cheeseanonioncrisps:

Y'know, whenever people want to talk about why aspec people ‘count’ as an oppressed identity, they tend to go for the big stuff like corrective rape and conversion therapy. And like, we should absolutely talk about that stuff. Obviously those things are terrible and important and we need to raise awareness and deal with them.

But I feel like people often gloss over how… quietly traumatising it is to grow up being told that there is only one way to be happy— and that everybody who doesn’t conform to that norm is secretly miserable and just doesn’t know it— and then to gradually realise that, for reasons that you cannot help, that is never going to happen for you.

You’re not going to find a prince/princess and ride off into the sunset. Or if you do, then it’s not going to look exactly the way it does in fairytales. You’re not going to get a ‘normal’ relationship, because you are not ‘normal’, and everybody and everything around you keeps telling you that that’s bad.

You see films where characters are presented as being financially stable, genuinely passionate about their work and surrounded by friends and family, but then spend the rest of the plot realising that the real thing they needed was a (romantic and sexual) partner, to make them ‘complete’.

You absorb the idea that any relationships you have with allo people will ultimately be unfulfilling on their side, and that this will be your fault (even if you discussed things with your partner beforehand and they decided that they were a-okay with having those sorts of boundaries in a relationship) unless you deliberately force yourself into situations that you aren’t comfortable with, so as to make uo for your ‘defects’.

You grow up feeling lowkey gaslighted because all the adults in your life (even in LGBT+ spaces. In fact especially in LGBT+ spaces) are insisting that it’s totally normal to not be attracted to anybody at your age, and then you go to school and everybody keeps pressuring you to name somebody you’re attracted to because they can’t imagine not being attracted to anybody at your age.

And then you get older and realise that one day you’re going to be expected to leave home, and that one day all your friends are going to be expected to put aside other relationships and ‘settle down’ with a primary partner and you don’t know what you’re going to do after that because you straight up don’t have a roadmap for what a 'happy ending’ looks like for someone like you.

(And the LGBT+ community is little help, because so many people in there are more than happy to tell you that you’re not oppressed at all. That you’re like this because you don’t want to have sex, and/or you don’t want to have any relationships, that your orientation is some sort of choice you made— like not eating bananas— rather than an intrinsic part of you that a lot of us have at some point tried to wish away.)

Even if you’re grey or demi, and do experience those feelings, you still have to deal with the fact that you’re not experiencing them the 'normal’ way and that that’s going to effect your relationships and your ability to find one in the first place.

If you’re aiming for lifelong singlehood (which is valid af) or looking for a qpp, then you’re going to have to spend the rest of your life either letting people make wrong assumptions about your situation (at best that your relationship is of a different nature than it actually is, at worst that the life you’ve chosen is really just a consolation prize because you 'failed’ at finding a romantic/sexual partner) or pulling out a powerpoint and several webpages every time you want to explain it.

This what being aspec looks like for most people, and it is constantly minimised as being unimportant and not worth fighting against— even in aspec spaces— because we’ve all on some level absorbed the idea that oppression is only worth fighting against if it’s big, and dramatic, and immediately obvious. That all the little incidents of suffering that we experience on a daily basis are not enough to be worth bothering about.

I mean, who gives a shit if you feel broken, inherently toxic as a partner, and like you’re going to be denied happiness because of your orientation? Shouldn’t we all just shut up and thank our lucky stars we don’t have to deal with all the stuff some of the other letters in the acronym have to put up with (leaving aside the fact that there are many aspec people who identify with more than one letter)?

So you know what? If you’re aspec and you relate to anything I’ve said above (or can think of other things relating your your aspec-ness that I haven’t mentioned) then this is me telling you now that it’s enough. Even if we got rid of all the big stuff (which we’re unlikely to do any time soon because— Shock! Horror!— the big stuff is actually connected to all the small stuff) we would still be unable to consider our fight 'over’ because what you are experiencing is not 'basically okay’ and something we should just be expected to 'put up with’.

No matter what anybody tells you, we have the right to demand more from life than this.

I’ve got love for you if you’re a sex-positive ace.

I’ve got love for you if you’re a sex-repulsed ace.

I’ve got love for you if you’re a sex-indifferent ace.

I’ve got love for you if you’re an ace who likes masturbating.

I’ve got love for you if you’re a questioning ace.

I’ve got love for you if you’re an ace who isn’t out yet.

I’ve got love for you if you’re out as ace.

I’ve got love for you if you doubt you’re “ace enough” sometimes.

