Q-eer Theory Originally Came Into Being As A Joke

Lacan didn't die for this. Cishets aren't LGBT and other "fun" Sideblog worthy discourse. Mexican-American. Bisexual. Jewish. Ace.

[colorisbyshe]

if a woman claimed she was straight because she only experiences sexual and romantic attraction to men but regularly desires to sleep with women and be in romantic relationships with them and maybe does both, we would say she isn’t straight–that she’s either bi or a lesbian with a lot of internalized shit going on.

you cannot de-couple this woman’s sexual and romantic desire towards other women from “sexual and romantic attraction” when a facet of attraction is desire. you cannot say she lacks sexual and romantic attraction towards women when she desires them sexually and romantically. while it would be wrong for strangers to butt in and tell her she’s a liar for saying she’s straight, we must… recognize that she isn’t. no matter what she calls herself, she isn’t actually straight.

she is bisexual or a lesbian with some shit to work through.

likewise, if an ace claims they do not experience sexual attraction but they do have sexual desires towards other people, we must insist… there’s something internalized happening here. and i don’t think it’s a coincidence that most aces are women, lgbt, or neurodivergent–groups that are all desexualized and/or punished for having sexual desires. as much as society pushes all people to have/desire sex (heterosexual sex, often with people of the same social categories), it punishes the desire for sex.

not even “deviant” sex–just… any sex. western society desires women who have sex but don’t want it for themselves, they’re just doing it for men (except if the men WANT them to want it, then they’ll just want the women to say they like it, even if they don’t as the epidemic of fake orgasms tells us). in a society of “love the sinner, hate the sin,” LGBT people are allowed to be LGBT so long as they don’t act on it or desire it too audibly. and there are eugenics-lite thinking about neurodivergent and disabled people having sex–that it’s gross or fine so long as they’re not having kids or whatever else.

if you are asexual but claim to desire sex or aromantic and claim to desire romantic relationships, i really think you should spend a lot of time wondering what you think attraction is, if you would apply that mode of thinking to actual sexual orientations (ie the straight woman who isn’t sexually/romantically attracted to women but fucks and dates them), and how sexual attraction divorced from action/desire/intention can be socially meaningful/be the cause of oppression.

i’d also start wondering on whether or not you’ve ever meant a cishet ace who was both a man and neurotypical and why they’re so damn rare.

[aces-aint-cishets]

If you still don’t know understand that there’s a difference between sexual attraction and sexual arousal then you’re beyond hope, my friend.

[momfriendace]

“likewise, if an ace claims they do not experience sexual attraction but they do have sexual desires towards other people, we must insist… there’s something internalized happening here.” or, and bare with me here, desire (which is to want something) and attraction are not the same things. i am aromantic and i desire a romantic relationship, but no matter what, i’m not going to be able to feel romantic attraction. here’s a suggestion, op, maybe you should stop deciding what our identities are for us

[colorisbyshe]

Desire is a facet of sexual attraction. Desiring a romantic relationship with a specific person is romantic attraction attraction. Literally how else would you define it?

[momfriendace]

ha. accept it’s not. i don’t feel romantic attraction. i want to. but i don’t.

you can want something without feeling attraction. they often go hand in hand, but are not mutually exclusive.

you should really stop acting like you know more about people’s identities than they do, it’s not a good look.

[colorisbyshe]

How do you define romantic attraction if not “desiring a romantic relationship with someone?”

This is my second time asking, please answer me.

[momfriendace]

romantic attraction is feeling romantically attracted to another person. wanting a romantic relationship is wanting a romantic relationship. you can want something and not have it. you can want what a romantic relationship entails without experiencing romantic attraction. that’s literally the reason why our community coined the term queerplatonic.

[colorisbyshe]

HSODGHDSG  THAT’S NOT HOW YOU DEFINE THINGS

“Romantic attraction is attraction that is romantic.” Holy shit.

What is it to “feel romantically attracted to another person?”

Also, if you desire what a romantic relationship entails with a person… you want to be romantically involved with them. Congrats, that’s romantic attraction. There’s nothing queer OR platonic about that, unless it’s with the same gender.

[momfriendace]

yes, i would like to be romantically involved with them. would like to. but i’m not. because i’m AROMANTIC you fuck. i 👏 don’t 👏 feel 👏 romantic 👏 attraction 👏

and unfortunately, no amount of you telling me i do, is going to change or “fix” that.

to want something is not the same as to feel something. it’s not the same as to have something. aros who hate romance are aromantic. aros who love romance are aromantic.

we don’t go around calling lesbians who don’t hate men straight girls, because they aren’t, and that would be grossly stereotyping all lesbians as hating men. lesbians are still lesbians no matter how they feel about men. it’s literally the exact same thing with aros and romance and aces and sex.

you can want to have intimacy with another person without wanting to be in a romantic relationship with them. that’s why we coined the term queerplatonic. that’s literally why we made the term. a qpr has what a romantic relationship entails, without the romantic attraction. that’s why it’s so often compared to friendships, as people can’t tell the difference. like i’ve heard people call qprs friendships but never have i heard people try to claim they’re romantic relationships, that’s a new one.

talking over aros and aces, redefining their identities AND their terminology. what a charmer you are.

[colorisbyshe]

Me telling you “Desiring romantic relationships with specific people so that you may do things you consider to be romantic with them is romantic attraction” isn’t trying to fix you, can you maybe tamp down on the victim complex for a total of 30 seconds?

If you want a romantic relationship with someone–a specific person, not just in general–that is romantic attraction. If I looked at a girl and said “I want to date her/do date-like things with her,” I am attracted to her. I am romantically attracted to her. Because, again, that is what romantic attraction is. If I said, “I just wanna date!” that isn’t romantic attraction because it isn’t aimed at anyone.

Hating men is not a facet of being a lesbian. Wanting a romantic relationship with someone… is a facet of romantic attraction.

Wanting intimacy with another person that isn’t romantic is called friendship. Using a violent slur used in the murder and assault of LGBT doesn’t make it anything more or less than friendship. If you want to do things you consider to be romantic with that person… then you are romantically attracted to them. Just like if you want to do sexual acts with another person, you are sexually attracted to them. It’s that fucking simple.

Again, please define what romantic attraction is. Not “Attraction is romantic,” which is just repeating the term “romantic attraction” in different order, give me an actual definition.

[beyond-mogai-pride-flags]

Prae- Pride Flags

Prae-: attraction only to deities/the divine.

Prae- Pride Flag

Praesexual: sexual attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praesexual Pride Flag

Praeromantic: romantic attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praeromantic Pride Flag

Praeplatonic: platonic attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praeplatonic Pride Flag

Praesensual: sensual attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praesensual Pride Flag

Praealterous: alterous attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praealterous Pride Flag

Praequeerplatonic: queerplatonic attraction only to deities/the divine.

Praequeerplatonic Pride Flag

-Fy

[facebidets]

We've done it! Full circle admission that religious celibacy and asexuality are not useless comparisons to make in the context of social privileges and oppression. All nuns and priests are now kweer! Amazing.

[pizzaback-deactivated20201011]

oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no

[pizzaback-deactivated20201011]

this is exactly why the pedo community on the internet needs to crash and burn cause you know all of these poor kids are being actively groomed by people who have fooled them into thinking theyre oppressed and thats absolutely fucking terrifying

[witchcryptid-deactivated2017121]

This is @minors-for-maps and these kids are both fucking 14

14.

Also one of their most recent reblogs is literally disgusting.

[minors-for-maps-deactivated2017]

Ok, hi, it’s me. I wasn’t gonna interact with this post because I didn’t want even more harassment than I’m already getting, but I see a lot of people are claiming that they’re going to report the blog to the FBI.

