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%
Spoiler alert for James Somerton’s almost hour-long YouTube video about Our Flag Means Death. But I just have to scream about one of his interpretations of the show, which is that if piracy is a metaphor for queerness/the queer community, Izzy Hands isn’t metaphorically a homophobe.
He’s metaphorically a queergatekeeper.
He’s not running around saying Blackbeard shouldn’t be gay a pirate, he’s running around saying Blackbeard shouldn’t be gay a pirate like that. That someone like Stede isn’t a “real” pirate, shouldn’t be invited in and treated like he belongs, and that Blackbeard shouldn’t be influenced to accept or emulate him.
As a bisexual who often feels like perceptions of my identity fluctuate between being seen as either not real or just kind of queer but like, “diet gay…” who feels safe enough in the queer community online, but often scared/lonely IRL… This interpretation has really resonated, and hit me really hard. But this obviously isn’t exclusive to bisexuality. Almost every queer identity experiences some level of internalized gatekeeping from within the queer community. As do individuals who don’t conform to what their given letter of the alphabet is supposed to “look like.”
It also feels consistent with the way that the writers have focused their lens entirely on the queer community and issues/themes affecting us internally. They’re not worrying about giving the straight and/or homophobic lens any time or space.
And it makes sense within the narrative itself. Izzy isn’t the only character walking around with queer traits or performing queer actions while also being judgmental and gatekeepy. Almost the entire crew is ready to mutiny against Stede for not delivering the experience of piracy they expect, including openly queer characters Lucius and Pete. Even though Stede’s nice to them, and not really harming them in any way. Even though he’s offering an alternative view of piracy that’s focused on emotional health and fun and shared community, instead of just pain and desperation. And later, we see the same sneering gatekeeping from Calico Jack, another confirmed canonical queer character. He even calls Stede’s queerness piracy “store bought,” which could work as a fun anachronistic insult. But could also work in terms of how some queer people view those who came out/came of age in the era of mainstream corporate commodification of queer identity, rather than like he and Ed who “earned” their “piracy” by being “beaten down,” having pain and oppression be a primary way they internalized their sense of self and community ties.
And we see how this “you’re not a real pirate” dialogue is something Stede gets from both sides. Not only is he constantly mocked and rejected by other queer people pirates, his identity as a pirate is also mocked and rejected by non-pirates like Badminton. An outside observer of what piracy is, Badminton stills rejects the idea that Stede is or could be one because Stede doesn’t look or act how he expects a pirate to. An expectation which, when shared by other members of cishet non-pirate society, not only puts limits on what Stede can be. But also has ripples which affect what piracy is allowed to look like for people like Blackbeard.
And Blackbeard’s position in all this is super interesting, too. He’s clearly queer - the narrative doesn’t shy away from openly acknowledging that. But if Blackbeard represents someone who’s been openly, loudly queer for a long time, he also represents someone who has internalized a lot of negative stereotypes about what queerness is. He’s trapped under the weight of a performance he feels pressured to maintain, both for his own community and for straight eyes - a performance that ultimately doesn’t feel authentic or satisfying.
Ed dreams of escaping the outsider role he’s been forced into. And when Stede’s connection to the “real” world seems to provide an opportunity for escape, Ed takes it. But, as Stede accurately warns him, those people who Blackbeard craves the approval of… kinda suck. Fitting in with them won’t feel deeply satisfying, because one must maintain a carefully rigid, ultimately false persona in order to “be good at” being with them (a metaphor for the closet, how prizing “passing” as freedom is limiting, leaving the person trying to pass with only emptiness and constant insecurity/fear). Ed quickly realizes that the straights nobility are “fickle,” and that their approval isn’t ultimately genuine or what he needs anyway. Instead, he starts to realize that he can still be a pirate, still belong with other pirates, but doesn’t have to do piracy in a particular stereotypical kind of way. He can finally focus on allowing himself to evolve. To allow his sense of queer identity to take root and branch out. To incorporate layers which bring him a more intimate sense of himself and what makes him really happy.
But then he also starts to fall for Stede. Leading to an interesting but heartbreaking end. Heartbreaking not just because it’s a broken relationship, but also because Stede decides to go back into the closet to society. It’s a uniquely queer pain to experience/end of a relationship to fear; it mingles with the person who’s been left’s own queer identity development/trauma about being out vs in. It forces them to relitigate their own histories and adds a complex blend of helpless resentment and forgiveness to the partner who couldn’t bear the pressure of being out. Which makes it all the more understandable why Ed isn’t just being broken by the breakup, but also by all that this means about the rejection of his own queerness pirate identity by proxy:
If Stede, of all people, couldn’t hack being queer a pirate authentically, what hope does Ed have?