I’ve got love for you if you’re a cishet ace.

I’ve got love for you if you’ve ever cried yourself to sleep wondering why you don’t feel like the way others do.

I’ve got love for you if you’ve ever tried to ‘fix’ yourself.

I’ve got love for all you beautiful aces out there.

I love you, you’re valid, happy pride month.

This is the most asexual thing I’ve seen all day.

Courteousmingler has made a number of claims recently regarding her recent campaign against catandkitty and missvoltairine, and I want to talk about them, because the way she’s attempting to change tracks here is pretty alarming. 

Let’s start with this post, where courteousmingler makes a number of bold claims that are notably inconsistent with how she’s previously presented this whole conflict:

i told missvoltairine that denying the existence of ace oppression so that corrective rape against aces never stops is rape apologism.

she’s since started spreading rumors that i called her friend a rapist.

this objectively never occurred.

this is a slander campaign created by a rape apologist because i called her a rape apologist, when “all she did” was deny ace oppression so that corrective rape could not be combated by society.

First of all, the statement that courteousmingler calling someone a rapist “objectively never occurred (note the shift into a more specific denial - “I never called anyone a rapist” versus “no circulating posts call these people rapists”, which was her previous claim) is questionable. Here is my post about the screencap where courteousmingler can be seen calling catandkitty an “abuser posing as a victim” in direct response to catandkitty clarifying that she is not a rapist and is in fact a rape survivor. This in combination with statements like this one:

reminder that if you say things to your partner that makes them guilty for not wanting to have sex with you, like speaking verbatim about how much you “need” sex and saying shit like “withholding sex can be a form of abuse”, you are abusing them.

Here, she directly references things that catandkitty and missvoltairine said, recontextualizes those statements so that it seems like they weren’t about their abuse specifically but that those are things they have told partners of theirs, and says, “you are abusing [your partner]”. It’s pretty clear that the “you” here refers to catandkitty and missvoltairine. Then in response to an ask by bisexualrevolution she says this:

you know what makes someone a rapist? if they call their powerful desires a “need”, as if they can’t survive without it, and then use that to guilt their partner into having sex with them. emotionally manipulating a person into sex is rape. “sex is a human need!” is a phrase i’ve only ever used to justify rape.

This statement is a direct reference to catandkitty saying that “sex/physical intimacy is a human need”. You’ll note that courteousmingler extrapolates from the statement “sex … is a human need” that emotional manipulation MUST be occurring in a relationship, on the part of the person who said those words. 

These are only things courteousmingler has said herself directly - I touched in a previous post on how multiple people who courteousmingler vocally supported, reblogged from, and lent validity to - people who agreed with courteousmingler in her subsequent assessments of the situation - not only undermined catandkitty and missvoltairine’s personal accounts of their abuse, but sometimes outright said that they were lying in order to cover up the fact that they were the real abusers. I don’t mean to bring this up to imply that courteousmingler is responsible for the statements of people who are only connected to her through a series of likes and reblogs, but to illustrate that the above statements that she made took place in a context where other people were also calling catandkitty and missvoltairine abusers and rapists.

The assertion that missvoltairine said that rape never happens to asexuals or that it shouldn’t be addressed when someone who is asexual is raped seems to come up more in courteousmingler’s recent posts than it has in previous posts, which mostly focused on the assertion that catandkitty and missvoltairine said that withholding sex on it’s own was abusive and that was what made them rape apologists. Since I and others have pointed out that neither of those women ever said that, courteousmingler has quietly backed off this claim (at least for now) and fallen back on the narrative that missvoltairine specifically has “dedicated” herself to “making sure the cause of systemic rape is never stopped”. These statements pretty overtly position missvoltairine, a rape and abuse survivor, as directly responsible for the rapes of other people, if not a rapist herself. I’m not saying the distinction is meaningless, but it seems pretty academic at this point, just as the distinction between “calling someone a rapist” and “saying that the things someone has said about their abuse would only be said by a rapist, and that they would make someone a rapist in a specific context, and saying that they are only posing as a rape victim but are actually an abuser, in the larger context of other people calling them a rapist more directly” seems academic.