None of us have been groomed, as far as I know, and definitely not on this blog. My rule for myself and all of my mods is that none of them can have previously existing personal relationships with any MAPs. We also have a rule that none of us can talk to MAPs about personal matters, the only direct interaction we have with them is sometimes commenting on reasons why what an anti has said is wrong.

We aren’t being sexually abused, or prepared to be sexually abused. I made sure that all of us know the reasons why sexual interactions with adults are bad. You can’t change cold hard facts in a person’s mind, not when you can’t even have a personal conversation with them. We ALL know that if someone starts trying to convince one of us that sexual interactions with anyone online is ok, that they’re a predator and need to be reported before they hurt anyone.

-Noah

[facebidets]

The fact that you've made this blog and are spending your childhood/teenage years defending or supporting MAPs is honestly an abuse in and of itself. Children and minors are NOT responsible for supporting/defending adults who are attracted to minors, just like they're not responsible for "parenting" adults, managing adults who need therapy or struggle with addiction, etc. these things are all a kind of abuse - asking minors/children to perform the role and work of an adult or therapist. It's damaging when a parent forces a child to bear the burdens of their illness or addition or trauma - and it's also damaging when a minor feels compelled to support or defend adults who are pedophiles.

In all honesty: you shouldn't be doing this, and performing this role is harming you guys. Please don't waste teenage years mired in this kind of stuff. It will hurt long term and more than you can realize.

[pizzaback-deactivated20201011]

oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no

[pizzaback-deactivated20201011]

this is exactly why the pedo community on the internet needs to crash and burn cause you know all of these poor kids are being actively groomed by people who have fooled them into thinking theyre oppressed and thats absolutely fucking terrifying

[neptune-at-perihelion]

I totally support the building of non-contact pedophiles and MAPs communities on the internet, because they need psychiatric, psychologic and emotional support to keep on, you know, not assaulting kids and live a kinda normal life. Which is actually the point of these communities. 

Also, do you know whom the burden of supporting them lies on if they can’t built their own communities? Csa victims. Since we are the only ones who know the reality of rape and pedophilia culture, and also because many non-contact pedophiles are also csa victims. And, “surprisingly”, we have better to do. We’re here to support csa victims even if they are attracted to minors, but we shouldn’t have to support them about this attraction, let alone non-contact pedophiles who are not csa victims. But way too often, this is what happens.

But the whole thing about non-contact communities is that are, well, non-contact. They have nothing to do with minors. They don’t talk to them, don’t ask for their opinion about anything, they don’t share the same space in any case, physical or virtual.

So can you please stop bashing the pedophile/MAPs communities as a whole as if the non-contact communities have anything to do with actual offenders, because it’s actually counter-productive. Also it takes the emphasis off “non-contact” which doesn’t help well-meaning minors to see that this thing is fucking wrong and dangerous.

Yes, there are adults sexually attracted to minors who’d rather kill themselves than assault a child, but if you’re a minor and an adult explain this to you, it means they are not this kind of pedophile and you’re in danger. A non-contact pedophile/MAP will not even talk to you. 

Your role as a minor is to just avoid them. Even if you support the idea of non-contact pedophile/MAP communities, keep this support to yourself. Because first, you don’t even have to care about them, only about you, and second, it’s bad for everyone in the end.

[1-v4n]

Alright you’re well meaning, however you’re also an idiot, let me point out how:

You contradict yourself by saying that the “non-contact community” goes out of their way to not talk to minors, but open your last paragraph placing the responsibility on minors (the potential victims) to avoid them.

“Actual offenders” and “non-contact pedophiles” are the same thing: pedophiles. Both are harmful. The former causes direct harm and the latter facilitates a community to do so.

CSA victims are NOT responsible for comforting pedophiles, regardless of if they are victims too. Being sexually assaulted as a child doesn’t just suddenly make someone a pedophile and there’s no reason to feel bad for one if they use that excuse.

“Pedophiles need help living a normal life and not assaulting people.” Are you fucking serious bruh? The actual people that need help are the victims of CSA. If you need “”“help”“” not assaulting CHILDREN you’re just a fucked up asshole. No one needs “emotional support” to not be abusive, abusers ACTIVELY CHOOSE to be so and claiming they “can’t help it” is a tactic to take responsibility off their shoulders. And yes, “non contact” pedophiles are abusive.

Anyway, no one should care about the well being of those disgusting fucks. It’s not a mental illness, and excusing it as so is a guilt-trip tactic. It just enables them to abuse children, and I don’t feel bad for them no matter how hard it is to ~deny their urges~ or whatever.

CSA is a violent assertion of power and pedophiles can die.

[neptune-at-perihelion]

And here we are again on the “is it better to rape kids than not rape them” discourse. I thought it was over but hey.

So, I know this is easy to get emotional over this topic and this is certainly why you missed every points of my previous comment by a solid hundred miles, so I hope that now you’re maybe calmed down, here we go again, in order :

Nope, as I clearly said, it’s the responsability of non-contact MAPs to state they’re MAPs and non-contact, so to avoid to talk to minors. But well-meaning minors sometimes initiate a contact to show them support. It just happens, so it was just a simple reminder to not doing that. Which was pretty clear in my first sentence. (” Even if you support the idea of non-contact pedophile/MAP communities, keep this support to yourself.”)

“Actual offenders” rape children. “Non-contact pedophiles” don’t. This is a huge, massive difference. The same difference between a victim and a safe child. Also, it’s believed than at least half of child molesters aren’t pedophiles: they are abusers who want to hurt a child the most they can, they enjoy the power over children, but they aren’t sexually attracted to minors. 

This is exactly what I said. Csa victims shouldn’t be responsible for non-contact pedophiles support. But this is what happens, because no one else want to be. But this burden can be aleviate with the non-contact MAPs communities. Also, your second sentence is right but totally irrelevant.

This is not mutually exclusive. Csa victms can get support, and non-contact MAPs too. I don’t why it couldn’t. Also, adults non-pedophiles, non csa victims, who support non-contact MAPs, indirectly support csa victims, since meanwhile, we don’t have to do and we can focus on ourselves. Because, pedophiles “can help it”. That’s… the whole point. Think what you want about people who needs help or medication to not being abusive, but it doesn’t magically happens just because you decide it. Btw, it applies to other mental illnesses too. Mentally ill people can be manipulative and abusive without help. It has nothing to do with morallity. Someone who chose to not be abusive despite their illness and urges, the hardship and hard work is a good person. The “fucked up asshole” is the one who goes “hey it’s not my fault this is just who i am!” and indulge in it.

And wtf “non-contact pedophile are abusive”. To whom. The minors they have no contact with? Abuse is an action. You can’t… abuse people in thoughts, or idk what you were refering to. There is no abuse if there’s no victim. 

You don’t have to feel bad for them. I don’t. I just do what I think is right. But really, this is very simple : either they get the help they need to not harm chldren and no child is harmed, or they don’t get it and the risk to harm a child dramatically increases. The math is that simple.

I couldn’t fill a complaint against my abuser because I had no proof he was a pedophile - because he wasn’t. He had a whole another set of mental illnesses that made him delusional and violent, he hated my mother and wanted to destroy my family. He raped like he could have, idk, burnt my favorite toys or shaved my hair, because it was all the same to him. But since he wasn’t a pedophile, he wasn’t the “fucked up asshole” that everyone wanted to hate on, so he went free, even if he actually raped me. That’s the kind of mindet you support right now, thinking you’re on the good side.

You hate their guts too much to be rational about it? Right, no one asks you to care. You can express your hate all you want, vent all you want. But fighting against csa and pedophilia culture is already hard enough without people getting on the way, spreading bullshit and trying to ruin the tiny progresses that have been done and are not even enough. You can show your support to csa victims just by keeping quiet, really.

[facebidets]

Hey I'm going to address one thing because this is a deluge of bad and wrong but here's my issue:

You say: "But well-meaning minors sometimes initiate a contact to show them support. It just happens, so it was just a simple reminder to not doing that."

