Asexual Awareness Week
| Asexual Awareness Week | |
|---|---|
| Date | During October |
| 2015 date | October 19th to October 25th |
| Frequency | Annually |
| Related to | ITOV (add link) |
Asexual Awareness Week occurs in the later half of October, and is created to both celebrate asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual pride and promote awareness.[1]
Goals
The goals of Asexual Awareness Week include the following:
- Promote the realisation that sexual and romantic attractions such as asexual, aromantic and similar exist,
- Help people who fall under these categories understand that they are not broken or alone,
- Help other people understand what these sexual and romantic attractions are to help dissolve misunderstandings,
- Promote the understanding that love and sex are not intrinsically linked and that the lack of one does not make the other any less meaningful,
- Promote the understanding that aromantics can still experience non-romantic love,
- Spread the understanding of the discrimination and violence that people who fall under these attraction categories face,
- Help decrease the violence they face such as corrective rape,
- Help people understand how they can be supportive
- Advertise support groups for those who might need it
History
Asexual awareness week was originally started by Sara Beth Brooks in 2010 as 'Bringing Asexy Back' and was changed to Asexual Awareness Week the next year.[2] In 2011 funding was raised to run advertising campaigns to raise awareness, put out screenings of a documentary on Asexuality, and run a census on people who identified as asexual.
In 2012 Brooks joined a representative from Aven at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force Creating Change Conference, where they showed the workshop and ran a workshop to help promote awareness for people who fell under the asexual, aromantic, demisexual and grey-asexual umbrella. Talks were also had with the director of the Trevor Project to help provide positive information for their training material. This was done to allow the Trevor Project to have a better understanding of the issues people who fell under the 'Ace Umbrella' might face and better methods of helping them cope.
Petitions also have been made to media such as Fox to request them to reconsider their negative portrayals and suggest that any talk panels about asexuality, aromantics, demisexality, and grey-asexuality and other sexuality and romantic acclimation that fall under the same umbrella should at least include one person who falls under that category.
Observances
Asexual Awareness Week is an international week encouraged by the Asexual Awareness Week(AWW) organisation to help increase people's understanding of the sexualities and romantic spectrum that fall under the 'Ace Umbrella'. These can include asexual, aromantic, demisexual, and grey-asexual among them. It is designed to help promote understanding of what these sexualities are and the current issues people face. This is conducted by using the dedicated week to promote relevant material online, through LGBT groups, and media outlets. This media tends to range from pamphlets, articles, interviews, documentaries and informative videos.[3][4] A number of university unions also promote the week.[5][6]
Asexual Awareness Week and International Transgender Day of Visibility are different from the better-known Transgender Day of Remembrance(TDOR); TDOR specifically remembers the deceased.
References
- ↑ "AAW - About Us". asexualawarenessweek.com. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
- ↑ "Asexual Awareness Week - AVENwiki". www.asexuality.org. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
- ↑ Nichols, JamesMichael. "'Everything's A-Okay' -- Celebrating Asexual Awareness Week (VIDEO)". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
- ↑ "AsexualAwarenessWeek". YouTube. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
- ↑ "Leeds University Union". Leeds University Union. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
- ↑ "First-ever Asexual Awareness Week at U of T". The Varsity. Retrieved 2016-01-03.
External links
- Asexual Awareness Week home site
- Ace and Aro Awareness Website
- "Asexual Awareness Week", PRISM blog (University of Mary Washington People for the Rights of Individuals of Sexual Minorities), October 17, 2014
- Emily Colero (November 3, 2014), "First-ever Asexual Awareness Week at U of T", The Varsity (University of Toronto)
- Lily Zheng (November 4, 2014), "How to ace sex: Why enthusiastic consent doesn’t cut it", The Stanford Daily
- Thomas Arbuckle (October 29, 2014), Busting myths in honor of Asexual Awareness Week, GLAAD
- JamesMichael Nichols (October 21, 2013), "'Everything's A-Okay' – Celebrating Asexual Awareness Week", The Huffington Post