But ultimately it’s in Izzy we see the worst aspects of symbolically queer gatekeeping: When he rejects Stede Bonnet and his version of queerness piracy so hard he ends up aligning himself with the queerphobic cishets English navy in order to maintain control over queer piratical performance. It’s a level of ownership he tries to exert over Ed which ultimately places Ed’s life and freedom in danger, too - an outcome Izzy is too blinded by his internalized bigotry to recognize.
The moral of the story through this lens is so uniquely, fascinatingly queer. And not remotely concerned with the straight lens - at all. A choice equally as important as centering a queer love story, in terms of representation.
I’ve been thinking a lot about queerness lately and I keep getting stuck on how deeply I want it to be normal. I want little girls to come home excitedly telling their parents about a pretty new girl in school that they have a crush on. I want young boys to have their first kiss with another boy and be able to tell their friends about it. I want them to be impressed and slap him on the back and say congrats. I want to bring home a woman to my family and have my father give her that whole fake threatening, “you better be good to my daughter” speech before offering her a handshake and a beer. I want people everywhere in the world to be able to hold hands in the street and not even think twice about it, not have to feel afraid, not have to feel like they’re making a statement. I want so desperately for the world to catch up with something that so many of us already understand as normal. I don’t want to be merely tolerated, and I wish pride wasn’t necessary. I wish that having confidence in myself wasn’t a revolutionary act.
[ID: a comment from @protective-potato on January 18 that says, “A couple of weeks ago I was picking up my sister from school and I overheard one of the lads say "I think i might kiss him, I think he likes me” just so casually so calmly in the middle of the massive crowd of people, and he was met with encouragement and support instead of mocking or laughter, and it made me realise this is what its all about, this is what its all been for. for that one moment of complete acceptance.“ /End ID.]
‘X Marks The Spot’ Submissions - an anthology on nonbinary identity
Call for essay submissions [those accepted will be paid after the Kickstarter closes]
Hi folks! As many of you know I am in the process of organizing an anthology all about being nonbinary. The project will be funded through Kickstarter and self-published through Createspace. But I want as many nonbinary writers as possible to get involved with telling their stories.
The aim for this is to both provide a resource for nonbinary and questioning people and to do some of the work educating cis folk.
The theme is essentially ‘what it’s like to be nonbinary’ so anything fitting under that is fine. But some of you asked for clearer distinctions so here are the things that I want the book to cover. I’m looking for about three to five essays on each section (bar the introduction which I’ve got covered as editor).
(I put a screenshot because formatting is a nightmare but if using a screen reader click here to view it in a document)
You can write about whichever one of these you like. The sub-bullet points are just to give you a rough idea of what I imagine each section containing but you can run with it as you wish.
I am especially eager to cover a wide range of diversity within our community so the intersectionality section is super important but I’m also keen to get essays from people with cultural identities who can discuss that.
Essays should be between 1000 and 1500 words. The deadline is January 1st at which point the Kickstarter will open. Of course, not all submissions will be accepted but if yours is then you will be paid $50* if the Kickstarter is successful (if not then the whole thing sinks unfortunately but your work will be returned to you).
*Some have stated as minors that they are unable to receive the payment but still wish to contribute. I’ve decided to leave that to your discretion - please state clearly in the email that you are a minor and do not wish to receive payment.
Please put ‘Essay Submission’ clearly in the email subject line. Include a name (can be birth name/chosen name/pen name, just need a name to publish under).
If you are accepted, I will be emailing to arrange any edits that need to be made and to organize a short bio for you (bios for all contributors will be at the back of the book).
I will also be looking for work by nonbinary poets, artists and photographers at a later date and to encourage people (especially disabled enbies otherwise unable to contribute) to record audio files as bonuses for the Kickstarter so keep an eye out for that if you’re hoping for other ways to get involved!
EDIT:I’ve included a section specifically on intersectionality because I think those are important issues to draw attention to but that is not to say that you can’t mention other aspects of your identity elsewhere! For example, if your race impacts your coming out, feel free to include that in your coming out essay. I hope this is a little clearer <3
unless someone literally admits “I pretended to be queer for attention” you really should not say real people are queerbaiting just because they are ambiguous with their gender and sexuality. They don’t owe you any explanation and it’s creepy and invasive and super damaging to queer people as a whole to demand it.