My response: what the ever loving FUCK is a supposed "no-contact MAP" (pedophile) doing on a goddamn website FULL OF MINORS AND IN LARGE PART AIMED AT TEENS/MINORS?

Well meaning minors shouldn't accidentally stumble upon a no contact MAP blog because tumblr recommends their blog in an algorithm. They shouldn't be able to easily access these people, PERIOD. And YES that means that no contact MAPs shouldn't be on fucking tumblr where a person's posts are reblogged far and wide by countless people including children.

This isn't Facebook where you can limit your friends to only other adults (who don't post pictures of their children), it isn't livejournal or dreamwidth or a dedicated forum where users have to prove they're 18+. This is tumblr, the minimum age is 13, kids are on here all the time and the under twenty set is a huge percentage of the people here. A no contact MAP shouldn't be on a fucking website that makes contact with minors UNAVOIDABLE in most respects. You can arguably set your blog to 18+ but I'd argue the amount of "contact" that happens on an average dashboard is too fucking high for anyone to be a "genuine no-contact map" on this website.

Well meaning minor my ass. They're children and they are not responsible for the actions of adults who are attracted to them or keen on abusing them. Someone CANNOT be on this website AND genuinely not in contact with any minors ever.

[the-radical-inclusionist-deacti]

This is a response to facebidets, On Gate Keeping the “LGBT community”

Facebidets original response to me can be found here: https://facebidets.tumblr.com/post/165480583862/on-gate-keeping-the-lgbt-community-queer

what aesthetic is centralized around the lack of LGBT sex and sexual attraction? When we discuss white nationalism, a “white aesthetic” implies cultural markers, skin color, phenotypical characteristics, and so on. Physical - visual markers are identified and scrutinized. 

So what is a non-sexual, a-sexual aesthetic in the eyes of the LGBT community? I’m not really sure how people visually identify and marginalize these traits in order to other cis hetero-asexuality or hetero-aromanticism. 

Are you implying that whiteness is an observable characteristic? When were the Irish and Italians officially inducted into whiteness? You don’t gauge LGBT-ness visually. It’s an identity. People identify as such and they are inducted into LGBT-ness. In order for me to tackle this I have to say once again: there is no observable thing such as an “LGBT community”. There is a political organization of people who band together for common political purposes and this organization of people is dictated by the organizations that control advocacy for these constituent groups, which means if those orgs include asexuals in the LGBT+ umbrella, guess what? There’s literally nothing you can do outside of blatant bigotry to keep them out, and even then, your position is divorced from that of the orgs, officially making you not a member of the LGBT+ movement.

The very term LGBT implies a lack of homogeny. Lots of safe spaces exist with the exclusion of outside groups which occupy privileged roles in society relative to a specific issue.

This is not true. LGBT orgs fight collectively for the rights of LGBT people. You want to show me where GLAAD only fights for the rights of gays and lesbians? While this may have been historically true, these orgs have expanded to deal with a range of issues. So the orgs that constitute the LGBT movement 100% treat LGBT as a homogenous group.

You’re drawing upon language here that simultaneously presents LGBT people as overwhelmingly Queer Nationalist while at the same time using the language of people who want to avoid colonization/columbusing from “invaders.” 

This is a strawman. I’m presenting exclusionists as queer nationalists, not LGBT people. The same rhetoric used by anti-imperialists and anti-colonialists is appropriated by white nationalists and other identitarian groups to describe an invasion of what they view as rightfully theirs. Queer nationalists view “queerness” and “LGBT-ness” as theirs to arbitrate; however, because there is a lack of consensus among LGBTs, this makes their declaration that they alone can determine “queerness” and “LGBT-ness” arbitrary (and effectively non-authoritative), determined solely by their own prejudices.

I’m not sure what a criticism of racism amongst white LGBT people has to do with the exclusion/inclusion discourse, to be honest with you. As a bisexual woc, I understand very well that my best allies are other POC first and foremost. But this does not mean I don’t consider myself LGBT. It also does not mean the term LGBT was build purely for whites or white gays. 

You missed the point of this paragraph. I was beginning my polemic on how there is no such thing as a LGBT “community”. This paragraph didn’t even mention racism. I used Peter Thiel and black trans women arbitrarily.

of course LGBT people share common political goals of being people that suffer under homophobia or transphobia. Why would you argue that “LGBT” as a community term is anything but representative of shared political goals between multiple varied groups with similar social issues? 

I should’ve been clearer. One of the first arguments against my position I encountered was “there’s more to the LGBT community than politics” so when I wrote this, I was addressing that there is no such thing as an abstract LGBT community, only an LGBT political movement with shared political goals, but nothing else.

But why? You claim there is an exclusionist definition of community, but don’t give us one. You simply say it must meet the guidelines of being a tangible entity “outside of a simple political collective.” But again, why? The term “people of color” was utilized by activists of minoritized ethnicities for the purposes of political solidarity amongst non-white americans who experienced Racism. To reach across different ethnicities, races, and cultures, in order to work on common problems and sources of oppression (racism). 

Because determining what constitutes a community helps in deconstructing the argument that there is some intangible, monolith known as the “LGBT community”. This goes to pushing my point that the only thing that joins these groups together is politics, and by extension the political organizations which they are associated with.

“have something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity.” 

so here, lived experiences that have commonalities - like experiencing homophobia/transphobia/biphobia/nbphobia - do not count as “something in common”? What about the long shared identity of people who were vilified for having either the “wrong gender” or “wrong sexuality” (i.e. “inverts” and “homophiles” and “trans” and the many earlier intersections of these things)? 

Absolutely none of the groups under the umbrella share anything in common. Gay men might share gayness with other gay men, but that is limited by their race, class, religion, gender, age, ability, etc. Arguing that they “share homophobia” in common is so vague as to be meaningless. Does a gay trans guy experience homophobia the same way as a cis gay guy? How about a black gay guy, or a disabled black gay guy? Among gay men alone there is absolutely nothing that dictates that shared experience of homophobia is truly the same thing. They might all experience homophobia in the abstract, but it is reductive to say it is the same homophobia.

Earnestly this just lacks knowledge of the history of the LGBT identities, and how they were viewed, particularly in the 19th century and onwards. Same-gender desires were often seen as a person being born to the “wrong” body/gender/sex for their attraction. Thus an “invert” woman was a woman who had a “man’s attractions” (to other women). The fact was that all lesbian, gay, bi, and trans folks very early on were considered people who were outside the binary gender norms of cis-ness and heterosexuality combined. Cis gays, bisexuals, and lesbians are still outside the gender binary in the sense that the binary demands heterosexuality as the norm of the male and female genders. 

You’re talking about the Uranians? Originally, lesbians weren’t considered Uranians. Karl Heinrich Ulrichs had to expand his axis multiple times to include lesbians, masculine gay men, etc. All this shows me is that as he learned of more types, he added more types to his axis. Who knows what he would’ve thought of asexuals. Regardless, this is a genetic fallacy. There is no rational reason to limit the definition of LGBT based off 19th century presumptions of sexuality and gender, especially if the term only exists to describe political alliances.  

So now we are talking about a shared commonality of identity that developed out of people whose society considered them to be outside the “accepted” social gender and sexual binaries. A shared identity developed out of people who were told they were the wrong sex or gender for their desires– and others who simply felt they were the wrong sex/gender period (for their personality, or otherwise). For example, some would go on in time to identify as Butch lesbian women, while others would identify as trans men attracted to women, and still more would go on to be trans men who were attracted to other men. 

Shared identity for who? White gays? Black lesbians? It’s interesting how you have to erase intersectionality in order to fabricate this argument. Did gay African slaves experience these arbitrary categories? How was there lived experience compared to a gay white land owner? There was no shared experience, and communities back then were even smaller.  

