Ep 181: Accessibility and Asexuality feat. Liam O'Dell

Hey what's up hello! Today we chat with Liam O'Dell, an amazing activist focused on deafness and disability, about accessibility and how the aspec community can be more welcoming to disabled people.

Episode Transcript: www.soundsfakepod.com/transcripts/accessibility-and-asexuality

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Transcript

(0:00)

SARAH: Hey what’s up hello. Welcome to Sounds Fake But Okay, a podcast where an aroace girl (I’m Sarah. That’s me.)

KAYLA:… and a demi-straight girl (that’s me, Kayla)

LIAM: An an asexual man, Liam.

SARAH: talk about all things to do with love, relationships, sexuality, and pretty much anything else that we just don’t understand.

KAYLA: On today’s episode: accessibility.

ALL: — Sounds fake, but okay.

SARAH: Welcome back to the pod!

KAYLA: Oh um.
SARAH: John M’ulaney.

KAYLA: Oh! I’m so sorry.

SARAH: I’m going to cut this out, the part where we were talking about this but we were just talking about how my rhythm is thrown off when we have guests on and Kayla said now I’ve thrown him off his rhythm.  John Mulaney was right there.

KAYLA: I’m an embarrassment.

SARAH: Yeah, I agree. Okay cool Kayla what are we talking about this week?

KAYLA: This week we have a lovely guest on, who is Liam. And we’re going to be talking about Liam and a bunch of other things. Hello Liam, welcome!

LIAM: Thank you for having me. Hello! 

KAYLA: Do you want to give a short intro of who you are and what you do if anyone doesn’t know who you are? Which is rude and they should.

LIAM: I mean that’s totally fine if they don’t. I’m Liam, pronouns he/him. I’m a getting there asexual activist and a freelance deaf journalist and campaigner, writing about all things accessibility, deafness, and asexuality. 

SARAH: Exciting.

KAYLA: Yeah so we’re going to be talking about Liam, obviously, but also about accessibility in the aspec community, just the world and deafness and all of that.

SARAH: It all intersects, baby.

KAYLA: Intersectionaaaalityyyyy.

LIAM: Well done.
SARAH: Oh that’s a new song I haven’t heard before, okay.

KAYLA: Do you like this dance that goes with it too?

SARAH: On that note, let’s dive in. I guess, Liam when did you start identifying as asexual? What was your journey with asexuality?

LIAM: Wow I like that. I think I’ve been asked this question a few times by different podcasts and people and what not. And I think it’s the first time it’s been called a journey. Now I’m just being like—

KAYLA: You just set out on your trek?

LIAM: Get a leather jacket being like, “going on an adventure,” except it’s not that exciting. For the longest time, cause I was thinking about this the other day. For the longest time, I’m also dyspraxic I should say as well as being deaf so that affects coordination but it can also affect social skills. So for the longest time in education, in school, there was this period where I was like, okay I don’t understand for example what banter is. It took me probably two years after everyone else to fully understand what that meant. It kind of felt like I had a delay in understanding big social cues and that extended to things like kissing and romance and indeed, sex. And I think it was quite an interesting progression cause it went from kissing to going, I don’t understand why people do that. It sounds a bit gross but now I’m open to it, I’m in a relationship and it’s fine. But then this whole idea of sex it was, okay I could understand why someone would want to do that for reproductive purposes that is a thing that people do, fine. I could understand why someone would want to do it for pleasure. For me, I could never envisage myself in that position. In fact, I don’t know if sex-repulsed is still a word the community uses but it was that idea of I can’t put myself in that position, I would feel uncomfortable if I was put in that position. 

SARAH: Sex-averse is what I think people say a lot these days.

LIAM: Yeah that’s right. So there was always that kind of feeling. But I don’t think I fully put the label asexual or kind of really consolidated it until a few years later when I had a few friends from the community. Emi Salida, who is a great UK asexuality activist—I’m good friends with her and she introduced me to that concept. And it was in London Pride in 2019 that I was invited to march with a UK-based charity which was then called Action on Hearing Loss, which is now known as the RNID, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and they invited me along. And at that point, I was thinking, oh right okay, I don’t know whether I’m an ally here or if I’m someone in that community. There was a moment I was holding this giant banner walking through London Pride going oh god, I’m a straight white cis man holding a giant banner with several other people that are a part of this community. And I’m not. I feel terrible. Except there was a point—and I always say about this—there was a point when I was marching down and there were a few people on the right, a couple of girls holding and waving an ace flag looking really happy and enjoying their time which is always nice to see. There were moments throughout the day when I was thinking and questioning my sexuality a whole lot more. And if anyone has a fun coming out story, telling their parents anything like that, I came out in a Five Guys. 

(5:00)

KAYLA: I love that. 

LIAM: I came out in a Five Guys!

KAYLA: I love that so much. 

LIAM: So we finished the march, I gathered some friends and was like okay, I’m done with the march, we’ve had a fun time seeing all the events and stuff, gathering up getting food, just chilling after a very busy marching and everything. I just sat there and I was like, right it’s either that I’m—so I knew that I’m immune to experiencing sexual attraction—so therefore I’m either demisexual because I would need to have that deep emotional bond or I’m completely asexual in the sense that I will never experience that regardless. Completely asexual, demisexual, half-asexual, 35% asexual, that’s what I mean. I think there was that understanding and I kind of said, wherever on that scale I may be, that means I’m asexual, so I said, yeah I’m asexual. Since then we’re now in 2021, I’m in a relationship with someone who’s also asexual and I just kind of felt more comfortable with asexual because I’m with them now and we have an incredibly strong bond and there’s no feeling there of having any sexual attraction. God that sounds like a long journey. I feel like that’s longer than Lord of the Rings, isn’t it? 

SARAH: It sounds like a whirlwind day to me is what that sounds like.

KAYLA: Honestly.

SARAH: The fact that it was like—

LIAM: Oh yeah, it was. Just coming out over burgers. That’s the dream, innit? 

SARAH: Questioning and then coming out over some burgers all in one day.

KAYLA: It feels very cinematic to me of picturing you walking in this Pride parade and seeing the ace flag around and being is that me, it just feels like.

LIAM: It wasn’t one image ingrained in my mind, it was two. There was also—we were obviously marching as deaf people and allies to that community. We were signing the words “Happy Pride” and obviously this is an audio podcast. For those of you who can’t see us right now, “Happy Pride” is essentially clapping your hands together, thumbs up and stroking it against your chest. And that’s “Happy Pride.” I try not to teach because I’m in no way an expert in sign language. But we were going around doing that and teaching people in the crowd how to sign that. Happy Pride, and seeing everyone engaging with that community was really nice to see. And it’s also really nice to see disabilities represented at these sorts of events because most of the time, these Pride events are not the most accessible to deaf people or disabled people more widely. That’s another moment that’s really ingrained in my mind, in my memory.

SARAH: It’s exciting that you were invited independently of you realizing that you were asexual.