It’s also a pretty big digression from what the actual initial argument was about. I couldn’t find any evidence in the initial posts that sparked this whole debacle of missvoltairine or catandkitty saying anything about rape being used as a tool of punishment or “corrective therapy” against asexual people. Catandkitty did say that asexual people would need to have mature conversations about sex at some point, but “you will need to talk about sex” and “you deserve to be raped” are pretty radically different statements and sentiments. It’s true that other people have responded to this subject, but those discussions seem relatively unconnected to what was addressed in the argument between missvoltairine and catandkitty and courteousmingler et al. I find it troubling that courteousmingler seems to be insisting on holding some people accountable for things other people said - it’s disorienting for the people trying to hold a consistent conversation, and it feels pretty disingenuous. Creating confusion about who said what seems to serve a pretty clear purpose, especially when courteousmingler’s initial complaint against catandkitty and missvoltairine was proven to be a fabrication. 

If there’s one thing that I feel is really dangerous in this discussion, it’s the way the representations of specific survivors involved have shifted and been twisted almost beyond recognition. Shifting the narrative from “these people are rape apologists because they said it’s abusive to not want to have sex” to “these people are rape apologists because they want asexual people to be raped” when the first statement is disproven is pretty blatant, especially because the second statement is harder to address concretely given that neither of the people being accused have said much on the subject of asexual people being raped - they both pretty much stuck to personal accounts of their own abuse throughout this whole thing. Courteousmingler has talked a lot about how it’s not necessarily an act of violence to accuse a rape survivor of being a rape apologist, and I agree with the basic premise of that - rape survivors CAN and sometimes do engage in rape apologism - but I disagree that this means calling any rape survivor who disagrees with you about whether it’s possible for some asexuals to be considered straight and whether straight, cisgender asexuals belong in spaces reserved for LGBT people exclusively a rape apologist is okay. I think this is deliberately inflammatory and pretty much guaranteed to spark an emotional response, especially when directed at survivors, which makes it easier for the discussion to go off the rails completely. If I was a more cynical person I might think that this is deliberate and serves an agenda of vilifying rape and CSA survivors very well. 

 So I want to address courteousmingler’s claims that catandkitty and missvoltairine started talking about their abuse at an inappropriate time, specifically in her words that “what i don’t support is pretending that saying “no” to sex is ever capable of being abuse on its own. i especially do not support using your trauma story as a means of spreading this sentiment, in the chronological middle of a conversation about asexuals being pressured into sex aka raped.“

I’ve already addressed the fact that neither catandkitty or missvoltairine ever said that saying no to sex was inherently abusive on its own, and that the links courteousmingler provides as “evidence” that they did actually tell an entirely different story if you care to read them. This isn’t just a matter of interpretation. In the above linked post, courteousmingler links to a post where catandkitty corrects someone who states that she said saying no to sex is abusive on its own. The person asserting that catandkitty said this - without citations of his own - is acepilotlombardi. It’s strange that courteousmingler would use acepilotlombardi’s (debunked) accusation as evidence of catandkitty saying these things in her own words, given that acepilotlombardi had this to say about missvoltairine’s account of her own abuse:

Saying you can withhold sex from a person is like saying you can withhold pets from a dog. Look, if animal rights groups suddenly started saying that if you are ever not petting your dog, you’re abusing them, that would be absurd. This is basically the same situation.

Seems to contradict courteousmingler’s assertions that “no one” on the “inclusionist” side of this debacle has tried to shut down victims speaking about their own experiences, but that’s neither here nor there.

But let’s talk about the oft-repeated idea that catandkitty and missvoltairine entered into a simple discussion about rape and started talking about their abuse in ways that would imply that they thought rape was fine if the targets were asexual. Because that’s such a vast misrepresentation of what really happened as to basically be a lie.

The conversation in question was not, in fact, a single thread of conversation. It was a series of discussions that spanned several different threads and included multiple people on either “side” of “the discourse”. I spent a long time trying to figure out the chronology of the discussion, but tumblr’s format makes it nearly impossible, which already casts doubts on courteousmingler’s claim that catandkitty and missvoltairine’s accounts of their abuse came into play in the “chronological middle” of the discussion. 

To kick things off, let’s have a look at this thread. It begins with lgbtkhaleesi saying: 

it’s also shitty to deny your partner sex and shame them for even trying to communicate their feelings to you about it

This is obviously a complete statement - it’s shitty to do both of these things in tandem, because it creates a dynamic where one person can’t talk about something that is bothering them in the relationship. Not having sex with your partner is one thing; not having sex with your partner and making them feel ashamed and shutting down any attempts at having an honest discussion about the fact that you’re not having sex is another. The first is not abusive, the second is. However, throughout the resulting thread, people take the first part of this statement and repeat it over and over again without the added context of the second part of the statement. Then there’s this:

Why would you ever tell your sex repulsed partner that “it sucks you can’t have sex and that it hurts your self esteem”? Like what do you think would happen? It’s either

1. They still don’t have sex with you but now they feel guilty and insecure over something they can’t help.

or

2. They are guilted into having sex with you, which is rape by coercion.

This is a big part of what many people, including catandkitty and missvoltairine, took issue with - the idea that if a partner is shutting down discussions of sex in a way that makes you feel bad about yourself, simply attempting to address that verbally makes you a rapist because you’re “guilting” someone into having sex with you. 