The meeting point of sex-gender-sexual or romantic attraction/desire and the reaction of society to those who would be outside the expected binary of cisgender-heterosexual is how we developed “LGBT” on shared identity, shared experience, and shared political concerns (homophobia, transphobia). 

This is literally ahistorical nonsense. I even provided a link to the Wikipedia article on the term “LGBT” which traced its etymological origins to 1988. The term was never used before then to identify such a phenomena.

Exactly - your above definition of a community includes commonality of identity, which you just outlined and admitted exists. So the LGBT community exists, by your own definition, and my mine. Not sure what you’re aiming to say here, but “share commonalities based off those identities” is absolutely a defining characteristic, and one of a community. 

You misunderstood what I was saying here. I was saying those commonalities only exist within the very limited communities which share enough in common to actually have something resembling a shared” identity”, i.e white cis gays, white cis lesbians, black trans heteros, etc. There are a bunch of micro communities that band together for politics, and those communities are represented by political orgs, which express the collective interests of those communities in the public arena, and those orgs have added a new community to the mix and now the NIMBYs are mad.  

The rest of your argument only devolves from here, and I’m not sure it’s worth me engaging with at all. 

That’s because you were hinging on a misreading of what I wrote.  

I’ll just say this, if you’re white (and I have to assume), then I am deeply uncomfortable with the appropriation of immigrant/nativist rhetoric used against LGBT people, as if none of us LGBT poc or LGBT immigrants exist. I’m also deeply uncomfortable with someone who, is in all likelihood, neither indigenous nor Jewish, using “tribalism” as a strong negative. 

Well you would be wrong to assume. So stop trying to use your identity to shield yourself from criticism when you don’t respect the identities of others. You also don’t seem to understand what the word “tribalism” means.

What is the difference between an oppressed group not desiring to be colonized, and the difference between a nativist group wishing to keep themselves “pure”? Do you not understand that there are massive differences between the reactions of oppressed peoples towards colonizers and oppressors and the actions supremacists and nativists?

In order to make this argument, you must first prove that asexuals are in the position of social dominance to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people. If you can effectively prove that a) asexuals have social dominance over all members of the LGBT movement and b) that asexuals have used this social dominance to marginalize all members of the LGBT movement, then you can make this argument. Right now it just sounds like you want to deflect the fact that you’re aren’t the victim in this situation, YOU are the aggressor. You have identified immigrants with no social power over you as colonists with social power over you. It is the exact same narrative as a nativist or a national supremacist.

What are the fundamental characteristics of “exclusionist” supremacy that seeks to subjugate all all cis heterosexuals? When white LGBT people are white nationalists or homonationalists, it is because they are oppressing others on the axis of Race and Ethnicity. What axis are you referring to with regards to cis-hetero asexuals or aromantics? How is this comparable to deadly and vile racism? Why do you define it as different from anti-colonial, or de-colonial impulses?

As I identified earlier, exclusionists often state the national ties one must have in order to be included in the nation. The paperwork they demand must be stamped as strictly experiencing same-sex/gender attraction or gender variation. The problem is that your country (The LGBT+ movement) has already accepted asexuals as part of the nation, and now you all are just saying “they ain’t American enough”.

[facebidets]

Honestly, I don’t feel like you really truly engaged what I said, or if you tried to, then you lack some of the full context of your own arguments/ideological recitations. 

Unfortunately the response you’ve given me goes off into far too many directions. 

Are you implying that whiteness is an observable characteristic? When were the Irish and Italians officially inducted into whiteness?

Are you implying that A.) there is not a racialized “white aesthetic” which affects everyone and which is perpetuated in the name of white supremacy and B.) are you trying to say that “aesthetic” has nothing to do with visuality? 

If the former, I don’t know what to tell you except to say that literally every system of systemic racism privileges visual criteria/markers of whiteness - everything from facial characteristics to assimilation (if say, you were an Italian or Irish immigrant). If you’re really a poc as you’ve claimed, how can you make an argument otherwise? Why do you think colorism exists? It’s because people privilege those who are lighter or more white than those who are darker. Why do you think racial passing exists? Why is it that as a light skinned mestiza, I have people insist I don’t “look” Mexican, if Mexican doesn’t conjure up someone who does not fit a white aesthetic in their mind? 

If the latter, please review what “aesthetic” means. A white aesthetic is a form of white supremacy that privileges whiteness (from visuality, to culture, to art, to expression in public) as true beauty or the only “Real” beauty over everything else. 

You don’t gauge LGBT-ness visually. It’s an identity. 

On the contrary, visual signaling of LGBT-ness has always existed. Why? Because gender norms inform social expectations for (”only”) two genders, male and female, who then dress, act, behave, and engage in romantic/sexual/emotional relationships in set ways. 

You can’t possibly tell me you’ve never seen a butch woman. You can’t tell me that the 19th-20th century didn’t develop complex visual, linguistic, or cultural identifiers for lesbians, gay men, bisexual folks, and trans people. Just because something is not inherently “obvious” at first sight, and just because you can’t always “tell” that someone is LGBT by looking at them, does not mean there is nothing which functions as visual markers of being LGBT or that there is no LGBT aesthetic. 

People identify as such and they are inducted into LGBT-ness. In order for me to tackle this I have to say once again: there is no observable thing such as an “LGBT community”. There is a political organization of people who band together for common political purposes 

There is no formal induction to being LGBT. I did not have to go to a PFLAG meeting to get inducted. Further, again, everything you’ve described IS observable. You seem incredibly confused as to how anything visual works. 

I frankly have no idea what your point really is in the following paragraphs. It seems like “being centered around politics means you aren’t a community but also if you don’t like the politics of certain organizations, you’re a bigot in the community.” I suspect you’re trolling. None of this feels linear. 

Absolutely none of the groups under the umbrella share anything in common. Gay men might share gayness with other gay men, but that is limited by their race, class, religion, gender, age, ability, etc. Arguing that they “share homophobia” in common is so vague as to be meaningless. Does a gay trans guy experience homophobia the same way as a cis gay guy? How about a black gay guy, or a disabled black gay guy? Among gay men alone there is absolutely nothing that dictates that shared experience of homophobia is truly the same thing. They might all experience homophobia in the abstract, but it is reductive to say it is the same homophobia.

Congrats, that’s...I mean you’ve inverted the idea of intersectionality pretty spectacularly. It doesn’t make a damn bit of sense, and you’re debunking claims no one made to bring up intersecting issues, but you sure did write those words in that order! Which is certainly...well, it’s something. 

“They might all experience [x] in the abstract, but that’s not a shared experience because having words that encompass nuance is reductive.” 

Regardless, this is a genetic fallacy. There is no rational reason to limit the definition of LGBT based off 19th century presumptions of sexuality and gender, especially if the term only exists to describe political alliances.  

You wildly misunderstood my point, which is that these fallacies impacted/influenced a shared originating experience of later, modern identities of being lesbian, gay, bi, or trans. 

Of course they’re 19th century presumptions based on nonsense! My point is that nonsense became relevant to the historical development of modern sexual and gender identities. 

Pray tell me this:

Shared identity for who? White gays? Black lesbians? It’s interesting how you have to erase intersectionality in order to fabricate this argument. Did gay African slaves experience these arbitrary categories? How was there lived experience compared to a gay white land owner? There was no shared experience, and communities back then were even smaller.  

why argue that I cannot possibly talk about how late 19th century ideas influenced the later development of the “LGBT” community, but YOU, personally, are allowed to discuss the black gay slave identity when the emancipation proclamation happened in 1863? Why would talking about nuance and various identities and historical developments be a denial of intersectionality? 

On the other hand, why minimize shared experiences? If you pretend there is no commonality, or you pretend it is ALL commonality, either way you have played into a dangerous fallacy of historiography. 