LIAM: Yeah it was like, “you’re a deaf activist would you like to come along?” And I was like, well thank you I’m flattered. I’m certainly for the longest time an ally and that was fine except there was a point where I was holding the banner like, I should not be this prominent, just leave me in the back, hide me away in the corner and I’ll just be like, waaaaah. 

(10:00)

KAYLA: I feel like that’s such a common thing for queer people though to be like “no I’m just a really good ally, no I’m not that, I really support my friends who are ace.” That’s what, when we started the podcast, I was identifying as straight, like no I’m just really interested in the topic and I’m going to do a podcast about it. And then it was like, bitch no.

SARAH: The podcast was your idea.

KAYLA: Yeah I know, how embarrassing for me to think I’m straight. That’s so embarrassing of me.

LIAM: Just be embarrassed by your straightness.

KAYLA: I mean, being straight is embarrassing. As someone who is still heteroromantic. I’m embarrassed. But anyway.

LIAM: I see so many things like. In my journalism work, we have to do news stories about for example, there was an article I had to write. I write for The Independent here in the UK which is one of the mainstream news outlets. And I have a section which is kind of like Buzzfeed which is the indy100 and I had to do a story the other day where it’s like, “This TikTok is going viral for showing a scene in Shrek that’s not safe for work!” I was here like, the allos man. The allosexuals are just wild. The straights are at it again. That sort of thing.

KAYLA: They really are. At the end of last year we did an episode that was like, we talked about news stories that was just straight and allo people being wild and we picked the allo of the year and I feel like that Shrek person is a good allo of 2021.

SARAH: Yeah we gotta write that down.

KAYLA: We’re going to have to revisit that. We gotta remember to go back to your section when we’re looking for 2021, see what you’ve written about for the year.

LIAM: I’ll be a broken man by December. That’s so many!

KAYLA: Too many!

SARAH: Oh man. That’s true. I am going to pivot here because I don’t know how else to transition.

KAYLA: There’s no segue from Shrek there’s really not.

SARAH: After you came out in a Five Guys Burgers and Fries, what was your coming out experience to the rest of the world? To the people who were not sitting there in that Five Guys with you?
LIAM: Right. I haven’t talked about it as much because I realized it wasn’t the best. But me being me, I put a photo up on Instagram on that day and said enough in that sense. When my mum—cause I live with my parents—picked me up from the train station I was like, yeah mum I think I’m asexual and she was like, yeah that’s fine. The understanding from the parents has been fine. I think there was that typical response in my family that was like, oh you just haven’t found the right person yet and that just made me roll my eyes as far back into the sockets as they could go. But no, otherwise, they’ve been understanding. In terms of wider chat from the rooftops, in a video that’s since been taken down because I felt it wasn’t a good–I think it got a bit of backlash so I was like okay fine I’ll take it down, not because it was controversial or anything, just because it was—it was a rap video. A few people were saying it wasn’t appropriate and that’s fine. I did a—it was great, I think I called it The Coming Out as Asexual—the Asexual Rap (Gone Asexual). It was perfect, I really enjoyed it, I think a few people didn’t and I decided to take it down. It was just me putting on a fancy suit and sunglasses. I think the first line was like, “when I say asexual, forget your science class. We have intercourse? No, I think I’ll pass. While they call me celibate, hey while we’re here, let me tell you why it’s valid to be sexually queer.” And then the rest of it.

KAYLA: I love that.

LIAM: It was a lot of fun to do. There, should I rerelease it? Should I put it back up on my channel? People enjoyed it, the majority enjoyed it. Just a few people that didn’t. Should I keep it back up? And I’ve been toying with it. But I’m like, it’s there. I feel like it’s a good resource now for me to show people. When my partner and I were talking in the early days, I was like, “did you know I came out as asexual not only in a Five Guys but later in a YouTube video where I put on suit and glasses and proceeded to rap about my asexuality?” “No,” was her response and I showed her that and thankfully, we’re still together.

KAYLA: I mean it’s a good way to break the ice really.

(15:00)

LIAM: Yeah that’s kind of the thing you do isn’t it? It’s not just, hey tell me what your plans are for the future or what your biggest hobby is. It’s “I released a video of me rapping and I had to stop filming at one point because this man and his dog would just walk up to me and the tripod and be like ‘oh what are you filming?’ and I’d pretend I was filming a news report in a suit.” I was like, “oh yeah no I’m just filming a news report or something” and then he went off on his way with his dog and I went back to doing my thing and hoping that no one noticed. Yeah.

KAYLA: That’s so perfect.

LIAM: Which now I have taken down out of shame.

KAYLA: That’s so funny.

SARAH: Don’t let the people ruin your fun. It sounds delightful.

LIAM: I think at that point as well I was pretty sensitive to criticism. I’ve gotten a little bit better at that but I think I just got a few comments and I was like, uhh it’s had it’s fun, people enjoyed it. People that needed to see it saw it. It’s had its day. And that was where we ended us.

SARAH: Fair, fair. 

KAYLA: You mentioned when you were marching in the Pride parade, obviously it meant a lot because people with disabilities aren’t often featured in the queer community. Have you found that that has continued to be the case. Also has that impacted how you interact with the asexual community in general now that you’re fully out part of a community and everything.

LIAM: That’s a really good question. I think first and foremost, I’m going to be a pedant. The kind of common use is disabled people not people with disabilities. That’s fine, you didn’t know. I think the other thing as well, so I haven’t really been to many ace events. I think the only one I went to was virtual this time last year, when AVEN - Asexuality Visibility and Education Network - held their I want to say the UK Asexuality Conference but I felt like people across the globe joined in. 

KAYLA: Yeah we were panelists so it definitely wasn’t only UK. 

LIAM: I was a host on that. It’s quite offensive that I didn’t think to say hello then. We could have met a whole lot sooner if I was like, “hello, it’s me I’m a thing.” So I had that panel and it was really interesting. Kind of showed me the accessibility for that. I know there were a few snags—understandable as well—around captions and the interpretations and that sort of stuff which was tricky. I think more widely, it’s a little disheartening because it’s almost like in addition to—there’s a talk online about people coming out as disabled. I personally don’t use that terminology. I kind of distance myself from that. But I think there is that kind of sense where activists and asexual people in whatever context having to come out as disabled if they want to use that term or explain that disability to these organizations to make these events accessible because they hadn’t necessarily considered that to start with. It’s a common thing that happens where people put in place a feature to talk about technology or equipment and place a policy or whatever and they only then realize that oh accessibility is probably a thing we should consider to write it in the end and then you kind of have to retrospectively go back and make changes. So, that’s one thing for sure. I don’t know what the initial question was but that was something I wanted to add to it. So the other thing as well is that it has, because I think, what needs to be important here is we are a community creating resources. They need to be accessible to deaf and disabled people. It’s been quite disheartening. There’s been activists in the community, there’s been content in the community that’s been released that hasn’t come with image description for blind or partially sighted folks, captions for deaf people like myself, and it’s just really disappointing because I’ve always said you cannot be an advocate or an activist for the wider LGBTQ+ community or a specific identity within that if you’re not including disabled queers or disabled aces or disabled LGBTQ+ people in your content that you’re producing because if you want to be educated people which most activists want to be, or they want to kind of raise awareness, you’re not doing that as best as you can if you’re not including disabled people in that content. That’s been disheartening to see and I’ve been disengaged from that content altogether because it was just not accessible to me. Which was really disheartening because I kind of make it a practice on social media to only retweet, quote, or comment on content that is accessible, or I will try and make it accessible myself. And it’s just really disheartening that that isn’t being considered. There is still a long way to go within the LGBTQ+ community around access for disabled people in Pride events, whether that’s online or in person. And indeed in terms of the content that they’re putting out there as well.

