Our Organization’s Story
From humble beginnings as a small conference planning team, we’ve grown and acheived so much over the last 8 years!
We’re building a movement together
Ace and aro leaders around the world are leading the way to a brighter future, and we’re proud to provide our community with tools and resources to enable all of us to grow together!
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Image description:
Several people march in a pride parade behind a white banner. The frontmost person has brown skin
and chest-length dark brown hair, is wearing sunglasses, a flower crown, and a black
shirt, and is waving.
Our Key Projects
Of all the work we do, we’re especially proud of these projects for the impact they have on our community.
Community hub
Aces & Aros
This website acts as a hub for our community, empowering thousands of people to get involved in their community every year. By connecting people to local communities and events, educational and support resources, and stories from the community, Aces & Aros provides a vital link to their community.
“Aces & Aros has been so helpful in providing informative resources to our community, which has amplified our regional work in so many ways!”
Campaign
Ace Week
Founded as Asexual Awareness Week in 2010, Ace Week is the largest annual campaign for awareness, education, and progress in our community. In 2019, the founder of Ace Week entrusted our team with coordinating the campaign into the future, and we’ve been fostering and growing it ever since!
Founding and Early Projects
Our organization could not exist without the tireless efforts of advocates who have been laying the foundations of our movement since the early 2000s.
Asexual Outreach was born just a few years after the first ace communities began organizing in-person events and gatherings; in fact, it was the 2014 International Asexuality Conference, hosted by AVEN, that inspired our co-founders to create Asexual Outreach later that year.
Our first major event, hosted in 2015, was a conference in Toronto that brought more than a hundred attendees together for two days of learning, sharing, and community building. That same year, we developed our first series of educational materials with the input CJ Chasin, Eriol S., and members of Ace Toronto.
In the fall of 2015, our team published our Ace Inclusion Guide for High Schools. With the help of our donors, we mailed inclusion kits containing this book to several dozen high schools.
Our Story
Expanding our Work
Shortly after our founding, our team identified a clear need for a national organization that could support smaller local initiatives, and we began working to realize that vision.
In 2016, we expanded our board to include leaders from communities across the United States and Canada to ensure our efforts were designed to best support the ongoing needs of our community. Then, to give greater structure to our efforts, we became the first ace/aro organization in the world to incorporate as a nonprofit organization and to attain tax-exempt status.
That same year, our team began working on Aces & Aros: a community hub that now connects tens of thousands of people to local events, community groups, educational materials, and resources each year.
As we moved to more equally include the aro community in our work, we began focusing on recruiting team members with a passion for aro advocacy. Today, most members of our leadership and volunteer teams are aro, and we’re proud of the work we’ve done to incorporate equitable aro representation into our projects and resources.
Our Ongoing Work
Since 2014, our team has developed numerous projects and campaigns that drive lasting change every day!
Advocacy in LGBTQ+ Spaces
So much of our work draws on the advocacy efforts of queer and trans folks who have come before us: especially the Black and trans activists who have long led the fight for queer liberation.
We know just how life-changing it can be to be welcomed into a community who supports you for who you are, and much of our work has gone into creating inclusion for ace and aro people in LGBTQ+ spaces.
Over the years, our team members have marched in dozens of pride parades across the country, and have helped new community groups organize their first marches and pride activities. In recent years, we have been creating a library of photographs that portray the diversity and joy of our communities as they show off their pride. With these photos, community leaders have been able to better tell their stories and enhance their advocacy work.
Organizing at Creating Change
Since 2015, our team has worked in conjunction with other community leaders to promote ace and aro inclusion at Creating Change: the world’s largest annual LGBTQ+ advocacy conference. Our work builds upon the foundations laid by incredible community leaders who have been fighting for progress for more than a decade. Over the years, our team has:
- built relationships with numerous LGBTQ+ organizations, resulting in greater inclusion and access for ace and aro people;
- hosted spaces for ace and aro community organizers to connect, learn from each other, and grow in their advocacy; and
- organized exhibition tables, connecting thousands of LGBTQ+ advocates with ace and aro resources and communities;
- hosted numerous workshops teaching audiences how to make youth spaces ace and aro inclusive, how to deliver appropriate medical and mental health care, how to build inclusion into nonprofit programs and services, and more.
Image description:
A Black man with a short beard, visible from
the chest up. He wears a dark gray sweater, a chevron-patterned red and gold scarf,
and a black beanie with "Black Lives Matter" and "Asexual" pins attached to it. He holds up
two fingers, and wears a black ring on his middle finger. He is in
front of a black shower curtain, beige wall, and framed photo.
It means a lot to be part of this organization, to be able to connect BIPOC aces and aros with vital resources and content is massively important to our community as a whole!
Our Work
Online Community Hub
Community groups—both online and off—are the bedrock of our movement. Not only do give countless people a sense of belonging, they’re also leading the way toward a brighter future!
We've long been amazed by the impact of connecting people to local communities, so in 2018, we created a website to help ace and aro people find their community and get involved.
Today, Aces & Aros serves as a hub for our community. The website hosts a map of almost every English-speaking community group in the world, as well as a regularly updated list of community events. Beyond that, the site connects community members to resources and stories, helping them stay up to date with the latest community news, and giving people tools to become better advocates.