Honestly I see a lot of non-historians claim things are “ahistorical nonsense” but as a professional historian, frankly, wikipedia is not a final word on anything, and my giving a context to something developing over several decades is not “ahistorical.” 

That’s just not what that word means! 

You also don’t seem to understand what the word “tribalism” means.

Hon, the page for Tribalism literally mentions Judaism in the first paragraph. Because we’re a tribal people. 

I don’t fail to understand, you just don’t have a better counter to my criticism of using rhetoric which attacks tribalism. 

YOU are the aggressor. 

Ahh, see, I am an ace bisexual woman. I am proudly LGBT. (See, you can make assumptions too!) 

I don’t need to do any of this:

In order to make this argument, you must first prove that asexuals are in the position of social dominance to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people. If you can effectively prove that a) asexuals have social dominance over all members of the LGBT movement and b) that asexuals have used this social dominance to marginalize all members of the LGBT movement, then you can make this argument. 

Because it’s very very simple. If someone is ace AND a lesbian, gay, bisexual(/pan), trans, or nonbinary/agender person, then they are also LGBT. 

When I say the LGBT community shares experiences of homophobia and transphobia (and their overlap), I am defining the axis I am considering. And so long as someone experiences homophobia or transphobia, then they are LGBT, regardless of whether or not they are also asexual! 

HOWEVER, this means, by contrast, a cisgender asexual hetero-attracted person does not experience 1.) homophobia, 2.) transphobia, or 3.) a combination thereof. 

It means that a cishet ace person can oppress and marginalize LGBT people. 

now if you want to argue that say, there is some kind of oppression based on the AMOUNT of sexual drive or desire you have (that is also somehow, in no way linked to gender/sexism/misogyny/patriarchy) then I think that’s a bad idea, but you could do that. And THAT would be a different discussion (albeit a misguided one). But as long as some ace people are also LGBT (like me!) and some ace people are also cis/het then yes, it is absolutely sensible to state that cisgender hetero-attracted people who never experience homophobia or transphobia or a combination thereof are A.) not LGBT and B.) capable of oppressing or marginalizing LGBT people. 

Top top off your ridiculousness:

As I identified earlier, exclusionists often state the national ties one must have in order to be included in the nation. The paperwork they demand must be stamped as strictly experiencing same-sex/gender attraction or gender variation. The problem is that your country (The LGBT+ movement) has already accepted asexuals as part of the nation, and now you all are just saying “they ain’t American enough”.

from a proud jewish chicana: never use xenophobic nativism as your rhetorical prop again. it’s insulting and absurd. 

[johncribati]

Anyone who reduces asexuality to “not wanting to fuck” is logically reducing all other sexualities to “wanting to fuck” so write that down

[facebidets]

similarly, anyone who uses the split-attraction model reduces all other sexualities to “wanting to fuck” or “sexual urges to fuck” - which is why saying something like “ace homoromantic” is reductive and inherently sexualizes say, all other gay people. 

[the-radical-inclusionist-deacti]

On Gate Keeping the “LGBT community”: Queer Tribalism & Nationalism

Exclusionists on Tumblr, aside from being painfully illiterate and big fans of strawman arguments, aren’t interested in a discourse. Like any bigot, they are interested in attacking the target group to preserve an ideology, a hierarchy, an aesthetic. This idea being that the “LGBT+ community” is some homogeneous, monolithic entity that needs to be protected from foreign invaders. The idea that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people form some type of material network regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, nationality, and class is demonstrably false. Please show me where Peter Thiel’s extensive network of associates includes poor black transwomen. The same could be said for Ellen DeGeneres.

But in order to remove that criterion, that LGBT people form some tangible network of people that share anything outside of a common political goals, we must disseminate what a community is. First, we must define community and formulate boundaries which hold that definition together, and in order for it to be consistent with the exclusionist conception of community, it must meet the guidelines of being some tangible entity outside of a simple political collective. In essence, the “LGBT community” must manifest in some way that is not expressly for political purposes or is unassociated with political organizations.

A community is a small or large social unit (a group of people) who have something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity. Communities often share a sense of place that is situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, town, or neighborhood) or in virtual space through communication platforms.[1]

From this definition, we could ostensibly argue that there is some kind of LGBT+ community, but on further inspection, the Balkanization of that community is too extensive to exert any one criterion as a homogenizing force. Same sex/gender attraction? To what or which gender? Gays and lesbians aren’t attracted to the same sex/gender as one another. Bisexuals don’t have a monosexual attraction and may or may not be trans, and trans people may experience monosexual attraction or not. Even if we try an intersectional approach and posit a hypothetical trans bisexual as the common thread, a trans bisexual does not experience monosexual attraction or the cisgender experiences of lesbians and gays, and likewise, a monosexual transgender person will not experience the bisexual experience. Gender deviation? Gays and lesbians aren’t guaranteed to be trans, and even when they are, they are certainly not bisexual as they identify with a monosexual orientation, so this once again cuts them away from the bisexuals.

With that said, there is absolutely not a singular defining characteristic that would objectively compose an LGBT+ “community”. The LGBT+ “community” doesn’t meet any of the criteria used to define a community. What we can say is that there is a gay community, a lesbian community, a bisexual community, and a trans community, and they share commonalities based off those identities, and for people that fall into multiple groupings there are trans gay communities, trans bi communities, trans lesbian communities, and nonbinary/agender variations thereof. But with the various levels of privilege allotted to different groups and layers of oppression, these groups are not the same. A cisgender gay does not experience societal oppression in the same way a transgender gay does. For example, Trumps military ban influences a trans gays ability to join the military, but not a cis gays ability to join. So saying that a cis gay and a trans gay could form a community based off their sexuality is tenuous because although they experience same sex/gender attraction, their experience of that attraction is flavored by socialization, privilege, and oppression. In other words, their gayness is not the same gayness by any stretch of the imagination. Some have even posited that the gay community doesn’t constitute a community in the strictest sense of the word.[2]

So with this definition of community thoroughly divorced from its use in the term “LGBT community”, what now binds them? Taking a materialist approach, one would argue something real and tangible has to be binding these groups together because they certainly aren’t anything as homogenous as a community. That binding agent? Politics, or, specifically, political organizations which are intended to advocate for these groups.

A trip through history shows us how the LGBT+ political entity formed. After Stonewall, the resultant revolutionary air led to the formation of several political entities including the Gay Liberation Front, with its communistic leanings [3]; the Lavender Menace, a partition of the GLF for lesbians; and the proto-transgender STAR, Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries, which focused on helping under privileged queer youth and trans women of color.[4] Retroactively these collective movements have been referred to by historians as “LGBT” social movements. In fact the decided use of this language, “LGBT”, actually obscures the fact that the first gay rights movements were expressly exclusionary to trans gender people, fighting only for sexual orientation to be included in the 1980 Democratic Party national platform. [5]

With the assimilation of a host of LGBT rights causes under the Democratic party’s national banner, around 1988 the “LGBT” initialism begins to see use. [6] This is most likely because the Democratic Party understood that for political viability, the gay rights movements had to become more inclusive and broaden their banners. In its current incarnation, the LGBT+ movement has become a multimillion dollar political entity capable of having an impact on a broad range of policy making issues.

“LGBT” has become a brand and a political movement, but the term itself has never reflected a “community” in the abstract; rather, the term was explicitly used to rally all the liberal gender and minority movements under a common banner, to the deliberate exclusion of conservative and far-left lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and trans people

So what exactly are reactionary exclusionists gate keeping? LGBT+ summer camps that willingly and knowingly allow asexual kids in? Organizations which willingly and knowingly include asexuals as part of the LGBT+ movement? I can only imagine what these reactionaries are fighting for is something metaphysical. A national aesthetic. To them, LGBT is a nation, and asexuals are interlopers of this proud nation. They are immigrants seeking inclusion only to be turned away by the essentialists and nationalists. It is no surprise why the rhetoric of exclusionists draws parallels to other forms of nationalism.They must maintain the purity of the tribe from all intruders. 