(20:00)

SARAH: I feel like there’s been a lot of discourse recently with everything that’s been going on about how your queer activism isn’t full queer activism if it’s not including black folks or other BIPOC folks and it’s like, we need to be having that same discussion about accessibility about disabled people and I feel like often times that conversation is not being had. I recently followed on Twitter Imani Babarin who is a disabled black woman and seeing the way she talks about all these things I’m like, of course, it’s all connected. We need to be helpful to all of these different identities and we can’t pick and choose which ones we want to be more accessible to or to prioritize. 

LIAM: Agreed and it’s important that disabled people—again, we talk about intersectionality now, we need to insert Kayla’s jingle at every possible opportunity—lovely, I feel like as well as you were saying that, if there isn’t that access then it makes it harder for disabled LGBTQ+ people if those identities and intersectionalities aren’t considered, and then they aren’t being brought to the floor. You know and I think any moment where these intersectionalities happen, they’re often one or two or three or multiple identities that are coming together and each identity is a minority identity which leads to you being facing significant values compared to the majority, so for example deaf person as opposed to hearing people, disabled as opposed to non-disabled, black as opposed to white. And if you’re providing all of those together and you’re not acknowledging all of those identities, then those barriers they’re not being addressed. They’ll come together in a way that’s impossible for those activists and those voices to penetrate into the right conversation and it starts to becoming freaky. It’s the risk of the same people speaking all the time. The moment that you make it accessible and exclusive, all of these intersectional identities, there are different ways in which asexuality can be explored, you enrich the conversation. They can tap into that wider conversation around representation. You hear other people say, when asexuality is represented or when disability is represented, it’s always through that one lens of insert stereotype here. Asexuals are always so awkward or all of these types of really prejudiced stereotypes honing one lived experience. The moment you open it up to other lived experiences then the representation that you see at events and panels and Pride marches in TV episodes and everything like that becomes a whole lot more representative of society as a whole. We don’t want the typical ace activist or some of the most prominent ace activists to just be kind of thinking stereotypically here, I’m sure that’s not the case, we don’t want it to be white, straight—not straight, no asexuals are straight—but you know, white, non-disabled, all of these other—

SARAH: Cis.

LIAM: All these other typical privileged positions. We need to spice it up a little bit. And I realize I just said that, I was like is there a better way of putting it and I was like, no you’re going to go with it. Spice things up a little bit. Yeah okay great. Like a Nando’s.

KAYLA: You’re so right though. I think something that I’ve thought about recently especially as we’re close to 200 episodes now is what do we keep talking about because it does feel like in the ace community sometimes we do go in circles, always talking about the same topics, always doing asexuality 101 which obviously has its place we need to do some of that. But you’re right. It’s kind of like the same activists or people talking all the time, always talking about the same things and there isn’t a lot of diversity there. I feel like most of the big names you think of are probably white or probably cis, probably non-disabled. If they are able to be opened up, if there was more accessibility, if disabled people were able to have a say in the conversation, were able to be put up on that pedestal, there would be a lot more interesting conversations going on. 

LIAM: Exactly. I think it was just the other day I was talking about how advocacy or activism isn’t just speaking up or talking about your community that you’re part of in sharing your lived experiences. It’s also about knowing when to pass the mic, it’s about knowing why okay this is a conversation about a lived experience or an identity or a certain circumstance which I’m not a 100% experienced in. I can talk about it from maybe a side angle but you have to realize in certain instances that it’s not your place sometimes and it’s much more a conversation that’s being had or the opportunity that comes up is enriched a whole lot more if you say “oh my friend Charlotte is a lot more interested and curious about the idea of concentration fatigue on deaf people.” I can talk about it, but I know that my friend Charlotte has been going on about it quite regularly on social media. You have to kind of think about who knows that stuff as well. If I go into an interview and I’m thinking, oh gosh I don’t necessarily know the answers to XYZ if they ask it, that’s probably a sign that you probably need to bring someone else on board or give it to them entirely. 

KAYLA: Yeah absolutely and I think that’s something that we’re still trying to learn how to do is understanding that we are big enough to not have to take every opportunity.

LIAM: It’s allyship isn’t it, that’s essentially what it is.

KAYLA: I know that Angela Chen comes to mind as someone who I’ve seen her multiple times and she’s done this for us, “hey I had this person reach out to me for an interview but I’ve gotten enough interviews recently I think you should do it.” I’ve seen her do that so many times with so many different people of different backgrounds and everything. If we were all able to do that like Angela did.

LIAM: Who is that?

KAYLA: Angela Chen, she wrote the book Ace.

LIAM: I’ve seen that book around. I was doing a book haul the other day and I was like, I’m going to bookmark that book and come back to it later. My bookshelf at the moment is looking disappointingly non-ace and it needs a bit of work. I mean the only thing that’s on there currently is a crocheted otter that’s got an ace scarf around it. It’s the sweetest thing, my partner brought it for me I’m like I need more. I need to scream about my asexuality because there’s not much in there. I’ve got Loveless by Alice Osman. And I think that’s it.

(30:00)

SARAH: It’s a delightful thing to have that otter but it’s not a book. So, you gotta expand into more books.

KAYLA: I would be super interested to hear your thoughts if you ever do get around to reading Ace though because there is a chapter where Angela interviews disabled ace people, kind of about the intersection and talking about their struggles both with being ace and with being disabled. It’s super interesting I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. 

LIAM: This is exactly it and it’s been great talking about it recently with different people that I’ve been interviewed by. There is this talk about how disabled people are inherently asexual. Like just asexual by default, like they can’t have sexual experiences which is completely false. And there’s been films recently that have tried to explore and it’s been terrible. I think one of them was a film called Come As You Are which is about a group of disabled people except a lot of them are not disabled, which was just shocking, it got a lot of backlash as a result. It’s just there’s so few and it’s particular. It’s a binary, disabled people are seen as superheroes or they’re like benefits cheese or something like that. It’s that horrific binary in that respect. There’s also that really terrible scale in relation to sexuality as well. It’s either oh you’re inherently sexual or we’ve become fetishized. You hear stories about people in wheelchairs or wheelchair users and all these other people are being sexualized or fetishized because of their disabilities or the kind of devices or wheelchairs they use. There needs to be a middle ground of accepting that these people can have relationships or they may not be in relationships. It’s about understanding that disabled people can have sex and understanding that yes there are asexual disabled people. Just not kind of merging two identities together, really understanding that they are two separate identities in their own way.