This theme was repeated not just in that thread, but elsewhere as well:

People were so hostile to the idea of a couple simply talking about having sexual needs that were incompatible that at some point some presented nonmonogamy as a natural solution to feeling sexually unsatisfied in your relationship:

Nonmonogamy is a relationship style that requires a LOT of communication and honesty - if you’re entering into a nonmonogamous relationship because you feel like you CAN’T communicate about sex with your partner, there’s something wrong; this isn’t a healthy basis for a nonmonogamous relationship, and saying that it “is a consensual option that doesn’t involve manipulating people” is pretty loaded.

I think it’s clear by now that at least parts of this discussion had taken a turn away from “it’s not cool to coerce your partner into sex” and into characterizing any kind of attempt at communication, specifically from a non-asexual person towards an asexual person, as rape or advocating rape. It was this trend that catandkitty and missvoltairine objected to. Catandkitty in particular, who is the one who’s been most villified for her participation in this discussion, never actually engaged in any of these discussion threads. Her commentary was confined solely to original posts on her own blog, where she reflects on what is being said in posts like this one:

sex and/or physical intimacy IS human need and you WILL need to be able to have a healthy conversation about it at some point in your adult life. telling people that expressing that need is inherently abusive is intensely harmful and i wish ace tumblr would stop it

This post has been spun as evidence that catandkitty is a rape apologist so many times that I couldn’t possibly link to them all, but you can see some of it in the notes on the post. But the fact is, catandkitty did not say this in response to any one specific person; it’s not a reblog, it’s an original post on her personal blog, a place where she has in the past posted other personal reflections on trends in tumblr discourse, that is an individual reaction to multiple people saying things like the statements I discussed above. It is NOT a response to a statement as simple as “don’t rape asexual people”, and frankly, would make no sense as such. 

This discussion was an ugly one in which multiple rape and abuse survivors, including but not limited to catandkitty and missvoltairine, were told that their abuse wasn’t that bad or was irrelevant, were told to stop talking about their abuse, and were called rape apologists and, yes, even rapists. Here’s asexualnataliaromanova calling catandkitty an “abuser posing as a victim” and saying that it sounds like she raped her abusive ex:

First of all, you called them your abusive ex. Forgive me if the rest of us victims out here who went through shit (me included) aren’t too keen to assume you’re not the abuser when you can still swallow to call them your ex first instead of your rapist. That was red flag number 1.

Number 2, withholding sex is still a lovely way of saying that they didn’t consent. THEY AREN’T WITHHOLDING BC YOU DO NOT OWN OR HAVE A RIGHT TO THEIR BODY. Them having sex with you is not a right you have. Being in a relationship does not give you that right (see marital rape). The only thing that gives you that right is their informed, ENTHUSIASTIC consent. If they weren’t feeling it, tell me, you’d rather rape them than them continue to “Withhold sex”?

Here’s queergengar implying that missvoltairine’s abuser did not consent to sex with her:

How the fuck do you “withhold consensual sex” wtf?? If you don’t want to do it, it’s not consensual jfc. If you change your mind halfway through or right before or whenever and decide you don’t want to do the do anymore, /that means it’s no longer consensual!/

Here’s courteousmingler herself doing what she does best - asking leading questions that are loaded with innuendo and implication, so that she can effectively call an abuse survivor a rapist and then deny it because she never said it outright later:

anyone curious as to why catandkitty is so deeply obsessed with believing sex is a human need, after being told by multiple survivors that the rhetoric is used to get rapists off the hook?

like. why is clinging to rhetoric that silences rape victims something so deeply, deeply important to her? because she considers not having sex with her to be one of her abusers’ offences?