We NEED to put sex and magic back on the pride flag right now
I’m fed up of people being like yea we need magic but not the sex one, sex positivity is vital to the lgbtq+ community it is not invalidating to asexual people to celebrate gay sex as something that is positive and beautiful and natural. We should be celebrating all the aspects of our community and this can include both asexuals and sex positivity
Sex repulsed queer here so I feel i have the right to tell people to stop trying to speak for me. Stop talking OVER me! ESPECIALLY if you’re not ace.
The sex positivity stripe in the pride flag is Important! It doesn’t force anyone to have sex. It’s not saying you must, aces included, have sex. It’s saying let’s be positive about those who ARE having gay sex.
Some of you are so young! You don’t know your history! You’re just so flippantly unaware that it wasn’t that long ago that gay sex was illegal! Hell, there are still plenty of places, progressive places even, that still have sodomy laws on the books!
The sex positivity stripe is looking at this fairly recent history and is loudly proclaiming that no one has the right to decide who can and can’t have sex with eachother (like podiphilia aside but pedophlia isn’t a type of queer so our flag isn’t for them anyway.) That stripe also encourages positivity about choosing to abstain from sex. The flag isn’t aphobia. It’s not ace exclusive. That’s fucking tumblr and twitter that’s trying to exclude aces from the community, not the rainbow flag!
So yes, we need to put the sex and magic back on the pride flag. Good post OP!
[image id: a news story cover with a picture of two elderly gay men. the headline reads “does kink belong at pride? we asked lgbt elders and they asked if we were cops”]
Listen, I really do love it when people are like “There are secular LGBT+ Jews!” in response to people talking about the intersection of antisemitism and homophobia.
But you know what?
Observant LGBT+ Jews exist too.
There are LGBT+ Jews who observe Shabbat and keep kosher and dress with Tzniut and they’re often the ones experiences the worst of that intersection.
Observant Jews are essentially barred from participating in most LGBTQ+ events because they’re largely held on Saturday, especially Pride Parades, which every year are either on Shabbat or Shavuot. LGBTQ+ events hardly ever have kosher options, and I mean *really* kosher options aside from bottled water and bag of chips. Jews deserve to eat proper food too, you know. Observant Jews constantly have to hear jokes about Judaism, hear gentile LGBT+ people appropriate Yiddish while at the same time harass Jews for using their own language.
If you don’t include Observant Jews, your inclusion is meaningless.
If you are an LGBT+/queer person who pushed the anti-kink discourse you should be so fucking ashamed of being a walnut brained idiot. We fucking warned you that this was the logical conclusion of that discourse:
[reads: rep slanton will file bill to ban drag shows in the presence of minors in Texas]
No more drag storytimes. No more kids at pride period. No more fun drag brunches. Christian fascists are doing their damnedest to criminalize being queer in any way shape or form. You dumb mother fuckers fell for their talking points hook line and sinker.
pride SHOULD have weirdos and freaks actually. it shouldnt be sanitized and full of cookie cutter cis white thin ppl. say queer make out in the streets wear leather bring back flagging. stop trying to turn pride into a fun event for cishet families. queer ppl arent zoo exhibits. i want to see angry queers shouting their pride in the streets not be bombarded with rainbow pens from banks. keep pride a riot.
I like taking my daughter to Pride because I want her to see different kinds of people expressing their joy in different ways. When I took her pre-pandemic, she asked “why is that man walking around with a leash and a tail?” And I said something like, “because he wants to and it makes him happy.” And she said, ok. And that was that. I am not saying that Pride has to be sanitized for kids. But I am saying that, as a queer person who passes for cishet, it’s important to me that she sees the beautiful variety in the LGBTQ+ community. And that it’s not all about rainbow bank pens. It’s not turning queer people into zoo exhibits to want kids to see the beauty of free expression and acceptance.
It’s impossible to be sex positive without being kink positive. Kink negativity is, sadly, an indicator that people haven’t deprogrammed themselves fully from the virulent sex negativity of our society: it’s people who have made the step from “the only acceptable sex is between married procreating able-bodied cishet people (and not interracial)” to “the only acceptable sex is vanilla sex or kinky sex that hides its shameful! sinful! nature”, but have not gotten to “human sexuality is complex and diverse and should be celebrated.”
It’s okay to feel uncomfortable when confronted with kinks you don’t understand or even open sexuality. Very few of us have the privilege of being raised without a background of sex negativity in our cultures. What’s important is that you question your discomfort. Discomfort and emotional revulsion are the first instincts of conservatism: this is a known fact. But you are more than your knee-jerk instincts. Conservative cultural programming is something all of us can work to overcome.
“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]
most people don’t realize this but “queerplatonic” is basically a buzzword now. if you see anyone making fun of it that means they’re a huge fucking asshole!