KAYLA: I remember in part of Angela’s book, I can’t remember if it’s part of the book or her reacting to an interview, she was talking about how historically the asexual community and disabled people haven’t historically wanted to interact because asexual people were like, well everyone thinks there’s something wrong with us and that’s why we’re asexual, and disabled people were like, everyone just assumed we are asexual, so people who are both kind of get shunned from both communities cause they are seen as playing into both these negative stereotypes that everyone is getting and I wonder if that’s part of why the asexual community continues to not be asexual because of that fear, you know?

LIAM: That’s really interesting. I don’t think it answers your question, it’s something that came into mind as you asked it, which is that, I think we had this discussion in the asexuality conference last year when I held that panel on asexuality and disability, I think it was a discussion on how those two identities cause problems when they’re viewed together. Not individual folks, just how society at large operates. So for example, as a disabled asexual, there are instances where you can’t access online and offline spaces and pride events. As a asexual disabled person, your sexuality is often tied to disability so they often kind of work against each other in that respect and it’s hard to unpack that. I think your question around—I think you were saying how viewing asexuality and disability or broken or feeling like it’s incomplete, I think there is that sense of, I don’t want to say self-consciousness because I don’t think that extends to it but for example when I got told I would need to wear hearing aids, I was incredibly self-conscious as it was, just with glasses and spots and just a hell of a lot of stuff on my face and I was incredibly self-conscious. I just had a haircut today really nice and short but before that it was big and bushy to hide my hearing aids because I was so shocked about it. I think that kind of, maybe shame, this whole kind of anxiety was perhaps saying at a point in relation to my asexuality. I was just talking about this the other day, and I can talk about this forever so stop me, is this whole idea of toxic masculinity and how asexuality is viewed within that lens. As I went to university, there were days when my flatmates would ask me really weird sexual questions. These flatmates turned out to be terrible human beings but that’s another story, but there was that kind of feeling of, okay I’m not part of this wider majority, something’s not right here and that’s obviously is wrong that perception. When you put it like that, there’s probably that crossover in that same feeling of feeling like something isn’t right and it takes a while to embrace that and I think when it does it’s really kind of a liberating feeling that you realize that it’s not you that’s broken, it’s society that’s broken. It’s the attitude, it’s the, I can go off on many tangents here. Like in a disability community there’s the concept of the social model of disability, it’s not your disability that’s at fault here or disabling you, it’s actually society’s mindsets or attitudes or infrastructures that’s doing that. The example that people give is like a wheelchair user is not disabled by there not being a ramp, that is society or the builders in a sense going maybe we don’t need a ramp by a wheelchair user being able to access our building. Like there are instances like that and I imagine it’s a similar sort of thing and you can probably extend that to the asexuality community whether that’s within the community as a whole, the wider LGBTQ+ community, or indeed just society at large. We have to realize that it’s not us that is broken it is the way that society has been brought up or developed around this idea that sex is essential to our daily lives which it’s not. The asexual identity is wide-ranging and wonderful and we still unfortunately still need to bring society into that mindset and understanding cause unfortunately some people are still bigoted in that respect. 

(35:00)

SARAH: I feel like that thought of realizing that no this isn’t my fault, this isn’t on me is so prevalent and freeing in the aspec community and we talk about how this can apply to everyone. You don’t have to be aspec, you don’t have to be disabled to become aware of these things. And obviously being aware of them is not going to solve the problem. That’s what advocacy and stuff is for. But I think it is a really beneficial thing for people of all strides whether they’re aspec or whether they’re disabled or whether they're not to be aware of how it’s society’s fault that you feel broken or wrong. It’s not on you it’s on the greater social order. And we’re trying to fix that and maybe you can play a big role in that. Maybe you’re not in a place where you can or want to play a big role in that and that’s also fine. Being aware of it is so important.

LIAM: That is a lot more succinct than my answer so can we just pretend that was just said by me. I was like wowie, what an excellent contribution to that, that’s so concise and easy to edit down.

SARAH: It’s cause I’m used to talking out of my ass all the time on this podcast. I can make anything into a paragraph.

KAYLA: Sarah loves to do that.

LIAM: That’ll become massively handy when I’m editing articles and stuff. Extend it out. That’s a lie. Journalism requires you to be very short and succinct which I know you’re probably sitting there like, short and succinct, Liam your last answer was five minutes long. But I promise you in the written words it’s a whole different story.

SARAH: You gotta shave it down you know? 

LIAM: Yeah.

KAYLA: I’m super curious. Something I was thinking about as you were talking about the shame that can come with being aspec and being disabled too was that something that crossed your mind when you started to realize you were asexual? Did it cross your mind, I already have so many barriers against me because I’m disabled, and now I’m adding a queer identity on top of that, what am I doing?

LIAM: That’s a really good question. Oh gosh. I don’t think it was for me. I always am very positive about labels. I understand that labels aren’t really things for everyone and if they aren’t for you that’s valid, that’s fine. I think for me it was kind of getting that understanding. It wasn’t that I was like, oh I’m gaining this new label and with that will come barriers. I think in my mind it’s something I’ve accepted subconsciously, automatically. That is something you have to deal with if you take on new labels. I think for me it’s just that understanding and community that that can bring. I have found that whenever I have taken on a new identity, it’s finding that community straight away that has helped with the barriers, and also helped with that confidence. With the deaf and wider disabled community, that helped me massively. Like I said I was self-conscious about my hearing aids and how they looked, it was only after going to deaf clubs and engaging with the disabled community online I was like, no, I’m deaf and disabled and I’m proud of that. I don’t need to shy away from it. And it was the same with the asexual community which I’m hopefully getting more involved in. And it’s like for example, recently I was diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, or OCD. And I think there was this kind of sense that, some people have said to me “oh Liam do you need labels for another thing which kind of puts you in a box? Why can’t you just be Liam?” And I mean, okay but for me, those things are what make up Liam. I don’t like the idea of going, you know, it’s the whole idea of disabled person, not person with disability because you’re kind of—if you’re that then you’re separating the person with that identity. It’s like saying a person with asexuality, no those two things are inherently linked. I am a person, I am asexual, they come together. When that happened and the doctor said you’ve got OCD, we’re going to give you that medicine and stuff like that I really kind of hammered it and said—I would have banged the table there but I realized that would have been very bad—dammit I want this label and this identity so I can say I’m a part of that community. I’m at the moment considering getting a diagnosis for autism and hopefully the doctor said, oh you’ve got traits of it, you’ve got bits of it and that doesn’t help. If someone said Liam you might be a bit asexual, I’d have been like what does that mean? If someone said, we’ve got this amazing opportunity we want to speak to asexual deaf people, you might have put a call out, I’d have been like that’s amazing I’d love to be a part of this podcast. Because someone in the past said, Liam you might be just a tad, just a tiny amount asexual that doesn’t put me in a position to say I’m a 100% yes. Or like, completely no. And so for me I’m always someone that’s a big fan of a definitive answer. Give me the label, give me the yes you’ve got it so that I can confidently say that I can talk about it. There was a moment in the early days I was confused if I was demisexual or asexual and I was still learning about all these things. I was trying to go into activism but I was like, oh god right now it’s my time to shut up and really listen to other people before I can say, “hey is this what asexuality is about?” I think that’s probably something that most “baby aces” experience and it’s only now that I feel comfortable being vocal about that and more specifically in relation to asexuality and disability because they’re the two big parts of me. I came out in 2019, it’s been two years now. I’ve become quite accustomed to those two identities now so I can talk about them. OCD for example is something I am new to so I can’t talk about it. I do a little bit but not as much.

