#fighting amatonormativity is primarily an aro thing but there is overlap because even alloromantic aces are affected by it!
Amatonormativity affects everyone.
Fighting amatonormativity is an everyone thing.
Making sure everyone can get healthcare regardless of if they have a family member (expected to be a spouse, if you are an adult) who can care for you when you’re ill or injured, can drive you to your doctors’ appointments, who can pay for your medication and medical care when you can’t work, is disability activism. The fact that we have woefully inadequate infrastructure for most of that because your spouse or romantic partner is expected to provide it is, among other thing, amatonormativity.
Untying basic rights in finances, healthcare, housing, immigration, and hospital visitation from marriage so that those tights can’t be taken away if gay marriage is restricted is gay activism. The fact that these rights are tied to marriage in the first place is amatonormativity.
Untying these things from marriage is also polyamorous activism, so in a poly relationship you’re not left with one partner who gets full rights and another partner who does not. It is activism for anyone with any kind of intimate relationship with more than one non-blood-related person. (Hell, it’s activism for people who have a spouse and a sibling all part of the same household.) The fact that marriage, the only taken-seriously relationship you can legally form between individuals as adults, is between two non-blood-related people in a romantic relationship and no other options, is amatonormativity.
Making it easier to survive on your own without a familial support system is queer activism, for all the queer people who don’t have those support systems! And the fact that your spouse is supposed to be your entire support system as an adult is amatonormativity.
Making it so elderly people who don’t have a spouse or children can still get care when they can no longer take care of themselves is elder activism. The fact that your spouse and children are supposed to be the ones who handle that and if you don’t have any then fuck you I guess, is amatonormativity.
Making it possible for a woman to leave her abusive husband, and not lose everything, to live on her own, maybe with her children, and have a place to live and money to live on and infrastructure to support her living without a spouse, is just about the most basic feminist activism that there is. And the fact that society is structured such that staying in an abusive relationship can look like a better option than trying to leave is because of—imagine it!—amatonormativity!
You also just… don’t need to be aro to be single. Plenty of single people are not aromantic and they deserve to have a house and healthcare too.
I really, really wish people would stop acting like amatonormativity is a niche aro issue that doesn’t really matter because it only affects aros. (Also wish people would stop acting like aros are not ace and aces are not aro and ace people have no reason to have an opinion on amatonormativity because it just doesn’t affect them.)(Amatonormativity affects everybody.)
tangentwithtanner
prguitarman
izzy806
dededos
origamiaround
snowghoul