By now it should be clear that presenting this conflict as a simple case of innocent asexuals saying “please don’t rape us” and big mean rape apologists coming out of the woodwork to harass them about it is completely disingenuous and false. I really hope people take the time to read this post - I know it’s a lot, and there’s a lot of further evidence that I refrained from posting because I didn’t want to make this longer. But this is important, because a big part of courteousmingler and her friends - including wetwareproblem and vaspider, etc - smear campaign against these survivors relies on their radically dishonest reinterpretation of what actually happened. 

Recently, @courteousmingler accused another survivor, catandkitty, of deleting posts that proved that she was a rape apologist. The posts catandkitty allegedly deleted are mentioned in this post by courteousmingler. It’s worth noting that originally, the post by courteousmingler contained a number of “links” that were not links at all - she simply wrote “(x)” after statements and said that the x was a link, when in reality it was not. I want to be very clear here - I am not saying that it was a dead link, leading to a “page not found” error; I am saying that there was no link at all, the x was a plain text character with no link attached. This was visibly obvious, as the formatting of courteousmingler’s blog causes text with links attached to show up as bold white text; the text of the (x) was not bold or white, because it was not a link. She would do this, and then repeatedly make references to how she had “proven” through linked sources that catandkitty and missvoltairine were lying. I wish I had taken a screencap of the original version of the post - she’s since edited it to remove a number of links, claiming that those links were deleted, but I want to talk for a minute about the links that remain that she claims are “proof” and what they actually say. 

I think that courteousmingler does this a lot - she writes a LOT of text, and then inserts links, and counts on the idea that most people will have their hands full just making it through what she’s written, and therefor won’t actually check out the links she’s included. She also has blocked the people she’s linked to in this case, which makes it impossible for them to directly clarify what they actually said and meant on the post where they are being openly misinterpreted. It’s worth noting that this is actually a tactic very commonly used among the alt-right; it’s known as “linkbombing” and it’s a propaganda technique. 

For a direct example of this, here’s a point where courteousmingler writes:

anyway, here’s catandkitty saying that denying someone sex is an abuse tactic by itself. (x)

now, in that post, notice she didn’t say “saying no to sex isn’t abusive by itself, but making your partner feel unworthy of sex and ashamed of wanting sex is abusive.”

she believes the quote above is true! she definitely believes shaming your partner and making them feel unworthy of sex is abuse.

but in the post i linked, she clearly states that “withholding” sex is an abuse tactic all by itself- without rape or manipulation or shame being necessary to make it abusive.

That would be pretty damning - IF the post linked actually said anything like that. In actual reality, the post in question reveals catandkitty directly taking issue with someone claiming that she said that “withholding sex in any situation is abuse”, actively disagreeing with them and clarifying that she did not say that at all. Here’s what catandkitty actually says in that post, in direct response to someone accusing her of saying that withholding sex is abusive on its own:

MY OWN RAPIST used withholding sex as an abuse tactic in MY OWN PERSONAL ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP IT’S LINKED RIGHT HERE YOU ABSOLUTE DEMON

this makes it pretty clear that she was specifically talking about withholding sex in the context of a pattern of abusive behavior, specifically her own abuser’s.

Since a number of people have pointed out that a lot of the links courteousmingler used as “evidence” of rape apologism like this did not say what she claimed they said, she has gone back into the post and reformatted it, removing links and then claiming that she removed them because catandkitty deleted the posts in order to “bury evidence”. 

Except catandkitty hasn’t deleted anything! For example, here is a post that courteousmingler claims that she deleted - it’s still there and hasn’t even been edited. What IS revealed in that not-deleted link is @asexualnataliaromanova stating in very clear terms that she believes, based on the language catandkitty used, that catandkitty’s rapist was in fact a victim being raped by her - she refers to catandkitty saying that her rapist “controlled when and how” they had sex as “victim blaming someone who couldn’t give enthusiastic consent”. This directly contradicts courteousmingler’s claim that no one called catandkitty a rapist, which is probably why she’s claiming the post was deleted. 

Claiming that catandkitty deleted this post and others creates confusion about who said what and muddies the waters so that it’s harder to call courteousmingler out for lying directly. But she’s still lying.