(40:00)

KAYLA: It’s very different than the route we took. We started the podcast. On the podcast I was like, I guess I’m demisexual and I’ll just keep talking about it like I know what I’m doing. And everyone was like.

LIAM: Fake it till you make it!

SARAH: But now we’re finally at the point where we’re like I feel comfortable talking about this because we’ve done it enough.

KAYLA: The interesting thing is though, I’m not bad that I did that because it is interesting to listen through those episodes and hear someone come out. Like realize that they’re ace. In a very self-serving way, I think it’s interesting. But anyway.

SARAH: Kayla’s interesting, Study her.

KAYLA: Study me.

SARAH: When you think about your OCD in comparison to your being deaf, do you consider OCD disability? Is it in another box for you? How do you think of that?

LIAM: That is another good question. I mean that in a really praising way not in a patronizing way. You’re probably sitting here like, “Liam of course it’s a good question, we’re podcasters, we’re meant to ask good questions.” I really don’t want it to be seen as patronizing. No, it’s a good one because I’ve thought about this for a while now. You get those forms when you apply for things online like, “do you have a disability” and you’re like, yes I’m deaf, dyslexic and there are moments when I’m like, is OCD a disability, do I consider it as such? And in the UK we have what’s known as the Equality Act, it’s like our ADA American Disabilities Act. It’s kind of similar to that and the way they define disability in there is like a condition or something that has a significant impact on your day-to-day activities and if I think about it like that then yes it is a disability. Every day there’s probably a moment an intrusive thought comes to my head and catches me off guard a little bit. So, that’s an interesting one because I don’t think I’ve ever publicly given an answer yes or no, and I think weirdly and I don’t know if that’s an internalized ableism thing or just because of the way that I’m thinking right now. I would always see dyslexia and deafness as disabilities but my OCD as a mental health condition which is tricky because I think some people do consider mental health conditions to be part of the disability community. That’s fine that’s valid and I would agree. I think for me personally I’m not denying if any other people with OCD want to identify as disabled. I think right now, I’m really indecisive. I’m sorry, I was like, I really want to give you a definitive answer so that you could be like oh my god he said it in this podcast, it’s a 100% OCD is a disability but I’m still figuring that out and that’s valid and it’s probably going to take a bit of time.

SARAH: No it’s good to hear you struggling with something like that. For me, as someone who has a handful of mental health issues and also ADHD does that count? What is ADHD it’s its own separate box. I’m of course not in any place to be like I’m a member of the disabled community. I don’t feel comfortable saying that. But sometimes we are talked about together I don’t know how to proceed. So it’s reassuring to hear that I’m not the only one that’s like, what? Are they? Hello? 

KAYLA: I’ve had that too. When you go to a new job and you have to fill out those forms and I always read the one about disability and it says like you said something that impacts your day-to-day life. And I’m like, anxiety absolutely impacts my day-to-day life but I’m not disabled and I wouldn’t say on this form I’m disabled so what is the truth?

LIAM: It’s really hard when people set labels about what an identity is or isn’t. Obviously, we see that in LGBTQ+ community in terms of different identities and also with disabled identities. I think we have to remember always it’s how you feel as a person and how you want to identify it always comes down to that and that’s always going to be important. I think we have to remember as well not everyone has the privilege of diagnoses or diagnosis so some people self-diagnose so those people are just as valid. Not everyone has access to healthcare so they’re unable to get the healthcare they need or want to fully understand themselves. So to say it’s only those that fit a certain definition or fit a certain mindset or perception of a condition, sexuality or whatever is incredibly gatekeepy. We need to understand the wide range of people that fit under a certain umbrella. I always find it amusing when people use the term umbrella and fitting under an umbrella because I’m just imagining so many people trying to fit in under one umbrella.

SARAH: Squeezing in.

LIAM: That’s where my mind goes at 7 o’clock UK time on a Thursday evening. Yeah.

SARAH: Good. Now I’m thinking about those umbrella hats.

LIAM: Oh my gosh yes. And they’re rainbow-colored as well. That’s what we’ve been referring to this whole time.

KAYLA: Where is the ace-colored umbrella hat. Do you know how well that would sell? Everyone’s always like ace umbrella, ace umbrella. Where is it? Where is the ace umbrella? Does someone work in manufacturing that’s listening and can build me this hat?

(50:00)

SARAH: Hey, capitalists, it’ll sell, make it.

KAYLA: Listen, pride is coming up and we know people love to profit off pride. Make that hat.

LIAM: Get that sweet, sweet rainbow capitalism in folks. Bring it in.

SARAH: I’m just saying places where it rains more often, London, Seattle, those could be really great places.

LIAM: I’m not even upset at that stereotype. I’m not even upset. I was going to be like, London rains—no it does all the time. I’m not even based in London. I’m based in an area further up. But we get it. It’s miserable outside right now. It’s grey, it’s dull, you are not making a sweeping statement there you are making a 100% accurate statement.

SARAH: I live in LA so it never fucking rains here, I’m like, god please rain one time. I would love for there to be weather. A cloud maybe, that would be nice. It finally started getting hot here, how it normally is. And everyone who’s from here started being like oh thank god and I’m like, it’s too hot. I’m dying.

LIAM: I actually prefer rain it’s weird. I burn in the heat, so don’t do it, just give me cold weather. Give me rain tapping against a window as I’m sitting on the sofa with several rugs across my chest with a book in hand by a fire going on in the corner, TV if I want it. Just bliss. 

SARAH: Sounds ideal.

LIAM: That’s a sign of being a true Brit. You have a podcast about asexuality and I straight away bring it back to the weather. That’s quintessential Brit.

SARAH: For me as someone who lives in LA who’s not from LA I’m always like, the weather here sucks. And everyone’s like you’re crazy and I’m like, the weather here sucks.

KAYLA: Okay, bringing it back around town. Is there anything—obviously there are a lot of things—but, what do you think the asexual community can do and should be doing to be more accessible? I feel like you kind of already answered this but.

