Good Afternoon, Xanadu. It’s a pleasure and an honour to be speaking with you today.

Good afternoon, Spagruum. I feel it’s time to speak about the long and fraught journey of Gorgonian Asexuals.

So, you knew when you were very young that you wanted to change the lives of Gorgonian Asexuals, and you started by forming an organisation to represent your xeno's interests. Could you tell me about that?

From the moment I divided, I knew I wanted to change the lives of our copies forever. Ten years after my division, I joined the Gorgonian Liberty Front. Although I have immense respect for them, they did not seem that engaged with the interests of Gorgonian Asexuals, so I realised very quickly that I had to take matters into my own tendrils.

So, you left the Gorgonian Liberty Front and created your own organisation?

Yes, I did, and myself and several thousand other asexuals went on to orgGASM.

Pardon?

Yes, it was wonderful.

Sorry, can you clarify?

It was fantastic. Our orgGASM was immense and breathtaking. It was just so charged. We had energy. We had passion.

I’m not sure if I like where this is going.

Why? I will never be ashamed for forming the Organisation of the Gorgonian Asexuals Suffrage Movement. Are you suggesting I should be?

No, no, not at all. I’m just curious: did anyone take issue with the name?

For some reason, the population at large seemed to not like the name, but that has never made any sense to me.

Of course. Well, I think we should perhaps move on. Why was the government (and the general population) so resistant to extending the vote?

The main argument they made against us getting the vote was that since we split and create near-perfect copies of ourselves they were afraid that we would be able to subvert democracy by creating new voters on a whim, which is simply ridiculous. We may be copies of each other, but we aren’t a hive mind. At first, they offered a one-vote-per clone line policy but that wasn’t good enough.

What kind of opposition did you face from the general population?

Oh, all kinds. People back then were quite nasty to us. The name that breeders—sorry, I shouldn’t use that word, it’s outdated—the name that they gave to us was xenocopiers. Luckily that term is also dated. Today we prefer to be referred to as Xeroxes.

How did you garner support for your cause?

Well, one of the nice things about being asexual is we can create new copies of ourselves on a whim, so of course, we were able to attract massive crowds to our protests—actually, let’s take that off the record. I didn’t say that. It was a joke. What we did do—wink wink—was we pursued an aggressive public education campaign to change public opinion.

What kinds of things did you do to change public opinion?

Well, to start, we staged quite a few split-ins to show the public that there’s nothing wrong or strange about being able to divide mitotically. We’re not that different from the rest of the population, with the exception that we won’t ever pursue love, nor do we need to. Otherwise, we made sure to be vocal. We put up billboards. We picketed out in front of the Empire Capital Complex. Students became actively involved and promoted our cause at the universities—though at that time there were few asexual students; that was a separate battle, but we were able to tackle that in a split.

Did you manage to stay peaceful the whole time?

My organisation and its followers did. There were a few split-off groups that pursued some immoral tactics. One group plotted to put birth control in the water, but they were luckily foiled. There was a group of 10,000 copies that plotted a violent usurpation of the government, but luckily, they were caught and brought to justice. Ten thousand copies, they were busy… holy moly...

How many of you are there? How many were directly involved in the movement?

I have about 900 in my immediate family, or as you would say, my genetic line. I have absolutely no clue how many of us there are in the extended family. Back then we were still a young family, so there were only several dozens of us. Most of my copies were involved.

Interesting. So, the day the courts ruled in your movement’s favour and extended voting rights to you. Could you tell me the atmosphere?

It was incredible. I received a call from my copy who was crying with joy. They told me to check the news immediately, so I logged into the Solarnet (we didn’t have any neural networks or the Shroud back then) and checked the news, and sure enough we had won. We celebrated with an expensive bottle of rye somebody brought back with them from a recent trip to Earth and celebrated all night.

Can you tell me about the first time you voted?

Sure. It was incredible. For the first time, one of the candidates was asexual so we made sure everyone was churning out copies—sorry, forget I said that also. It was incredible. The orgGASM was very noisy and we made sure everyone would hear.

Did the asexual candidate win?

No, unfortunately, we could only reproduce so fast—ha…ha… that was a joke—in reality, we couldn’t get…prepared in time, so there weren’t enough votes for our fellow copy to win the election.

Are there any drawbacks to being asexual?

Family reunions can be really challenging at times.

Can’t tell each other apart?

Of course, we can! Family reunions just suck.

Well, those are all the questions I have for you…two?...today. Wow!

Thanks for having me…sorry us, in today.