Inthis recent ask,@clara-the-slytherin-graduate asked @courteousmingler why she is engaging in behavior that is retraumatizing to rape victims. The behavior she is specifically referring to is this post, where courteousmingler describes another survivor’s rapist being tortured in graphic ways (specifically the line “your rapists need to be hung from meat hooks and skinned alive”). The survivor in question, @missvoltairine,went on to say that she found this language inappropriate and triggering due to reasons relating to her own trauma. In a post made AFTER missvoltairine’s response, courteousmingler goes on to describe how missvoltairine and @catandkitty “could have slit their abusers throats”, continuing her use of graphic, violent language to emphasize her hatred of other peoples’ abusers, at the expense of the people those abusers actually abused. 

courteousmingler goes on in her response to this ask to ignore the fact that anyone who has followed this debacle would know exactly what language clara-the-slytherin-graduate is referring to, in order to accuse clara-the-slytherin-graduate of having a problem with her “calling out rape apologism”, which is a) arguably not even what she’s doing, and b) definitely not what was being addressed in the ask. This is what we in the industry call a “lie”: claiming that someone is saying one thing, when they are explicitly saying something else. 

The idea that your desire to communicate your hatred of another person’s rapist should not come at the expense of the person that rapist directly abused is a simple matter of ethics, and apparently it’s completely beyond courteousmingler’s comprehension. We’ll see more evidence of how she feels like retraumatizing other survivors is right, fair, and necessary in future posts - I’ll be starting with her most recent fuckery and working my way back on this blog. 

im-fucking-asexual:

positivityisntdiscourse:

Making it increasingly hard for trans and non-straight aspec people to get access to resources and aid for their aspec-specific issues in safe spaces does nothelp them.

By fighting to exclude ace/aro people y’all have only made it more difficult for us “lgbt aces/aros” to actually have easy access to aspec resources in LGBTQ+ safe spaces. Most safe spaces would only provide aspec resources if aspec people were included, and the only safe spaces I’ve gone to that actually have aspec information or resources have been inclusionist spaces. No exclusionist spaces I’ve seen have actually provided any, and “why don’t you make them outside of lgbtq+ spaces” doesn’t work because I need my aspec safe spaces to be lgbtq+ safe, because I’m not straight or cis and my bi-ness and transness is incredibly intertwined with my aspec identity.

If y’all will neither: 1, believe “lgbt aces/aros” when we say some of us might actually, desperately need aspec-specific resources and aid, and 2, help us receive that aid and fight for its inclusion in LGBTQ+ spaces, then you’re not an ally to “lgbt aces/aros” and you never have been.

if aces/aros aren’t lgbt, resources for us don’t belong in lgbt spaces though?

LGBTQ+ spaces are supposed to provide resources and safety for intersectional identities too, because otherwise their safe spaces wouldn’t be equipped to help all the LGBTQ+ people they need to help.That’s why there are (or should be) resources for religous LGBTQ+ people, trans gay/mspec people, and queer people of color. Because they need different resources in their LGBTQ+ safe spaces than people without intersectional identities. That’s why, even if ace/aros weren’t LGBTQ+, we still need things like the asexual suicide hotline at the Trevor Project, because I’m asexual and I might need it, and I’m also not cis or straight.

I’m aspec. I’m bi and trans. Those identities cannot be seperated. I need aspec resources in my LGBTQ+ safe spaces. Even if it’s only for the non-cishet aspec people, we should have aspec resources in LGBTQ+ spaces!!! Not all ace/aros are cis and straight!! There are trans ace/aros!! There are gay/mspec ace/aros!!! We ain’t all straight and cis! And going to aspec spaces organized entirely by cis straight people won’t help, because I need my aspec safe spaces to be LGBTQ+ safe!

exclusive-cowboy:

positivityisntdiscourse:

Making it increasingly hard for trans and non-straight aspec people to get access to resources and aid for their aspec-specific issues in safe spaces does nothelp them.

By fighting to exclude ace/aro people y’all have only made it more difficult for us “lgbt aces/aros” to actually have easy access to aspec resources in LGBTQ+ safe spaces. Most safe spaces would only provide aspec resources if aspec people were included, and the only safe spaces I’ve gone to that actually have aspec information or resources have been inclusionist spaces. No exclusionist spaces I’ve seen have actually provided any, and “why don’t you make them outside of lgbtq+ spaces” doesn’t work because I need my aspec safe spaces to be lgbtq+ safe, because I’m not straight or cis and my bi-ness and transness is incredibly intertwined with my aspec identity.

If y’all will neither: 1, believe “lgbt aces/aros” when we say some of us might actually, desperately need aspec-specific resources and aid, and 2, help us receive that aid and fight for its inclusion in LGBTQ+ spaces, then you’re not an ally to “lgbt aces/aros” and you never have been.

This has never been the case.

If you are LGBT, you will be allowed into LGBT safe spaces. Regardless if you are aro/ace.

