ShoutOut to our LGBTQ+ Role Models: Asexual folks!
/It’s day 5 of our LGBTQ+ tribute series and it’s over to Stephen Turner. Stephen is one of ShoutOut’s most experienced (and loveliest) volunteers. Stephen has delivered dozens of ShoutOut workshops to hundreds and hundreds of secondary school students!
Today, Stephen does a ShoutOut to his Ace heros.
Our Stephen x
I came to the term being part of my identity a lot later than being gay. My first exposure to the word was listening to one of my favourite actors Kenneth Williams discussing it.
His sexuality was always tacitly open. His diaries would talk about homosexual experience, but it was a television interview that gave me the word asexual. He said he "reproduces purely asexually". To my young mind, I think was eleven or twelve the first time I saw it, it meant nothing really. The more I encountered interviews with him or programmes about him the more I understood that he didn't usually have sex with anyone, despite the best efforts of his friends.
Looking at it now, his firm understanding of himself and how he carried himself I'm his life and work proves that being asexual is nothing to be ashamed of.
Kenneth Williams
Coming to the understanding of myself one of the people I turned to was AmeliaAce and their YouTube channel. They do short, clear and witty videos explaining asexuality that helped me recognise my own feelings. They do a particularly useful video on the History of Asexuality, showing that asexuality has been used as a term since the 1890s. X was added to the Kinsey Scale in the 1940s to represent Ace folks. It’s really interesting!
AmeliaAce
Another YouTube channel was Jenna Clare.
Similar to Amelia, they were quick and easy to understand. They went into a lot of detail abbot the shades of asexuality. It's not just not liking sex. Like every other sexuality, it's as individual as the person who uses the identity.
Which can lead to a lot of confusion but they have both helped me navigate that.
Jenna Clare
While it’s difficult to apply labels to people who are no longer with us, many people consider Nikola Tesla and Florence Nightingale to be apart of the Ace community. And of course, there is our hotel hero, Francis Brennan!
The Ace Pride Flag as Kittens, because why not!
By Irene Koh, click the photo for more!