LIAM: No, this is good cause I can put a very few short lines. One, caption your content. There is so many tools out there that help with that sort of thing. If you have the facilities to do it, if you have Davinci Resolve, which is a free video editing software, you can add subtitles to your content. You can also use apps and software, like Android phones have mixed captions and Autocap is an app you can use where you can record yourself and you can use automatic captions. To stress automatic captions are not as good as manual captions but a lot of them allow you to go in and edit them and make them manual captions. Automatic captions are the ones that rely on speech recognition which doesn’t sometimes work when you’ve got accents. Which isn’t great. So that’s Android. iPhone you have Clips you also have Clipomatic is another one. Also all of these other social media platforms are starting to bring out caption tools. TikTok, they’ve brought out automatic captions. The LGBTQ+ community loves TikTok, please use that. And also—

KAYLA: We just got it on our TikTok recently, very exciting. 

LIAM: There you go. On Instagram they’re teasing a captions tool. It’s about really making your content accessible in every way possible. If you go into share images anywhere add image descriptions to them. Make them accessible to blind and visually impaired people. On Instagram it’s advised that you not only use the alt text feature but you actually put it in the caption of a post. On Twitter there is also an option to use alt text and you put it there as well. And also if you’re on YouTube and you make YouTube videos, great, I do the same. But you gotta put subtitles in there. They’re making it a lot easier for you to do that and also most YouTube videos come with an automatic caption track straight away. You just need to go in, edit that, make sure it reads okay, add punctuation and grammar and publish it. It’s easy. People think that accessibility is burdensome or really extensive or time-consuming. Really at the end of the day, people don’t realize that captioning your content increasing the reach of your content which is what every creator and every person that is making content online wants. I always use the tagline accessibility benefits everyone. Because, to give you an example, Facebook videos, 85% are viewed without sound according to a reported statistic. 

KAYLA: That’s how I watch things.
SARAH: I do that all the time. If something comes up on my Instagram explorer page and like this looks interesting or it’s a TikTok or something—I don’t have TikTok because I know I’ll get sucked into the void. But if it comes up and it doesn’t have captions I’m like no I’m not fucking watching it.

LIAM: Yeah that’s what people say.

SARAH: So many people are like, oh it’s time-consuming to watch this or it’s hard or as you said it’s burdensome, you know what’s burdensome, not being able to access content because people won’t take the extra step to put alt text on their photos or to have subtitles. For me, specifically with alt text on photos on Twitter, it wasn’t something I thought about a lot until at least one of our listeners but one that we interact with pretty often, is blind and has a visual impairment. So I was like oh I gotta do it for him.

KAYLA: Every time I alt text something I’m like, I’m doing this for him. Specifically. Because I love him.

LIAM: That’s the thing. Specifically if you have a large audience there’s no way of telling if someone that is following you needs that accessible tool. If you go into making content thinking, not any of the people from that community follows you or absorbs that content, that’s an incredibly naive point of view. I think the statistic in the UK, gosh I can’t cite it because I can’t think of it for the life of me. There was a very large percentage of people here in the UK and I’m sure it’s the same in the US that are disabled. So if you were to look at your thousand or maybe 2,000 or 3,000 Twitter followers or however followers you have on a social media platform it’s highly likely that one, two, three people or however many, are disabled in those access provisions. And you might think oh that’s just one person that can get by. No that is one person that cannot access your content if you’re not making it accessible. The moment you say that person is not valued enough to access your content in a way that’s accessible, then you’re creating a divide and you’re only catering to a certain subsection of your following. And that is ableist and discriminatory and they’re not really badges of honor you want slapped on your person. 

SARAH: Yeah for me it’s become a habit to do that kind of stuff. When we post sound bytes on our Instagram, I always make sure we have the text in the caption because—we should try to figure out how to do the subtitles on it.

KAYLA: I was thinking there’s a different app.

LIAM: Headliner.

KAYLA: I’ve used Headliner for other podcast things but for some reason never ours. We’re going to get back into that.
SARAH: Shaking my head at you. No, it’s become a habit to add captions and stuff. I run social media for my work and it’s so easy to just put in a little bit of information to make it more accessible to add subtitles, it’s not as hard as people make it seem.

KAYLA Not to pat ourselves on the back though either. Sarah and I have a long way to go to be fully accessible but it’s also true that it’s not hard.

LIAM: Accessibility is also a process. I’m not going to stand here—I’m actually sitting—I’m not going to sit here and go, I am perfect with accessibility. I will get it wrong. My alt text could probably be better, my content could be a bit more accessible. Do this thing better, do that better. I think what you have to realize is that you’ve done access job done. You’ve done alt text you’ve done captions. There’ll always be things you can do to make it bigger and better. Anyone myself included can do better things in regards to access and make it as best as it possibly can be. And similar to that, I feel like that’s something I wanted to say at some point. If someone says to you that your content isn’t accessible or that you need to make it better, that is not a personal attack. That is not someone attacking you personally. That is often for the most part people saying, they probably enjoyed your work, I’ve reached out to activists before and said hey this content isn’t captioned or isn’t accessible and that is for me comes from a mindset of hey I love your work, I want more people to enjoy it. That’s when it hurts a little bit, no it’s not. I want to share your work. I’m not doing it if it can’t be read by the people that follow me. It’s genuinely not helping yourself. I think it’s a way these platforms work especially Twitter which is becoming more adversarial by the way. If someone tries to tell someone to make their content more accessible, they see that as an attack when it really isn’t. It often is from a good place and from a helpful mindset and approach. 

SARAH: I also think it’s incumbent upon, when it comes to deaf and hard of hearing people it’s incumbent upon hearing people to be the ones holding each other accountable. We can’t put all of the burden on the people who are already experiencing this discrimination because they can’t access this stuff. For people who aren’t disabled or experiencing a disability when you’re talking about a more specific thing, it’s important for us to hold each other accountable. Should we have been doing alt text on our images before we knew alt text was blind? Yes. But you know what, now that we do, it’s important we make sure other people do too. And that’s on us. That’s not on the disabled people or the deaf people or whatever group we’re talking about here.

LIAM: Yes and there’s also—that’s also a point that’s worth stressing as well. It’s about holding each other accountable absolutely. But I think also we have to be careful—that there is that accountability but also that you’re not speaking on behalf of disabled people. There’s people out there that are advocating as hearing people, as people that are not part of the deaf community, teaching sign language and teaching deaf awareness and things like that and it’s like, that is not your place. By all means, work with us. If you see someone that’s not making accessible content like you said, that's when we need you as well with us because often, we are a marginalized community, we don’t necessarily have the privilege someone who is hearing might have. When they say hey caption the content, so that’s important. I also think in addition to that, if there is content that’s being put out there by deaf activists and deaf campaigners that’s drawing attention to it initially, use that and direct them to it. Don’t appropriate it, don’t speak over them, just uplift and challenge. Those things that have to happen in a way that centers the deaf person or community in that conversations. Not yourself. Some people do, they center themselves and they use it as an opportunity for clout, social media followers, personal benefits—

SARAH: To sell a book.