The exclusionist is a nationalist, and like any nationalist, their concerns are metaphysical and emotional. Asexuals don’t pose a material threat to them, they pose an existential and spiritual threat to their national aesthetic.

[1] http://www.sociologyencyclopedia.com/public/tocnode?query=community&widen=1&result_number=1&from=search&id=g9781405124331_yr2015_chunk_g97814051243319_ss1-77&type=std&fuzzy=0&slop=1

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/01/have-gay-americans-outgrown-their-community/384996/

[3] https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/pwh/glf-london.asp

[4] Shepard, Benjamin Heim and Ronald Hayduk (2002) From ACT UP to the WTO: Urban Protest and Community Building in the Era of Globalization. Verso. pp.156-160

[5] https://www.britannica.com/topic/gay-rights-movement

[6] https://books.google.com/books?ei=PW9JTfOeOtPd4AbR54SjDA&ct=result&id=PiglAQAAIAAJ

[facebidets]

To be honest with you, I recognize the theoretical terms and academic language you’re using, but have no idea what you’re actually trying to argue or say. 

they are interested in attacking the target group to preserve an ideology, a hierarchy, an aesthetic. 

what aesthetic is centralized around the lack of LGBT sex and sexual attraction? When we discuss white nationalism, a “white aesthetic” implies cultural markers, skin color, phenotypical characteristics, and so on. Physical - visual markers are identified and scrutinized. 

So what is a non-sexual, a-sexual aesthetic in the eyes of the LGBT community? I’m not really sure how people visually identify and marginalize these traits in order to other cis hetero-asexuality or hetero-aromanticism. 

This idea being that the “LGBT+ community” is some homogeneous, monolithic entity that needs to be protected from foreign invaders.

The very term LGBT implies a lack of homogeny. Lots of safe spaces exist with the exclusion of outside groups which occupy privileged roles in society relative to a specific issue. You’re drawing upon language here that simultaneously presents LGBT people as overwhelmingly Queer Nationalist while at the same time using the language of people who want to avoid colonization/columbusing from “invaders.” 

The idea that lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people form some type of material network regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, nationality, and class is demonstrably false. Please show me where Peter Thiel’s extensive network of associates includes poor black transwomen. The same could be said for Ellen DeGeneres.

I’m not sure what a criticism of racism amongst white LGBT people has to do with the exclusion/inclusion discourse, to be honest with you. As a bisexual woc, I understand very well that my best allies are other POC first and foremost. But this does not mean I don’t consider myself LGBT. It also does not mean the term LGBT was build purely for whites or white gays. 

But in order to remove that criterion, that LGBT people form some tangible network of people that share anything outside of a common political goals, we must disseminate what a community is.

of course LGBT people share common political goals of being people that suffer under homophobia or transphobia. Why would you argue that “LGBT” as a community term is anything but representative of shared political goals between multiple varied groups with similar social issues? 

First, we must define community and formulate boundaries which hold that definition together, and in order for it to be consistent with the exclusionist conception of community, it must meet the guidelines of being some tangible entity outside of a simple political collective. In essence, the “LGBT community” must manifest in some way that is not expressly for political purposes or is unassociated with political organizations.

But why? You claim there is an exclusionist definition of community, but don’t give us one. You simply say it must meet the guidelines of being a tangible entity “outside of a simple political collective.” But again, why? The term “people of color” was utilized by activists of minoritized ethnicities for the purposes of political solidarity amongst non-white americans who experienced Racism. To reach across different ethnicities, races, and cultures, in order to work on common problems and sources of oppression (racism). 

“have something in common, such as norms, religion, values, or identity.” 

so here, lived experiences that have commonalities - like experiencing homophobia/transphobia/biphobia/nbphobia - do not count as “something in common”? What about the long shared identity of people who were vilified for having either the “wrong gender” or “wrong sexuality” (i.e. “inverts” and “homophiles” and “trans” and the many earlier intersections of these things)? 

we could ostensibly argue that there is some kind of LGBT+ community, but on further inspection, the Balkanization of that community is too extensive to exert any one criterion as a homogenizing force. Same sex/gender attraction? To what or which gender? Gays and lesbians aren’t attracted to the same sex/gender as one another. Bisexuals don’t have a monosexual attraction and may or may not be trans, and trans people may experience monosexual attraction or not. Even if we try an intersectional approach and posit a hypothetical trans bisexual as the common thread, a trans bisexual does not experience monosexual attraction or the cisgender experiences of lesbians and gays, and likewise, a monosexual transgender person will not experience the bisexual experience. Gender deviation? Gays and lesbians aren’t guaranteed to be trans, and even when they are, they are certainly not bisexual as they identify with a monosexual orientation, so this once again cuts them away from the bisexuals.

Earnestly this just lacks knowledge of the history of the LGBT identities, and how they were viewed, particularly in the 19th century and onwards. Same-gender desires were often seen as a person being born to the “wrong” body/gender/sex for their attraction. Thus an “invert” woman was a woman who had a “man’s attractions” (to other women). The fact was that all lesbian, gay, bi, and trans folks very early on were considered people who were outside the binary gender norms of cis-ness and heterosexuality combined. Cis gays, bisexuals, and lesbians are still outside the gender binary in the sense that the binary demands heterosexuality as the norm of the male and female genders. 

So now we are talking about a shared commonality of identity that developed out of people whose society considered them to be outside the “accepted” social gender and sexual binaries. A shared identity developed out of people who were told they were the wrong sex or gender for their desires-- and others who simply felt they were the wrong sex/gender period (for their personality, or otherwise). For example, some would go on in time to identify as Butch lesbian women, while others would identify as trans men attracted to women, and still more would go on to be trans men who were attracted to other men. 

The meeting point of sex-gender-sexual or romantic attraction/desire and the reaction of society to those who would be outside the expected binary of cisgender-heterosexual is how we developed “LGBT” on shared identity, shared experience, and shared political concerns (homophobia, transphobia). 

With that said, there is absolutely not a singular defining characteristic that would objectively compose an LGBT+ “community”. The LGBT+ “community” doesn’t meet any of the criteria used to define a community. What we can say is that there is a gay community, a lesbian community, a bisexual community, and a trans community, and they share commonalities based off those identities, 

Exactly - your above definition of a community includes commonality of identity, which you just outlined and admitted exists. So the LGBT community exists, by your own definition, and my mine. Not sure what you’re aiming to say here, but “share commonalities based off those identities” is absolutely a defining characteristic, and one of a community. 

The rest of your argument only devolves from here, and I’m not sure it’s worth me engaging with at all. 

So with this definition of community thoroughly divorced from its use in the term “LGBT community”, what now binds them? Taking a materialist approach, one would argue something real and tangible has to be binding these groups together because they certainly aren’t anything as homogenous as a community. That binding agent? Politics, or, specifically, political organizations which are intended to advocate for these groups.

The community you described meets the definition of community you yourself used. What now binds them? Shared commonality of identities, shared systemic oppression experiences of transphobia or homophobia (and their often-overlapping qualities). Systemic oppression already has material effects, and there you go! LGBT politics is often in relation to the material impact of homophobia and transphobia. 

If your point is “some white people are racist” and “some cis people are transphobic” then yes, these things are true. That doesn’t mean that the LGBT community doesn’t exist or doesn’t exist on the basis of something. Not really sure what any of this had to do with homonationalism/queer nationalism. 

I’ll just say this, if you’re white (and I have to assume), then I am deeply uncomfortable with the appropriation of immigrant/nativist rhetoric used against LGBT people, as if none of us LGBT poc or LGBT immigrants exist. I’m also deeply uncomfortable with someone who, is in all likelihood, neither indigenous nor Jewish, using “tribalism” as a strong negative. 

