Summary Findings from the 2015 Ace Community Census

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Happy Asexual Awareness Week! We are excited to share with you the summary results from the 2015 census.

We know it has been a long time coming, but we have considerably more volunteers as of very recently and should be able to get reports out faster in the future. One of the main reasons this report took so long is that we back coded, or read through and included all write in responses where we could. This is time intensive and should be more manageable with a larger number of volunteers. You might also notice that this report is a bit longer than 2014, which also took additional time.

There are additional data analysis and blog posts that we hope to get to to dig deeper. If you a researcher you can also request the data itself.

Also, many thanks to everyone who took the survey! We couldn’t have done it without you.

And this is a reminder to take the 2017 Ace Community Census here!

Take the 2017 Ace Community Census!

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Update: the 2017 Census is now closed. Thank you to everyone who participated! Check back in late October of 2018 for next year’s census.

It’s that time of year again – we are now recruiting participants for the Ace Community Census!

The Ace Community Census is an annual survey by the Ace Community Survey Team, which collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members in the ace community. It is the largest survey of ace communities and creates a valuable pool of data for future ace community activists and researchers.

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or still questioning; as long as you are 13 years of age or older we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other potentially interested individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.

Click here to take the 2017 Ace Community Census: goo.gl/NXTn5g

You will be able to view any published results from the survey at asexualcensus.wordpress.com. If you would like to automatic email update when new results or announcements are posted, you can subscribe here.

For answers to common questions about the survey, please see the FAQ here.

We Need Your Help – Volunteering with the Survey Team

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Update: This search for volunteers is no longer ongoing.  You may still contact us to volunteer, but we may be a bit slow to respond as we currently aren’t dedicating resources to it.

Hello all! The Survey Team is currently looking for new volunteers, particularly people with programming or writing skills as we try to work on our backlog of data and get out more analysis to the public.

As you probably know if you are reading this blog, the survey team is the team that does the Ace Community Census each year. The Census is one of the major sources of quantitative data about asexuals, which also means it is a lot of work. We actually collect more data than our current volunteers have time to process, which is why we are looking for additional volunteers to join the team:

The major roles that we currently need volunteers for are:

  • Analyzing survey data (primarily using Python and/or R)
    • We currently use Python 3 for most of our analysis, which is where we are currently most in need of assistance. We also use some R for our data preparation, so knowledge of R is also welcome.
  • Writing up survey results, either as primary summary reports or one-off blog posts
    • No special software skills required, just a general familiarity with statistical analysis and semi-formal academic writing (think class report more than published thesis).
  • Responding to data requests from researchers (by evaluating requests, sending the appropriate data, and forwarding any questions to the appropriate team members)
    • No software or statistics skills required. Mostly requires good communication skills and the ability to check for and respond to email updates ~once a week.
  • Translation of the survey into additional languages:
    • We do not have the capacity to analyze additional surveys. Having an archive of data for another language may still be beneficial, or if someone with those language skills could help analyze data it would be most welcome.

If you are familiar with Python and some statistics, we strongly encourage you to help us analyze the survey. Without this we cannot complete our reports on the previous surveys. Knowledge in R is also welcome, since it has been used for data preparation.

For the reports, we just need people with good English academic writing skills – no special knowledge required, although a basic understanding of statistical analysis is recommended so that you can understand the things you are writing up.

In general, the roles in the survey team are flexible, with team members often assisting with several aspects of the survey and changing roles as needed.

Primary analysis of each year’s survey begins in late November after the survey has closed, but due to the current backlog of data we have from past years, analysis is currently conducted year-round.

Time commitments are flexible depending on your availability at any given part of the year, but we recommend setting aside at least 4-5 hours a month to do work on your own time, plus monthly team meetings. (Note that team meetings may be more frequent in the couple of months leading up to the survey release in late october).

If you are interested in helping the survey team, please contact the Survey Team directly at asexualcensus@gmail.com. While new team members are considered on a rolling basis, we are ideally looking for volunteers who can start by September 10th. Please allow 1-2 weeks for a response.

2016 Raw Data Now Available to Researchers

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We are pleased to announce that raw data from the 2016 ace community census (for researchers wishing to perform additional analysis) is now available! 2014-2015 raw data is also available.

We’ve also streamlined our data request process, so if you are a researcher and would like to request a copy of the raw data, please fill out the new data request form here.

If you have any questions, please contact us at asexualcensus@gmail.com.

Take the 2016 Ace Community Census!