LIAM: Yeah exactly. That’s not just allyship. Did you say book?

SARAH: Some people are like, I’m going to talk about this cause I have a book to sell and I’m going to do this.

KAYLA: If we start doing that, everyone yell at us. When our book comes out one day, if try to do anything like that, please cancel me.

SARAH: Yeah I think that is an excellent point. People who are not disabled, who are not deaf, who are trying to boost these things, it is our job to boost them, to help build the soapbox, not get on the soapbox and make it all about us.

KAYLA: What a good analogy!

LIAM: I was going to say, that is really eloquent I love that.

KAYLA: That’s wonderful, I’m going to cross stitch that.

SARAH: First my brain was like, be the soapbox but then I was like then you would have people standing on top of people and that seems painful.

KAYLA: Wow I’m going to cross stitch that into a pillow or something. That was beautiful.

SARAH: You’re welcome I’m a genius. Okay. I guess one last question and you may not have an answer to this and that is okay. But if you do, I would love to hear it. What can the community not just to be more accessible once the people are in the community—I’m sorry when I say community I mean the aspec community, what can the aspec community do to be more welcoming from the outset to deaf and hard of hearing people or disabled people more broadly if you can speak to that? What can the community do to be inviting those people in, not just being like, now that you’re here we want to do this for you, but we want to invite you in? Does that make sense?

LIAM: It does, it does. It’s about creating that welcoming atmosphere, which I think you touched upon in that question which I think is really important. I think the way that I feel most welcomed in terms of disability inclusion is around that understanding of what my needs are. That isn’t necessarily to say you need to know every single possible accessibility feature because on an individual level those are very different. What I’m talking about is if you want to reach out to these people, the first conversation should always be around accessibility. And that should be something that happens from the start. If the asexual community wants to establish things for disabled aces, which I really hope they do if they haven’t already, it’s about having those conversations, considering and asking individuals what their accessibility needs are. The moment that you do that, you create that atmosphere cause you know that you are aware of that fact. And it kind of creates a safe space I think if I’m going to use that analogy or that kind of phrase because it shows that that is an immediate consideration, not something you’re doing later which you talked about earlier on in this podcast. I think that’s essential. Once you’ve done, whatever it is you wanted to work on together, or whatever discussions you wanted to have, they’re brought about a lot easier than doing it later. If you want to make that process as efficient and streamlined as possible, you would have that discussion as soon as possible so that halfway through a podcast or halfway through a general conversation or whatever, we’re not sitting here going oh by the way Liam do you need accessibility or stuff like that? I felt comfortable, willing to have a conversation today not only because I admire what you guys do but also because you straight off the bat, I got messages saying how can this podcast be accessible to you is there anything we can do? And it’s that sort of awareness, we talked about awareness, and the ability and willingness to put things into action and actually act upon that, that’s incredibly reassuring and powerful to see. Not just you might need this but we know you might need this. Cause I think that’s one of the other issues that we can have. It’s not just about, and this kind of extends to asexuality activism and activism in general. It’s one thing mobilizing people to be aware of an identity, it’s also encouraging them to have support of people that have a certain identity. This podcast is probably as much for the community, it’s also offering I hope some kind of tips and stuff for those outside the community of the actions they can take. Not just going I know that ace disabled people exist now thanks to listening to Liam rapporting onto an hour, I know on the back of this I need to go away and make my content accessible. It’s that sort of practicality to view awareness and understanding of a community, not just that. 

KAYLA: I think I saw someone tweet or something recently, I think in every major social issue and everything going on we are far beyond the awareness raising part of the process.

LIAM: Always feels like step one.

KAYLA: Awareness has been raised about a lot of things. Racism, accessibility, the awareness has been raised, now it’s time to move on to step 2 and 3.

LIAM: Exactly that. Exactly.

SARAH: Excellent. I feel like we’ve hit on a lot of things. But before we go, is there anything you want to say you feel like you haven’t yet? The answer can be no.

LIAM: The answer can be no, and it probably is no. Apart from when you do captions, don’t put jokes in them. People are starting to do that again don’t. Our access is not your punchline.

SARAH: Yeah ugh man. Now I’m just thinking about that and being sad. Kayla what is our poll for this week?

KAYLA: Ooh.

SARAH: I have a secondary poll already.

KAYLA: I need a primary poll first.

SARAH: I know. I do have a secondary poll where I would just like to invite our listeners, if there is any accessibility stuff you feel we could do better and you want to bring it to our attention, please do. Because we’re not perfect but we’re trying so we would like to do the best we can on that front. We do need a primary poll though.

KAYLA: Is there anything you want to ask the people Liam that want to poll the people on on Twitter?

LIAM: Ooh, when you say poll does it have to be a typical yes or no answer or two option poll?

KAYLA: Sometimes we do that or sometimes we do an open-ended, here’s a question, please answer it. What could you do and you being the lovely listeners of Sounds Fake But Okay podcast, what can you do, after listening to do this, to make your content more accessible? 

KAYLA: I love when we make our guests do the work for us. 

SARAH: Yeah. Primary poll, what can you do? Secondary poll, what can we do?

LIAM: Ooh I love that. 

SARAH: Excellent okay. Great. Kayla, what is your beef and your juice for this week?

KAYLA: My current beef is that I’m sweating.

SARAH: That’s been your beef every fucking episode.

KAYLA: Yeah cause I live in the south now and it’s bad. My beef is that because I’m in the south and it’s getting warm we’re having a fruit fly issue. And there are a lot of fruit flies in my home. But I’ve set a couple traps and the amount of bugs that are in those traps it’s disgusting. That’s my beef, it’s gross. My juice, I’ve been playing a game of virtual survivor. A friend of mine from high school is running a game of survivor over Zoom and I can’t remember how—it’s going to end up 50 days long or something but every week we have challenges, and I made the people of our Discord help me with a challenge a couple of days ago because I needed people to vote in an Instagram poll. We did it guys, your votes did work. But I’m interacting with people I’ve never met and it gives me something to do, and as we’re recording this, I have not been voted out yet but we do have a tribal tonight so it could happen. I’ll keep you all updated. Every meeting I have at work I give them a mandatory survivor update, so maybe I’ll start doing that here.

SARAH: My beef is buying from ethical and sustainable brands is expensive. I know that that’s just how that works but we get so used to Amazon. Goddamn Jeff Bezos. My other beef is that America is so fucking selfish. My new juice is that there is a new Bo Burnam special coming out.

KAYLA: I’m so excited.

SARAH: My other juice is that a year ago today as of the day this episode is being released was our Six Feet of Space livestream. And I’m just glad we did it and we’ve been able to do wonderful things because of it. Liam, what is your beef and your juice this week?

LIAM: Ooh wow. 

KAYLA: Can be anything big or small.

