"I am no longer accepting the things I cannot change. I am changing the things I cannot accept." — Angela Davis
"I am nonbinary and I feel that my gender dysphoria may be part of why I am sex-averse. I feel that there is a pro in that being asexual means that I am not distressed by any sex-aversion I experience due to my gender dysphoria." — Em Z., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"A lot of my ace identity is inherently a part of my trans identity. Being sex-indifferent or sex-repulsed is fueled by my lack of sexual attraction and my disconnection from my body. One example is that my aversion to wearing a bikini stems from not wanting people to be sexually attracted to me, but also that it accentuates the parts of my body that I am most uncomfortable with and what I see as counter to how I view myself." — Kara T., via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"I am nonbinary/genderqueer and I feel like my gender is very tied with my ace identity. I think it took me such a long time to figure out my gender because I'm ace. I thought that I was uncomfortable looking like a girl because of how sexualized AFAB bodies are by general society." — Mattea, via Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Often, aromantic-spectrum women will find themselves being compelled to reject "traditional" womanhood not because they have anything against it in particular, but because they so closely associate femininity with dating and romance. In these cases, it's not necessarily about a questioning of gender at all (although that can certainly be another layer of it), but about wanting to reject the stereotypes that surround gender." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Some aspecs also find themselves wanting to distance themselves from the parts of their gender or presentation that are sexualizing—or parts of their bodies that are not sexual by nature but often sexualized within the broader culture." — Sarah Costello and Kayla Kaszyca Sounds Fake but Okay
"Due to the patriarchal understanding of man as norm and woman as other, the wider world often struggles to comprehend anyone drawing on femininities who is not regarded as a woman. Such expression is often heavily policed. Whereas anyone drawing on masculinities is understandable: of course people would want to be masculine. Because masculinity is regarded as superior to femininity, anything associated with femininity on a man is highly visible, whereas masculinity on women is often unremarked." — Meg-John Barker Gender: A Graphic Guide
"The roots of discrimination, conflict, and war are not to be found outside us. They are within our own way of thinking and looking at the world. The real enemy is our ignorance, our attachment to views, and our wrong perceptions." — Thich Nhat Hanh How to Fight
"In many parts of experimental science unexpected discoveries are made in a workshop. The book of nature, whose pages are open to all, is read but by a few." — James D. Forbes Travels Through the Alps
"When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other." — Eric Hoffer
"The more intensely we want something, the more reasons we will likely find that make it okay." — Jill Fredston Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches
"What we see often has more to do with what we have seen in the past or what we hope or expect to see than it does with what is staring us in the face." — Jill Fredston Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches
"To treat your facts with imagination is one thing, to imagine your facts is another." — John Burroughs
"I don’t hate white people; I hate the system of white supremacy that gives them asymmetrical power and unmerited privilege. I don’t hate cops; I hate the pattern of police brutality that systematically harasses and kills black people and other people of color with impunity. I don’t hate soldiers; I hate the horror of war that terrorizes the most politically and economically vulnerable among us. I don’t hate rich people; I hate the system of capitalism that creates an elite one percent at the expense of the rest of us. It is precisely because of my love for humanity that I get enraged at systems that prevent people from flourishing and being free. It’s frustrating to see my righteous anger at unjust systems interpreted as hatred for individuals, but it’s more frustrating to see the oppressed suffer while those maladjusted to injustice remain silent. I won’t be silent. Silence is violence." — Nyle Fort
"Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists. If we don’t, then we are blamed for our own assaults, our own deaths." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Do-nothing climate policy is racist policy, since the predominantly non-White global south is being victimized by climate change more than the Whiter global north, even as the Whiter global north is contributing more to its acceleration." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"We have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals." — Audre Lorde "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference"
"To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism. The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"What if we realized the best way to ensure an effective educational system is not by standardizing our curricula and tests but by standardizing the opportunities available to all students? In other words, the racial problem is the opportunity gap, as antiracist reformers call it, not the achievement gap." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." — President Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 Howard University Commencement Address
