Here are some more examples of how compulsory heterosexuality may manifest itself and look for girls who feel unwanted or ungenuine attraction towards men (feel free to add on):
I am attracted to men but I don’t want to date them.
I am attracted to men but I don’t want to do anything with them or when I’m about to do something my attraction to them goes away.
I am attracted to fictional men or male celebrities, or any other guy who is “unavailable/unattainable".
I will find a guy eventually! I’m just a late bloomer.
I don’t like kissing my boyfriend or I’m not attracted to him, but it must just be because he’s not the one for me [or some other excuse].
I don’t find guys attractive, but I probably will when I get older/go to college/etc! or I don’t find guys attractive, what’s wrong with me? (including pretending to find certain guys or guys in general attractive around others)
Everyone must feel attraction to girls or think that girls are hot, the way I feel towards other girls is normal for straight girls! (or thinking that other kinds of sexual/romantic feelings/fantasies towards girls is normal for straight girls or is just a “girl crush”)
I’m too young/busy/etc to have a boyfriend.
I just have high standards, that’s why I don’t have a boyfriend.
I like [f/f couple(s)] but just as an ally. (or some other excuse)
I like boys but it’s just not as much as other girls seem to.
I like [girl] but just platonically! But not as much as I like boys! or I would date [girl] if she was a guy!
The reason my relationships with men don’t work out is because I’m just bad at relationships. (or some other personal fault)
Let’s talk about the fabulous aromantics out there
[image description:
first image: text saying “we don’t talk enough about aromantics. so let’s talk about–
second image: text saying “aros who don’t want relationships.”
third image: text saying “aros who are polyamorous.” there is a drawing of a person holding hands with two people.
fourth image: text saying “aros who are not ace.”
fifth image: text saying “aros who do want a relationship.” there is a drawing of two people holding hands. one person says “hey i really like you platonically, wanna date?” the other person replies “yeah!”
sixth image: text saying “and those in qpr.” qpr stands for queerplatonic relationship. there is a drawing of two people, with one person’s arm around the other.
seventh image: text saying “aros who are romance repulsed.” there is a drawing of a person with their arms crossed saying “nope.”
eighth image: text saying “aros with lesser known identities.” there is a drawing of six flags: quioromantic, demiromantic, greyromantic, aroflux, akoiromantic, recipromantic.
ninth image: text saying “aros who are also ace.”
tenth image: text saying “aros who enjoy romance.” there is a drawing of a person sitting in a wheelchair. they are reading a book with a heart on the cover.
eleventh image: text saying “you are not broken.”
twelfth image: text saying “you are not heartless.”
thirteenth image: text saying “you are amazing and strong.”
fourteenth image: text on a plain flag saying “you deserve to be proud.”
fifteenth image: text saying “and celebrate who you are.”
sixteenth image: text saying “happy pride!” under the text is a drawing of a heart with the aromantic flag on it.
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%
Janelle Monae coming out as non-binary is super, super important to me as a black femme and I sincerely hope that you all boost them just like you boost white trans people who come out.
[I.D: An extract from the interview linked that reads “"My pronouns are free-ass motherf and they/them, her/she,” the performer and newly minted author told The Times in a feature published Thursday ahead of her appearance at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.“ End I.D]
With Republicans in several states talking about banning IUDs and Plan B, it isn’t simply that they don’t think women have the right to choose to terminate a pregnancy; it’s abundantly clear they don’t think women have the right not to get pregnant in the first place. All you have to do is actually listen to these men bemoan how Roe and birth control have led to women being less likely to marry them and birth their children to know exactly what this is really about. They want as many women* as possible trapped at home in a cycle of pregnancy and childcare instead of pursuing higher education, careers, and political engagement. If this post sounds extreme to you, again, all you have to do is listen to conservatives actually talk about this, and their regarding women as second class citizens meant to breed becomes abundantly clear.
*yes trans people can get pregnant but Republicans haven’t thought of anyone but cis women in their decades-long campaign to end Roe, let’s be real (and they’re finding other ways to terrorize trans people right now anyway)
no. actually, children now feel comfortable and accepted enough to experiment with their gender, pronouns, name, and presentation. and while some of them end up realizing they were cis the entire time, they now have a new understanding and appreciation for one of the most marginalized and abused groups of people in the world.