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Update: The 2016 Ace Community Census is now complete. Thank you everyone for participating!

Please check this site for updates as results are released, and we hope to see you again next year!

It’s that time of year again – we are now recruiting participants for the ace community census!

The ace community census is an annual survey by the Asexual Visibility and Education Network which collects valuable information on the demographics and experiences of members of the ace community. It is the largest survey of ace communities and creates a valuable pool of data for future ace community activists and researchers.

The survey is open to anyone: ace, non-ace, or still questioning, as long as you are over the age of 13 we want to hear from you! We want to get a wide variety of responses from as many parts of the community as possible, so we encourage you to share this link with any other ace individuals you know or any ace communities you participate in.

Click here to take the 2016 Ace Community Census!

For answers to common questions about the survey, please see the FAQ here.

Results and analysis will be published on this website.

Muslim respondents to the 2014 asexual community census

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The following analysis was performed by Laura, originally posted here and here.  It has been reproduced with permission of the author.

The asexual census team were kind enough to provide me with the data from the 2014 AVEN community survey for the Muslim respondents (the data for 2015 is not yet available for analysis by outside researchers). [The survey team adds: since time of writing, 2015 data has become available.]  The analysis provided in this post in my own derivation and is not an official result. All errors are my own.

“Muslim respondents” are defined as those who selected “Muslim” as their religious preference. Here is some information about the Muslim respondents:

  • 71 respondents selected Muslim as their religious preference. For context, there were a total of 14,210 respondents. This means that 0.5% of respondents were Muslim.
  • 32 Muslim respondents were residents of the United States. The next most common country of residence was the United Kingdom, with 5 respondents. 20 respondents reside in countries with majority Muslim populations. The Muslim-majority country with the largest number of respondents is Indonesia, which had 3 respondents. (Fun fact: Indonesia is the world’s most populous Muslim country.) A total of 23 countries were listed.
  • 42 Muslim respondents (59%) gave their gender identity as woman/female. 11 Muslim respondents (16%) identified as man/male . For comparison, 62.1% of all respondents identified as woman/female and 13.3% of all respondents as man/male.
  • 20 Muslim respondents (28%) listed a non-binary gender identity. The most common response was agender, which had 6 respondents (9%). For comparison, 24.6% of all respondents listed a non-binary gender identify, and 8.5% were agender specifically.
  • 32 Muslim respondents identified as asexual (45%), 16 as gray-A (23%), and 11 as demisexual (16%). 12 Muslim respondents (17%) did not identify as on the asexual spectrum. For comparison, 49% of all respondents identified as asexual, 16.2% as gray-A, 11% as demisexual, and 23.4% as non-ace.
  • Of the non-ace Muslim respondents, 5 identified as straight and the other 7 as various non-straight identities. The most common of these identities was bisexual, with 4 respondents.

Continue reading →

Identity in the AVEN Census and AVENes Survey of 2014

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Originally posted in Spanish in Chrysocolla Town’s blog. It was translated by the author and posted here with permission.

Here we have an attempt to compare the AVEN Community Census 2014 and the AVENes Survey 2014 for asexuals, regarding asexual identities, gender identities, and romantic orientations. And I say attempt because, although some data may be comparable, a big chunk isn’t since the instruments didn’t ask the same questions (in form or substance), didn’t give the same response options, nor were they aimed at the same populations.

My original idea was to wait until the results of the 2015 surveys before writing about identity diversity in the asexual community, but that’s going to take months and I’m racing against time here, so I made this quick review on what I was most interested with what data I had.

Continue reading →

Take the 2015 Ace Community Census!

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Click here to take the 2015 Ace Community Census!

The 2015 ace community census is now available – check it out via the link above!

This ace community census is open to anyone over the age of 13, including both aces and non-aces. It will require approximately 15-20 minutes of your time to complete and will be open until November 15th, after which point no more entries will be accepted.

If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, you can contact the AVEN survey team at asexualcensus@gmail.com or leave a comment on this post, and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

And of course, please help spread the word!

Thanks!

-the AVEN Survey Team

Transgender and assigned sex

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Question:  How many people in the ace community are transgender, and how many are a different gender from the one assigned at birth?

“Transgender” is sometimes defined as having a gender which is distinct from the sex assigned at birth (SAAB). However, this definition fails on a large scale, particularly among people who neither identify as women nor men (non-binary people).  We already know from previous surveys that the ace community is dominated by women and non-binary people.  What remains is an analysis of SAAB and trans identity.

Continue reading →