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Michael Paramo

Profile

Michael Paramo is an interdisciplinary artist and Ph.D. Candidate in Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Social Justice at the University of British Columbia. He created AZE (azejournal.com) in 2016—a literary journal that publishes asexual, aromantic, and agender writers and artists. Works published in AZE have been cited in academic journals such as Feminist Formations, Archives of Sexual Behavior, and Communication Education, while the journal was listed as a reference in Alice Oseman’s Loveless (2022). In 2024, his debut book Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Agender Identity was published. The book was listed by Ingram Academic as a course-recommended text in Political Sociology, while passages from it were cited in Sexualities and Southern Cultures in 2025. Paramo’s research focuses on transformation, hybridity, and interconnectedness in the modern/colonial world.

Email: mdparamo@gmail.com

Book

─ Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Agender Identity. February 2024 (UK), September 2024 (US). Unbound Books. ISBN: 9781800182868, 1800182864.
• Review by Foreword
• Recommended by Ingram Academic
• “Queer Book of the Month” by The English Bookshop‍ ‍
• Cited in Sexualities and Southern Cultures

Dissertation

─ “Sustaining Repair in Modern/Colonial America: Autoethnographic Critical and Creative Practices” (working title). University of British Columbia, Social Justice Institute. Upcoming.

Peer-Reviewed Articles

─ “The Affect of ‘Transpop’” (working title). Upcoming.
─ “Loosening the Romantic Grip: Envisioning an Aromantic Turn to Decolonial Love” (working title). Upcoming.
─ “(Un)Making the Dominator: Does Earth Consent?”. Feral Feminisms. Issue 15. Fall 2025.
─ “Virtual Intimacy and Queer Confrontations in The Last of Us: Left Behind.” (1st Pub: VGAR Journal, Issue 2, 2019) + (2nd Pub. 2022: Book by Amherst College Press, pg. 75-83).

Art

─ Paramo, Michael. “no shame,” “not so hot anymore,” “BRAVE,” “Rainsong,” “Blooming Sun.”Feral Feminisms, no. 15 (Fall 2025), 10, 12, 14, 16, 18.
─ Paramo, Michael. “Meltdown.” Blue Mesa Review [University of New Mexico] no. 43‍ (2021), 35.

Select Presentations / Workshops

Rutgers University ─ Invited panelist for “Aro and Ace A-piphanies” presentation. Hosted by The Honors College of Rutgers' LGBTQ+ Affinity Group and The Rutgers Ace and Aro Alliance. April 15th, 2024.

University of British Columbia ─ Invited class speaker by Isabel Machado on Ending the Pursuit and asexuality, aromanticism, and agenderness. November 30, 2023.

Williams College ─ Invited class speaker by Ianna Hawkins Owen on aromanticism, my visual practice/philosophy, and Aze journal. March 11th, 2020.

UC Davis ─ “Navigating Asexual and Aromantic Identities in a Sexual and Romantic World.” Invited Workshop Facilitator, February 22nd, 2019.

Princeton University ─ “Understanding Our Ace and Aromantic Identities Workshop.” Invited Workshop Facilitator, October 16th, 2018.

National Women’s Studies Association ─ "Tracing Desirelessness: An Historical Analysis of 'Asexual' Existence." Hilton Baltimore, November 16-19th, 2017.

Ethnic Studies Summit ─ "Gender, Performance, and Drag Culture." Invited Panelist, Wilshire Theater, Fullerton College, October 14th, 2017.

Popular Culture Association ─ "LGBT Inclusive Public-School Curriculum: A Gradual Process, Support vs. Opposition, and Effects on LGBT Youth." Marriot Marina, San Diego, April 17-20th, 2017.

International Association for the Study of Popular Music ─ “'God Makes No Mistakes': Analyzing the LGBT Empowerment Anthem and Lady Gaga’s 'Born This Way.'" Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, February 23-26th, 2017.

Select Interviews

─ Key Informant Interview with the Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing (ISGMH) at Northwestern University for Project Recognize. June 17th, 2024.
─ Interview with Michael Paramo: Author of Ending the Pursuit: Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Agender Identity. Interviewed by Michele Kirichanskaya for Geeks OUT International. April 1, 2024.
─ Exploring Asexuality: The “A” in LGBTQIA+. Interviewed by Kristin Currin-Sheehan for PsychCentral. October 26, 2021.
─ Asexuality, Aromanticism, and Agender Identity. Live interview for Sex Out Loud with Tristan Taormino on October 11, 2019. IMDb.
─ “CSUF student explores how RuPaul slays ‘monsters’ in humanizing drag queens” by Wendy Fawthrop for The Orange County Register. April 24, 2017.

Select Citations

─ Jukes, J., & Bayer, R. “New directions for asexual geographies.” Sexualities (2025). https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607251326375. “Brown and Paramo link their turns away from compulsory sexuality, conceived as asexual activism, to wider critiques of white supremacy, heteronormativity and neoliberalism, situating ‘asexual’ in a broader coalition of refusal.”
─ Campbell, Ellie. "Seeing the Invisible: Asexuality in the South." Southern Cultures 31, no. 1 (2025): 108-115. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/scu.2025.a954048. “In Ending the Pursuit, artist and writer Michael Paramo uses the term azeness to describe ‘the experiences of ‘absence’ that are shared by asexual, aromantic, and agender people amidst the norms and expectations of cisheteropatriarchy.’”
─ Gilman, Lisa. “Cake is Better than Sex: Pride and Prejudice in the Folklore of and about Asexuality.” Journal of Folklore Research 60, no. 2/3 (2023): 196-228. https://doi.org/10.2979/jfolkrese.60.2_3.09. “Paramo asks, “Whiteness is dominating the ace community, but the question is: Why?” [...] The term “asexuality” remains “elusive and esoteric” and “maintains a strong positionality within highly selective and highly white online spaces.”
─ Litam, Stacey Diane A. and Speciale, Megan. “The Multidimensional Nature of Attraction.” In A. M. Schubert & M. Pope (Eds.), Human Sexuality Counseling: A Sex Positive Approach (2023): 131-144. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-08272-008. “Michael Paramo provided a comprehensive framework of attraction that expands and critiques the historical definition of attraction.”
─ Marquez, Janeth Montenegro. “Asexual Latina/o/x Representation in AZE.” Feral Feminisms 10, no. 2 (2022): 13-15. https://feralfeminisms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/02-FF-ISSUE10.2-Montenegro-Marquez.pdf. “Paramo created this journal to give other queer individuals, queer BIPOC individuals especially, a space of community to explore their identities.”