I can only imagine what these reactionaries are fighting for is something metaphysical. A national aesthetic. To them, LGBT is a nation, and asexuals are interlopers of this proud nation. They are immigrants seeking inclusion only to be turned away by the essentialists and nationalists. It is no surprise why the rhetoric of exclusionists draws parallels to other forms of nationalism.They must maintain the purity of the tribe from all intruders.

Let’s reframe this: 

What ‘National Aesthetic’? (This was my opening question). How is the aesthetic of a cis hetero-asexual or hetero-aromantic person at all comparable to the concerns of say, a “white aesthetic” built on vile racism and hundreds of years of caste systems and blood quanta? 

What is the difference between an oppressed group not desiring to be colonized, and the difference between a nativist group wishing to keep themselves “pure”? Do you not understand that there are massive differences between the reactions of oppressed peoples towards colonizers and oppressors and the actions supremacists and nativists?

What are the fundamental characteristics of “exclusionist” supremacy that seeks to subjugate all all cis heterosexuals? When white LGBT people are white nationalists or homonationalists, it is because they are oppressing others on the axis of Race and Ethnicity. What axis are you referring to with regards to cis-hetero asexuals or aromantics? How is this comparable to deadly and vile racism? Why do you define it as different from anti-colonial, or de-colonial impulses?

[sakkaya-ditthi]

Assertion

Asexual people aren’t getting sent off to conversion camps

You know why?

Most of those are run by religious organizations (mainly Christian fundamentalist groups)

who believe that 

sex outside of marriage is a sin

sex should only be procreative

sex for recreation is sinful

only committed partners should be having sex (… sounds like the whole concept of demisexuals that y’all pulled out of your ass)

Tumblr cishet aces and aros are basically their Holy Grail

Y’all are reaching so fucking hard for oppression cookies that you don’t even know how the groups you’re talking about function

[vulpixtrans]

idk about your experience with christianity op but i went to a christian private school for ten years and i promise you bigoted conservative christians do not believe asexuals are straight, they believe it is a humans job to marry and to have kids and if i had come out as asexual when i was still attending that school i would have been putting myself in serious danger

also idk how many times we have to go over this but asexuality and cellibacy are not the same thing, asexuality is an orientation, cellibacy is a choice and i didnt choose to be ace

[colorisbyshe]

aces can still marry and have kids so can y'all stop this shit 😪

also asexuality isn’t an orientation it’s a modifier thanks

[facebidets]

I can link y'all to multiple xtian fundamentalist websites that say the exact opposite of that and also my experience growing up Catholic and being told that the only way to avoid going to hell because I was attracted to women was to just never act on any sexual desires (or have them!) @a-spec. My roommate also went to an evangelical fundie college and no one would have cared if she'd been outed as ace (and therefore chaste and pure and devoting herself to God!) but she would have literally been expelled if anyone had found out she was a lesbian.

[discourseofdata]

Since my good friend Davis, aka @bendyscourse, thinks she can threaten me with releasing my IP address, I’m gonna beat her to it and carry it to its natural conclusion. That’s right kiddies, Data is gonna dox herself.

Home IP: 68.184.90.145 Name: Raven Kelsey Tidwell Email: [email protected] Phone: [phone] Address: 2635 Bent Hickory dr, Smyrna, GA 30082

[facebidets]

.........how old are you? this is so stupid you should not have done this. 

[goobra]

how many receipts do we have to pull up before inclusionists stop saying “so a FEW aces say (homophobic / transphobic / antisemitic / serophobic / transmisogynistic / racist / lesbophobic / biphobic) things and now they represent the whole community ??” like. we’ve got the receipts.

[wizardweedykz]

So a FEW gay people say (transphobic / antiseptic / serophobic / transmysogynistic / racist / biphobic ) things and now they represent the whole community???

[goobra]

i mean…. for some of these, yes ? the gay community does have an issue with transphobia, including transmisogyny, it does have an issue with biphobia, and it especially has an issue with racism.

i haven’t seen an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the community as a whole being serophobic or antisemitic, so i can’t say one way or another whether those claims are true or not, but like. yea, the gay community has problems with these things.

the difference is that to an extent, members of the gay community have admitted to the issues with racism and transphobia, etc. and there have been large scale efforts to solve these issues.

but there’s been nothing like that in the ace community, just a bunch of apologists and excuses. inclusionists can’t help but defend the blatant antisemitism, biphobia, etc. that comes from the ace community. y’all are so vehemently denying all your problems, you’re unable to actually work on solving any of them.

[discourseful]

i’ve seen PLENTLY of cis gay people (notably lesbians) say “hey, there’s an issue with transphobia in our community and we need to work to do better for our trans siblings. here’s how we can go about this/@ trans people, how do you think we should go about this”. i’ve yet to see any more than the occasional rare post from an ace person (which often gets ignored) about it.

i’ve also seen a lot of ace people not want to interact with the community at ALL after realizing how many issues it has and seeing how unwilling people are to so much as address them.

[bipeoplearentyourpawns]

The main difference that I see is even in the wording of posts like this. Ace tumblr refers to bad things in their community as “a few people” while gay people (who don’t suck) refer to bad things in our community as “a community issue”. Y'all really can’t take responsibility for anything can you

[arolations]

“But isn’t having sex with people that you’re not in love with cruel and manipulative?”

Translation: I love recycling SWERF rhetoric in order to shit on aromantic people.

[facebidets]

I'm genuinely confused by this, are you saying like...aromantic people are equivalent to sex workers? Are you saying people are comparing aromantic people having sex to sex workers doing their job....? Is the criticism really "ugh this is cruel and manipulative" or is it more like "in an on-going/long term sexual relationship outside of sex work, people often expect like...emotional connection, care, and empathy, and if you don't tell them that will never happen, then THAT is probably unkind."

??

[teacourse]

“no romo” is the most embarrassing thing you could ever say and just typing it out makes me feel the need to take a shower

[arolations]

Translation: I hate aromantic people so much that a harmless aro joke makes me extremely angry. No fun allowed! Please avoid me at all costs.

[teacourse]

Yes please avoid me

[facebidets]

I'm cackling

[allosecual-archive]

people acting like they can “”“choose to be queer”“” is the dumbest fucking thing i have encountered on this site. not choose to use it as an identifier, but that queer is some kind of super hip new orientation that people can slap on themselves

like queer. is a slur. that has historically been linked with the violent oppression of lgbt ppl.

if you choose to use queer, either by simply reclaiming it, or even going as far as identifying as queer to indicate either your gender (genderqueer) or sexuality, that’s perfectly fine! AS LONG AS YOURE LGBT

there is no such thing as “the queer community”. there is no special community for people who choose to reclaim a violent slur. if you believe that there’s a separate “queer community” or that it’s ok to refer to the lgbt community as a whole as “queer” then please stay the fuck away from me

thanks to fucking cishet invaders and people who don’t understand our history, this potentially empowering reclaimed word has been even FURTHER appropriated and used against us, so fucking thanks for that, pricks.

[dilutedd]

“I, a cis aroace, see myself as queer therefore i am” is the most vile, disgusting statement I’ve read since the notes of That Post from Last Night

[lemon-bunny]

it’s true! some of the shitty things @pocketace said:

a) “Are you really suggesting that the government just let millions of people die from AIDS? Seriously?” 

b) after having it explained to her that the government refused to make medications available to people with HIV/AIDS during the AIDS crisis “Yeah, because of regulations, not because it was for the LGBT+ community.  They (they being the researchers) didn’t want to cure people/treat people with AIDS to have them wind up dropping dead of Cancer or some other side effect because they rushed a drug onto the market.” 

c) “All I said was that the government didn’t immediately release any medication because it had to go through a testing process to avoid any undesirable side effects.  Curing/treating AIDS would do no good if everyone who received the medication immediately died of cancer or another serious side effect.It’s not like I advocated for bombing and killing children or something.  I’m not going to apologize for saying something that is the truth.”

her response to people telling her to actually do research on the AIDS epidemic was basically “send me links with info then”. and when someone came to her inbox not seeming as (rightfully) angry as everyone else, her response was essentially “look at this nice person holding my hand and walking me through not being a disrespectful piece of shit, you should all learn from anon!” 

and after all of this, she condescendingly responded to an ask (that was giving her information about where to go to learn more about the AIDS crisis) with “I don’t know a whole hell of a lot about the AIDS epidemic” like yeah, no shit!! she eventually apologized, but then right after.. got pissed at an anon for criticizing her and she said “I NEVER accused gay people of lying about the AIDS crisis” then called the anon a b*tch. wow. 

