#ace things
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.
For years now I’ve noticed that so many other asexual people I know are also trans, often nonbinary, so it’s always been a “I have a feeling these two interconnect and it sure feels like there’s a very high percentage of us” thing. But other than some informal polls run by resource blogs with limited reach, there hadn’t been any solid data on it.
And then lo and behold the study released by the Trevor Project on asexual youth gives me:
A larger proportion of asexual youth were transgender or nonbinary compared to the overall sample of LGBTQ youth. Overall, 25% of the LGBTQ youth in our sample were transgender or nonbinary, and 9% were questioning if they were. This compares to 41% of asexual youth who were transgender or nonbinary, and 13% who were questioning if they were transgender or nonbinary. (source)
It is so exciting to have some research on this!!
Yeah!! It’s one of those things that’s like. We Know. But it’s nice to have some data on it from an official organization.
I hope this triggers more discussion about how having compulsory sexuality so deeply ingrained in society affects our relationship to gender roles, because that’s been bouncing around in my head for a while. (also amatonormativity… it would be interesting to do a similar study with aromantics)
additional info from the study:
-One in ten queer youths identify as asexual
- Twenty percent of nonbinary youth identify as asexual, and the number is higher than the general population for binary transmen as well
- Asexual youths are more likely to be depressed and anxious than their lgbtq peers. The study’s average rates for anxiety and depression symptoms were 68% and 55% respectively, while for asexuals it was 75% and 61%
do I have feelings for this person ?? do I have feelings at all for any people ever ???? what do feelings really feel like. I’ve felt them before but what REALLY do they feel like those old feelings could have been fake. am I even over those feelings just in case they were real !!!! does all romantic stuff feel like that !! do I just want attention or do I wanna date someone ???? am I ready for that commitment if I don’t even know what I feel ??????????? we may never fully understand
you have heard of:
“it’s super unrealistic for an entire friendgroup to be gay/bisexual!!!1!1!!”
“bold of you to assume we don’t move in packs and huddle together for warmth like penguins in this harsh heteronormative world”
now get ready for:
the sheer amount of people i befriended through various means (online and irl(!)) who responded to me outing myself as ace with either “oh, me too!”, or “hm i think i might be too?”, or turned out to be ace later
[*ace here as an umbrella term for aspec and demi as well]
“You’re Asexual, so how could you possibly enjoy watching/reading/engaging with sexual content?!?!”
The same way I’m able to enjoy horror movies without having murdered an entire cabin full of teenagers before, Barbara you pedantic piece of pipe cleaner.
