big thing. And it happens to me. Like, even like this year, it happens. And now I’m like, “Unless you’re just talking to me, we’re not talking. [laughs] Because I’m not spending two hours talking to you for me to be one line because the editor decided that everyone else seems like they make more sense than I do.” So it’s like, to this day, I’m very aware that, regardless of, like, “Oh, you’re a community leader, blah, blah, blah,” I’m so, like, the least palatable person for anything. I still have to fight to be allowed to do things. And then, once I’ve released the things I’ve put all the effort into doing, I’m still very aware that if one person hates it and they decide to subtweet it, that could be the end of my month. [laughs]

Courtney: Yeah, and there’s no good answer for it, but that does… I am so curious, those articles you mentioned, is that someone who did listen to all voices and just took the white voices more seriously? Or was this someone who already talked to all the white voices and was like, “Ooh, we should get a person of color in there, just slide it in real quick.” Like, it’s not good either way. But if that is a pattern that you’ve seen multiple times, that is very damning.

Yasmin: I do. Now you’ve said that, I’m like, “Oh, duh, that’s probably what it is.” I probably was the afterthought. They probably had the article written, [laughing] and then they just did that to say that they had done it. Because I was always like, “What was the point of talking to me if you were just going to do that?” But, yeah, I probably was just thrown in there at the last minute because they realized. And that’s why I’m like… I don’t know. Like, I understand internet perception. They’re like, “Oh, you know, everyone’s always going to Yasmin,” or “I’m always hearing about her.” It’s like, from my perspective, I don’t know, it’s not quite the same.

Courtney: Mmm. Absolutely. Well, I think that is about all of our time for today, but you have a rather exciting announcement for our listeners.

Yasmin: Yeah, I have some new research coming out this January — hopefully the 20th of January — and so I will be back here, and we’re going to be talking some more. We’ve got a two-parter, right?

Courtney: Yasmin will return, yes! We thought it would be so fun, because we’ve been wanting to sit down and talk about this Ace in the UK Report for a while. We could talk for hours, and we have already, and we will do so again. But I definitely want to talk about your new research once it is published. Let’s get out ahead of it and talk about it right off the bat.

Courtney: But we also thought it would be fun, dear listeners, if we could collect some questions, a little Q&A for us, for when we do record our part two. So if there’s anything you are dying to hear, anything you’re dying to know, anything we talked about in this episode that you’d like to elaborate on, let us know, send us… How do we want to collect these? We’ll do it this way. If you are tuning in on YouTube, you can absolutely make a YouTube comment under this. We’ll probably put a community post as well, if you’d like to comment. But for those of you who are just podcast platform listeners, or if you tune in on our website, we’ll put our email address in the show notes if you’d like to send it directly to us. And then, Yasmin, if you want to put something out on social media, perhaps?

Yasmin: Yes! Just make sure the questions are interesting, please. Like, [laughs] none of the basics, none of the, “When did you realize you were Asexual?” Like, think outside the box. Let’s get creative.

Courtney: If you ask us something that we have answered a million times, we might just ignore it. But yes, interesting questions. Let’s dig deep.

Yasmin: And please keep in mind that I said that I don’t watch TV shows. So don’t ask me about an Ace character on a TV show and what I thought of it —

[Courtney laughs]

Yasmin: — because I haven’t watched it and I haven’t read it and I haven’t played the video game, so don’t ask me those ones.

Courtney: You heard it here, folks. Courtney and Royce of The Ace Couple watch all of the TV shows and consume all of the Ace media so that Yasmin Benoit does not have to.

Yasmin: Yes.

Courtney: [laughs] Well, usually, we like to wrap up our episode — we have a little MarketplACE on our website where we have a featured vendor. It’s a lot of Ace- and Aro-owned shops, but when we have a guest listener, you are our featured Ace creator of the week. So, listeners, you can find all of Yasmin’s social media profiles, research, anything else. Go ahead and just tell the folks where they can find you, if they don’t already know.

Yasmin: Yeah! All my socials are @TheYasminBenoit. My research — if you just type in, like, “Stonewall Ace project,” it’ll come up. And, yeah, you could just Google me and like all the things will come up. I’m very easy to find.

Courtney: [laughs] And if you don’t want to Google it, we will put those links in our show notes, which will be in the YouTube description if you’re tuning into YouTube, or on our website alongside of a full transcript of this episode.

Courtney: So, that is going to be all for today, dear listeners, but tune in in… gosh, probably at this point, only a few weeks’ time. We’ll have Yasmin back and we’ll answer some of your questions and we’ll get into this exciting new research as well. So we will talk to you all then. Goodbye!