LIAM: My beef I think is—I feel like it’s beef and tea which I feel is a terrible combination. That sounds grim that sounds disgusting. It’s people that don’t like being held accountable. To give you more of a context, we’re having a lot of people in the UK here right now very much opposed to the idea of vaccinations which is just ridiculous. And my personal favorite, which happened just recently is someone just went out of their way, an antivaxer, an anti lockdown sort of their person went out of their way to watch my TedX talk on deafness, find the part where I talk about people wanting to surround themselves with other people and get together as a community and use that as an argument for getting rid of social distancing. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk that was made in 2017 when the world hadn’t gone to absolute horsecrap. It just made me laugh more than absolutely anything because what level do you have to go to find a Ted Talk from me where I don’t look as attractive as I do now and I still don’t look that attractive now.

KAYLA: That’s the real crime is they took an old thing instead of a new thing that was a crime.

LIAM: I was a terrible public speaker back then and you’re going to use that in an argument against me? 

SARAH: The dedication.

LIAM: You haven’t won anything other than embarrassment that you’ve brought that up in my life.

KAYLA: That is a lot of dedication from that person for sure.

LIAM: My juice, what I’m thankful or grateful for right now. I am very grateful for having a lot of things in my life that are keeping me going right now because not everyone has that privilege with what’s going on in that world. But also, sherbet lemons I’ve got a very big supply of sherbet lemons right now and I’m sorry they’re just really comforting right now.

KAYLA: Wait what is that, do I know what that is?

SARAH: I don’t know that we have those. Kayla wants to know what they are.

KAYLA: What is it? Tell me everything.

LIAM: I think they flip it in the US do they call it lemon sherbet or something like that? It’s like, this is fun, describing sherbet lemons to American. 

KAYLA: Sherbert lovers?

LIAM: They’re boiled sweets. Kayla has brought up a picture on Google, what happens when you type sherbet lemons.

SARAH: In Harry Potter they were called lemon drops in the US version.

LIAM: Okay, maybe lemon drops then. They’re boiled sweets, inside they’ve got this powder that’s sherbet. When you eat them it’s very sour sweet, it’s very weird cause it’s sour and sweet but it’s very weird, sweets are weird. But I enjoy them. And I’m thankful for them. 

SARAH: Delightful and thank you for this education.

KAYLA: Yes I love this.

LIAM: I love this, not just educating on asexuality and disability but sherbet lemons, you’re welcome. 

SARAH: Yeah the necessities. Okay wonderful. We also have a Patreon. Sarah from the future will tell you about that.Hello, it’s Sarah from the future, to read the patrons. Kayla’s also here but she unplugged her mic so you won’t hear her but know she’s here in spirit. Yes, she just yelled but you can’t hear her. As we mentioned we’re doing our patrons a little bit differently. We’re just testing it out we might make some more changes who knows. But, for our $5 patrons we have two new $5 patrons it’s Melissa Kaufman and Byron Rusnak, thank you you’re very nice, Kayla just dropped her phone and we’re on Zoom and I just watched her fall to the ground. Thank you Melissa and Byron and as our patrons know we’re going to be doing five $5 patrons a week, we’re just going to do them from top to bottom I think. Five for five I’m just repeating everything Kayla says cause Kayla said that she’s stupid I’m not just saying that. So the $5 patrons that we’re highlighting this week are Jennifer Smart, Asritha Vinnakota, Perry Fiero, Dee, and Quinn Pollock. And we’ll do some more next week. Our $10 patrons are  Arcnes who would like to promote the Trevor Project, Benjamin Ybarra who would like to promote me playing D&D, anonymous who would like to promote Halloween, Sarah McCoy who would like to promote Podcast From Planet Weird, my Aunt Jeannie who would like to promote Christopher’s Haven, Cass who would like to promote the best of luck on the journey of self-identification, Doug Rice who would like to promote “Church Too,” by Emily Joy, H. Valdis, Purple Chickadee, who would like to promote using they as a gender neutral singular pronoun, Barefoot Backpacker who would like to promote Reclaim the Night, The Steve who would like to promote Ecosia, Ari K. who would like to promote Thought Slime, Mattie who would like to promote The Union Series by T.H. Hernandez, Derek and Carissa who would like to promote the overthrow of heteronormativity in support of Melody the hamster, Aaron like to promote free forehead kisses, Khadir who would like to promote cats named Gnocchi Feta Fettuccine who I believe was sleeping for most of this podcast, Potater who would like to promote potatoes, ChangelingMX who would like to promote starshipchangeling.net, and Sarah Kujawa who would like to promote her dogs’ Instagram @aviatthehusky, David Jay who would like to promote “Emergent Strategy” by Adrienne Maree Brown, The Stubby Tech who would like to promote checking patreon to make sure you're actually supporting the podcasts you think you are, Kayla is giving me a beautiful view of sleeping Gnocchi, what a good girl. And Simona Sajmon who bumped up who would like to promote QYS magazine, which is a Slovak magazine for queer people. That’s fucking lit. Slavic? Kayla says she thought it was Slavic. This Slovak as in Slovakia I believe, correct me if I’m wrong. Kayla just said she’s stupid and I’m not putting words in her mouth. Our $15 patrons are Nathaniel White - NathanielJWhiteDesigns.com, my mom Julie who would like to promote free mom hugs, Free Mom Hugs, Sara Jones who is @eternalloli everywhere, Andy A who would like to promote being in unions and IWW, Martin Chiesel who would like to promote his podcast, Everyone’s Special and No One is, Leila, who would like to promote love is love also applying to aro people, Shrubbery who would like to promote the Planet Earth, Dia Chappell who would like to promote twitch.tv/MelodyDia, Sherronda J Brown, Maggie Capalbo who would like to promote Lewis University’s Writing Center @writingcenterlu, Andrew Hillum would like to promote their loved ones getting vaccinations, and Dragonfly who would like to promote this still is taking a long time we might make another change I don’t know patrons will hear from us. And our $20 patron Sarah T who would like to promote long walks outside. Thanks for joining back to your regularly scheduled programming bye.

SARAH: Before we finish up, Liam where can the people of the internet find you?

LIAM: I am @LiamOdellUK on Twitter, Instagram, I was going to say YouTube but that’s just Liam O’Dell I think. You can find me on social media platforms there. I also have a website liamodell.com, drop me a message if you want to have a chat about things. And yeah those are the main areas people can find me if they would like to say hello. I’m very open, I like having chats, my dms are open and that sort of stuff. So say hello, it’d be nice to meet more people, like I said I’m still kind of like a baby ace I feel so it’d be great to have a few more ace faces. Faces? Like a portmanteau it works. Yeah it’d be great to see more faces, that’s where you can find me.

KAYLA: Everyone go follow Liam and say hello. 

SARAH: Everyone go follow Liam, do it.  Thanks for listening. Thank you so much Liam for joining us and tune in next Sunday for more of us in your ears. Or your eyes if you’re reading this as a transcript. 

KAYLA: Until then, take good care of your cows.