High Five: Ryan Cotter

Ryan Cotter is currently the News Resident at KCAW/Raven Radio in Sitka, Alask, where she is honing in her skills as to how to be an efficient, fair, and accurate reporter and host in public radio. Her love of Alaska and its people and stories began when she served at KYUK Public Media in Bethel, AK, as a volunteer with Jesuit Volunteer Corp Northwest. There, she helped film and photograph events, produce KYUK’s health podcast, and even helped broadcast dogsled races live on Facebook! Previously she has written for The Wall Street Journal, Mixed Asian Media, and JoySauce. Ryan has lived in five different countries across four continents. In her free time, she enjoys dancing, participating in community theater (both on stage and behind the scenes), dopamine dressing, spending time with loved ones, reading, watching YouTube, choosing songs for KCAW’s “Good Day Radio Show”, and writing very long sentences for her poor writers to work through ;)

Ryan identifies as aroace.

Question 1: What's your aspec origin story? How did you figure out you were aspec?

Being a recent high school graduate during the initial COVID-19 outbreak, I found myself having a lot more free time. During COVID, I saw lots of safer sex advice addressing how people can (as safe as they can) explore hooking up during quarantine. I found that I didn’t understand the concept of having sexuality as a “need”, as i always thought it was just a thing people could easily turn off. With more time to research and reflect on my hands, nope, I realized that I was actually asexual, and that I have very different understanding of describing people as “hot” vs my allo pals. A few years later, getting a better handle of the split attraction model and better understanding myself and my own desires, I found myself finally finding the courage to allow myself to identify as aro, and I’ve never looked back since!

Question 2: What's one or two important lessons being aspec has taught you?

1. People experience different kinds of attractions in different ways, and every single unique experience makes up the beautiful complexity that is humanity! There is no universal right or wrong thing to desire/feel, despite what society would try to have us feel to control us and uphold corrupt power structures.

2. Centering friendships in an allonormative and amatonormative world is radical! It is joyful! And it will help liberate us all! Comp het, amatonormativity, and allonormativity are prisons that we have the power to escape and rebuild to something that better serves us all!

Question 3: What's missing in the aspec community? What do you wish to see improved in the community?

Making more room for BIPOC/aspecs from non-English speaking countries to help further define asexuality and aromanticity outside of a white/eurocentric lens. Same sentiment goes for disabled and neurodiverse aces and aros too.

Question 4: What do you think is going right in the aspec community? What are your aspec joys?

I love the inside jokes. I love how many of us uplift one another, intellectually challenge/enlighten/stimulate one another. I always love going to aspec-specific events and seeing aspec people face to face. I love my aroace family!

Question 5: (Choose your own adventure here!) What's a question you wish I'd asked, and what is your answer?

Q: what has your experience been finding community with other aspec folks?

A: I was lucky in that very shortly after coming out to myself, the college that I attended has a Aspec Identity Collective, which I eventually became a co-facilitator for for three years. I absolutely loved my experience with the people I got to meet there, with some of my closest friends being people I met/invited into that space. In the summer before my senior year, I was fortunate enough to get to march with Aces NYC for NYC Pride (the same year Yasmin Benoit served as one of the Grand Marshals, making her the first ever aro and ace person to serve in the role.) Everyone I met there was so wonderful (and I attended other events with that group the summer I was in NYC, shoutout to yall!) One of the standouts for me was how so many people in our group said they had never been around so many fellow aspec folks before. That gave me a lot of perspective and made me all the more grateful for the space I was able to be surrounded by in my fragile baby queer stage when I was finding the confidence to claim my identity and make space for myself in the larger queer community.

Since graduating college (I was in MN, go Scots!), I moved to Alaska. In Bethel, there aren’t really any specific LGBTQ+ spaces, whereas where I live now in Sitka does have a monthly Pride potluck (it’s a good time! Lovely people.) Something I’ve heard a lot of folks in both places say (straight and LGBTQ alike) is how difficult it is to find a romantic partner in Alaska. As an aroace person who is not interested in being in a sexual/romantic relationship right now, I find that I’m not at a disadvantage when living in Alaska in that regards. That said, it’s been harder finding and connecting with others in explicitly aspec spaces (as those who are out here is already small given that I’m in relatively small Alaskan communities, as the aspec community is already so small.) And while queerness is alive, well, and celebrated in rural Alaska, Alaska is the first red state I ever lived in, and there are also very vocal homophones in both Alaskan communities I’ve lived in (I’ve found myself being more cautious disclosing my queerness to strangers in both places.) That said, all the haters are more bark than bite, and queer joy is our superpower!

Thanks Ryan! You can check out Ryan’s TV station here: https://www.kcaw.org/

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