You will not be allowed into LGBT spaces if you are

• Cis Asexual Aromantic
• Cis Asexual hetromantic
• Cis Aromantic Heterosexual
• Aka Fucking Straight.

It isnt rocket science. If you aren’t being allowed into LGBT spaces it’s probably because you are trying to make people prioritize YOU over everyone else because you are ace/aro.

Ex: making rules about not talking sex, relationships, etc.

And forcing everyone to abide by those rules or seeing them kicked from a SUPPORT group.

LGBT people who are not aro/ace like we are, do not have to create online safe spaces for us because we can make our own support groups specifically for us.

Just because you are LGBT and Aro/ace, does not mean people will exclude you. People dont fucking care. So long as you aren’t straight or a crybaby about being Aro/ace, you can always find support groups.

The Laziness of the Aro/Ace community astounds me.

“Making my own safe space doesn’t work”.

“They’re supposed to make safe spaces for us”.

Bullshit. You havent even tried.

I’m bisexual, trans and aromantic. I’ve met more biphobic and transphobic aces/aros in support groups than I have “aphobes”.

This post is not about me being allowed into LGBTQ+ spaces as a bi/trans person, this is about me having access to ace/aro specific resources in safe spaces. I can get into LGBTQ+ spaces just fine!! This isn’t about me being lazy or getting kicked out of safe spaces for being a jerk! It’s about how the resources in many LGBTQ+ spaces are not suited for the needs an aspec person might have! These resources come in the form of:

• education/information about ace/aro identities and issues
• advice, therapy, and other aid that can be specifically applied to my needs as an aspec person, not just as a trans or bi person. Being aspec changes what kind of advice and therapy I might need. I might need a different kind of sex/dating education, a different kind of therapy that’s insightful of the fact that I’m aspec and the issues I might face because of that. Dealing with aphobia and ace-specific patholoziation affects all of that. Similar to how I need trans-specific resources, I need aspec-specific resources.

This is not a situation of me being too lazy to make my own safe space!! I’m perfectly willing to provide some education and information about being aspec, I’m perfectly willing to make “online safe spaces” but “online safe spaces” are not what I’m talking about! I’m talking about physical safe spaces and LGBTQ+ organizations! I’m a minor living in a low income household in the south, I do not have the resources to make my own physical safe space anyway!

LGBTQ+ safe spaces are supposed to provide safety for intersectional identities! Which means they should have the information and resources for “lgbt aces/aros” to be able to aid us when we need it! Yet inclusionist spaces are the only ones who’ve I’ve seen do that before! Groups like the Trevor Project have provided ace resources that I can use if they need them, and yet exclusionists complain about those even though they help more than just “cishet” ace people, they help “lgbt aces” too!

And as I said, aspec resources outside of lgbtq+ safe spaces don’t help me the way resources in lgbtq+ safe spaces do, because I’m not straight or cis! I need resources that will also be attuned to my needs as an lgbtq+ person! Resources that aren’t created entirely by cis straight people! This is not about being lazy!! This is about the need for aspec resources in LGBTQ+ safe spaces! Because intersectionality exists!

And you being aromantic doesn’t mean that you have the same needs or experiences as mine. Not all aspec people need aspec resources, but they’re vital for those that do. I’m glad you haven’t experienced aphobia, but I have.

Also. Acearo people are not straight and you cannot speak for their needs or experiences.

Making it increasingly hard for trans and “non-straight” aspec people to get access to resources and aid for their aspec-specific issues in safe spaces does nothelp them.

By fighting to exclude ace/aro people y’all have only made it more difficult for us “lgbt aces/aros” to actually have easy access to aspec resources in LGBTQ+ safe spaces. Most safe spaces would only provide aspec resources if aspec people were included, and the only safe spaces I’ve gone to that actually have aspec information or resources have been inclusionist spaces. No exclusionist spaces I’ve seen have actually provided any, and “why don’t you make them outside of lgbtq+ spaces” doesn’t work because I need my aspec safe spaces to be lgbtq+ safe, because I’m not straight or cis and my bi-ness and transness is incredibly intertwined with my aspec identity.

If y’all will neither: 1, believe “lgbt aces/aros” when we say some of us might actually, desperately need aspec-specific resources and aid, and 2, help us receive that aid and fight for its inclusion in LGBTQ+ spaces, then you’re not an ally to “lgbt aces/aros” and you never have been.

Ace people are wonderful and deserve love and happiness.

People who aren’t ace don’t get to decide what ace issues are, or which ones are most important.