Empowering Community Organizers
Since community groups play such a central role in our movement, we work hard to support community leaders so that more ace and aro people can have access to communities.
Alongside hosting occasional events and meetings where community leaders can meet one another, learn from each other, and refine their organizing skills, we also host an online community where leaders can reach one another whenever they’d like!
We’re continually developing new tools and resources to help community leaders organize events, learn new skills, and reach ace and aro folks in their area. One day, we hope to grow our network into a thriving community where established leaders can mentor newcomers, where organizers have opportunities to collaborate with one another, and where we can collectively impact meaningful change on a social and governmental level.
Our Work
Ace Week
There is incredible power and possibility when people unite to fight for a cause, and Ace Week has been the home of remarkable advocacy since it began in 2010.
Ace Week is an annual event that puts asexuality in the spotlight. Part celebration of the progress we’ve made as a community, and part campaign for greater understanding and acceptance of asexual-spectrum identities, Ace Week is a time to focus on all things ace.
Our team officially began coordinating Ace Week in 2019 when the campaign’s founder—Sara Beth Brooks—entrusted us with its future. Since then, we’ve created resources and educational materials that community organizers can use in their own advocacy efforts, we’ve broadened the scope of the campaign to encourage advocacy beyond awareness, and we’ve built up a robust infrastructure to support the grassroots community efforts that have made Ace Week what it is for more than a decade.
Leadership Team
Our leadership team is comprised of leaders and advocates from various ace and aro communities. The personal experiences and insights each person brings helps inform our work and keep our organization true to its values.
Want to join our board?
Are you interested in helping determine the direction our organization moves in the future? We'd love to hear from you!
Our board welcomes applicants from ace and aro communities. We especially encourage applications from those who are Black, Indigenous and people of color, Disabled and/or neurodivergent people, and trans and/or nonbinary people.
Please fill out our contact form if you're interested in applying!
Team members
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Image description: A headshot of Basil, a white nonbinary person with a chin-length blonde undercut, visible from the chest up. They are smiling and are wearing red-tinted glasses, pink headphones, a red and black jacket, and a floral collared shirt. In the background is a wooden fence, some trees, and two housesBasil Langevin
Executive Director
Basil is a white settler living and working on unceded W̱SÁNEĆ and lək̓ʷəŋən territory. Having first gotten involved in ace advocacy in 2013, Basil has had the great privilege to learn and grow through the teachings and mentorship of countless community activists and theorizers. Basil’s work is guided and grounded by their autistic, genderqueer, aro, and ace identities, and they remain especially passionate about building solidarity between disability and ace/aro advocates. Basil holds a certificate in Nonprofit Management and is currently pursuing a degree in Indigenous Studies.
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Image description: A headshot of Justine from the shoulders up. They are wearing a blue shirt and have shoulder length sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and white skin. They are smiling and are in front of a mottled grey background.Justine Munich
Board Chair
Coming from a background in disability therapy and justice, Justine's passion for education and advocacy has led to their extensive work around sexuality and gender. As an active member of local ace and aro community groups on the Canadian West Coast and in Switzerland, and as an administrator on the Asexual Visibility and Education Network's online forum, Justine remains deeply involved in ace community organizing. Their role as Chair on Asexual Outreach's board is an extension of that involvement, where their experience helps them guide Asexual Outreach toward working more equitably and effectively across Canada and the United States.
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Image description: A headshot of Christie, a white cisgender woman with wavy shoulder length pink hair, visible from the shoulders up. She is standing in front of a brick fireplace with a bronze frame. A large photo is hung above the fireplace.Christina (Christie) Wilson
Board Secretary
Christie is a queer chronically ill science and special education teacher in the same area of small-town northern New York where she was born and raised. Her background, combined with her career teaching in a district that is largely minority and impoverished, has led her to a distinct awareness of the lack of opportunities afforded to those who fall outside the supposed “status quo” — especially students in rural areas. This has become a defining feature of her advocacy. As the secretary for Asexual Outreach, Christie hopes to bring her passion for youth education and volunteer work to the organization as a way to expand school programs across the United States and Canada.
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Image description: A headshot of Marshall, a Black man, from the shoulders up. He is smiling, and is wearing a gray t-shirt and a black beanie with "Asexual" and "Black Lives Matter" pins attached to it. Behind him is a beige wall.Marshall Blount
Board Member
Marshall is an ace activist and YouTube content creator from Erie, Pennsylvania who uses his platform to share his personal experiences and journey while teaching non-a-spec folks about asexuality. Marshall served on Erie’s LGBTQIA+ advisory board until 2020, and has been working with Asexual Outreach to expand his own impact both locally and around the world. Outside of his activism work, Marshall is a cityscape photographer.
Want to join our board?
Are you interested in helping determine the direction our organization moves in the future? We'd love to hear from you!
Our board welcomes applicants from ace and aro communities. We especially encourage applications from those who are Black, Indigenous and people of color, Disabled and/or neurodivergent people, and trans and/or nonbinary people.
Please fill out our contact form if you're interested in applying!
Get in touch
Have a question about our work? Interested in starting a fundraiser? Want to interview us for a news article? We'd love to hear from you!
Send us a message
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