And don’t y’all comment with any “but the cishet aces!” crap because ace issues affect more than just cis straight aces, and if you can’t see past your exclusionary rhetoric to know that, then leave.

jschlatt:

queermista:

jschlatt:

queermista:

jschlatt:

not that this is a new thing but i geniunely hate that inclusionists argument for ace people being lgbt almost always includes words like “weird” or “abnormal” like. the point of tbe lgbt community is N O T that we’re weird or abnormal, its so we can do something against oppression and even if it wasnt and it was only for people who have something in common (being lgbt) cis het/aro aces dont have that in common with us !! the community was never about us being “weird” “abnormal” and stuff, saying that (especially when the aces that ARENT lgb or t say it) jus sounds homo/transphobic. cishet people calling us weird and abnormal isnt new.

ive seen people be like “but aces arent cishet and thats what being lgbt is about!” and forget to note that SOME are, and some are gay and bi. aro aces arent the only aces. even if you dont want it, the statement “aces are lgbt” lets cishet people into the community. if aces cant be cishet they also cant be gay or bi.

What are you talking about? I’m an inclusionist and I haven’t seen this. Are you talking about how people say that aces and aros are affected by heteronormativity? Us saying that aces and aros aren’t straight isn’t saying that non-straight people are weird or abnormal.

I think aces and aros can be cis and het, but they’re not the same as fully cis straight people. Cis straight people do not have a marginalized orientation, whereas aces and aros do. That’s how we have something in common with other lgbtq+ groups.

ive seen so many people say “lgbt is about being weird and aces arent cishet so we are included ” maybe you havent personally done it but ive seen it a lot. cishet aces are ,, still cishet in basically the same way that non ace cishets are cishet. theyre never gonna like the same gender, theyre not gonna be trans ever. theyre gonna live the normal cishet life, jus without sex.

Alright, can you give me examples? While I haven’t said this myself, I also haven’t seen this in the inclusionist community that I interact with.

If you would listen to cis het aces and aros, you would hear how their experiences differ from cis straight people. Cis straight people treat anyone who doesn’t solely identify as like them as different. Saying you’re ace or aro, despite any other factors, changes the way they perceive and treat us.

Also, asexuality doesn’t mean celibate or sex-repulsed. The definition is about experiencing no attraction.

i assumed you meant the ones that dont have sex, considering the ones that do have absolutely no fucking difference from cishets outside of their personal enjoyment.

i’ll look for the examples, they kinda got drowned on my feed thingy so its hard 2 find sbsbs. also? you dont need to? tell cishet people youre a cishet ace like ur sex life is personal theyre not gonna perceive you differently ESPECIALLY if youre one of the aces that do participate in sexual stuff.

Not having sex isn’t the only thing that differs asexual cis straight people from allo cis straight people. Being asexual or aromantic in itself differs them from allo cis straight people. Through asexuality and aromanticism, you’re still impacted by ace and aro issues, including patholization, corrective therapy, sexual assault & harassment, etc. as well as dealing with the stereotypes and prejudice people have of ace & aro people, all of which increase once you include another intersectional identity (aces/aros of color are impacted by aphobia differently than white aspecs, disabled aces/aros are impacted differently than abled aspecs, etc).

These things don’t just go away if you’re cis and straight. People aren’t suddenly okay with the idea that not experiencing a common type of attraction is normal and real. People don’t suddenly stop referring ace people to therapists or doctors when they come out, or comparing us to inanimate objects and dehumanizing us. The bigotry and prejudice doesn’t go away. And neither does the erasure or the experience of having your orientation differ from the majority of society.

My ace identity affects me in some of the same/similar ways my bi and trans identities affect me, and that wouldn’t just go away if I were cis and straight.

trendernepeta:

ace exclusionists — don’t say it’s “only about the cishets” when i, an aro lesbian, have been called cishet + cishet invader, + have been accused of hurting lgbt people for being aro…despite the fact that im also a lesbian. the blanket targeting of all aros + aces, regardless of other parts of their identites, shows its not really targeting “just the cishets”, you’re targeting all of us.

People who aren’t ace don’t get to decide what ace issues are or which ones are most important.

Ace and aro people are awesome and wonderful and great ✨

Ace people are wonderful and amazing and deserve to be proud of their ace identity.

Ace and aro people deserve to celebrate pride month too. They deserve to be proud of their orientations in a world that does not accept them. They deserve to celebrate their identities without fear of retribution.

Ace and aro people are wonderful