@discourseful, @dare-i-say-asexual, @rebelbaze (thanks for this info, i had no idea this happened??) 

[dare-i-say-asexual]

Holy fucking shit some anon told me this like an hour ago and I couldn’t believe it and hearing it again now I still can’t believe it?? Who let this actual violent homophobe into the discourse????

[lemon-bunny]

yeah and now she’s playing the victim, acting like we’re all harassing her and smearing her name by bringing this up lol. so much for a mature, genuine apology! 

[facebidets]

God. The entire discourse is based on violent homophobia, it just feels like some people are more subtle about it than others. 

[aquilarios-deactivated20180610]

what's the problem with vaspider?

As @pastimperfection stated, they purposely misrepresent their position to invade conversations between lesbian/gay and trans people.

My personal run-ins with them, they’re A-OK with speaking for POC, but immediately turning around and not listening if said POC do not share their facile politics (as it was the case for me wrt the q slur and the whiteness of the aro/ace movement). They’ve also heavily implied they’re no longer white because they’re a Jewish convert, which is offensive to Jewish POC.

I don’t want them to starve or anything, but I think it’s important for people to know where their money is going, and making an informed decision for themselves. In my case, I wouldn’t want to spend money on products made by a loudmouthed (as in constantly positing themselves as a ‘qu**r elder’) racist.

[facebidets]

Let's be real clear here they also felt fine throwing other Jewish people under the bus for saying something felt or seemed antisemitic when it didn't suit their politics. They backed the lumping of Jewish folks with neo-Nazis on that one owl person's generic block list and that's me saying that as a non-white Jewish convert. I don't trust them.

[rosiemutual-deactivated20180308]

i dont get how exclusionists argue that aces arent lgbt bc “they werent included until recently!1!” and then say the acronym is “lgbtpn”. like u didnt exactly see genderfluid people throwing rocks at stonewall either lmao

[pinkcourse]

Actually a lot of people throughout LGBT history didn’t consider themselves fully men or women or thought of themselves as genderless or inbetween the two

[lemon-bunny]

@op, the term transgender wasn’t even coined until 1969. the same year as stonewall. genderfluid wasn’t coined until the 90s or early 2000s. the concept that just because genderfluid wasn’t coined in 1969 yet that genderfluid people couldn’t have existed in LGBT spaces is so fucking ahistorical and offensive?? gender fluidity existed LONG before the term was coined. genderfluid people existed long before the term was coined, too. show them some damn respect.

[facebidets]

I’ve had people yell at me for point this out, but gender and sexuality have often overlapped, especially in the past where being LGB was seen as having the wrong body for your “soul’s attractions”, which is why the term “invert” or “gender invert” was used - because (cis) L/G/B people experienced attraction to the “wrong” gender for their gender. [The phrase I’ve seen used was “an inborn deviation from normal gender.”] Therefore they were considered “gender inverts.” This is why the gender binary is understood to be composed of two genders who are conforming to both bodily and social gender norms (and that includes heterosexuality!) for “men” and “women.” 

It’s also why historically sometimes “bi-sexual” meant intersex (or having multiple sex/gendered attributes), and why in the late 19th-early 20th century, same-gender attracted people often has f society encouraging them to be trans “-sexual” thereby “rectifying” their “gender inversion.” The language and terminology and even way of understanding that seems offensive or possibly strange now, but concepts of “sex,” “sexuality,” and “gender” were more collapsed. For example: Lesbians were considered “inverts” who had men’s souls in women’s bodies, and Gay men were considered “inverts” who had women’s souls in men’s bodies.

 Note: I googled this - I wanted to use a book that mentioned this part of history. This is found in The Social Psychology of Gender: How Power and Intimacy Shape Gender Relations. By Laurie A. Rudman, Peter Glick. The wikipedia article has very few sources and is actually lacking a lot of information/incorrect in some places. 

This conflation of sexual desire, physical characteristics, and social gender has a big history, and so “gender fluidity” both personally and in the eyes of society was (and is!) common within LGBT history. For example, women who might be considered lesbians or possibly “intersex” (based on the physical characteristics of large clitorises) were labeled as “tribades” - so different from other “women” in this way. A “third sex” also was discussed and talked about:

The era of sexology studies is where we first see a small, privileged cluster of medical authorities begin promoting a limited tolerance of those born “invert.” In Western history, we find little formal study of what was later called homosexuality before the 19th century, beyond medical texts identifying women with large clitorises as “tribades” and severe punishment codes for male homosexual acts. Early efforts to understand the range of human sexual behavior came from European doctors and scientists including Carl von Westphal (1869), Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1882) and Havelock Ellis (1897). Their writings were sympathetic to the concept of a homosexual or bisexual orientation occurring naturally in an identifiable segment of humankind, but the writings of Krafft-Ebing and Ellis also labeled a “third sex” degenerate and abnormal. Sigmund Freud, writing in the same era, did not consider homosexuality an illness or a crime and believed bisexuality to be an innate aspect beginning with undetermined gender development in the womb. 

So lesbians, gays, and bisexuals were seen as people whose innate aspects didn’t develop into the appropriate sexuality for their “gender” or “sex.” 

English writer Radclyffe Hall who willingly accepted the idea of being a “congenital invert.” 

Today we would see Radclyffe Hall as a famous lesbian author, but in her time, she believed she was a “congenital invert” - which is to say she was a woman, but her sexuality was seen as “inverted” from her gender. This sort of view of same-gender female desire being a gender type of woman unto itself also forms later understandings and experiences with “butch” and “femme” lesbians seeing their lesbian experience as lesbian genders.

From the American Psychological Association’s article on the History of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Social Movements. So this article tells us that even before the “coining” of the term transgender or even the phrase “non-binary,” people existed who were seen as the “wrong gender,” an “invert” gender, or a “third gender,” as well as people who were intersex. 

I’ve talked about this, but I often (bafflingly) get accused of like, implying cis lgb folks don’t have cisgender privilege bc of their deviation from the gender binary. (I don’t believe that - I believe cis people still have cis privilege.) 

But I do believe that this history proves and defends the right and space of trans and nb people as “lgbt” without question. 

This type [of man who experienced same-gender attraction] was linked by sexologists to effeminacy in men and mannishness in women. For the British sexologist Havelock Ellis and others this phenomenon was worthy of sympathy—but sexual inversion transposed the issue of same-sex desire into one of gendered physical attributes, behaviors, and forms of dress. Thus many sexologists collapsed into one category a range of sexual orientations that we would now distinguish as bisexuality, transgender, and/or same-sex sexuality.26

& 

Here emerges another key question for those looking to excavate and document LGBTQ histories: who created modern understandings of sexual and gender identities, and how do they change over time and context? Official arbiters—scientific, medical, legal, religious, and political institutions—have demarcated the categories of sexual “deviance” while simultaneously creating the range of behaviors attributed to normative sexualities.27 Since the late nineteenth century, sexological (the science of sexuality) work has been one of the most influential arbiters in categorizing, describing, and assigning value to sexual and gender deviance—as well as scrutinizing the normal. In the first half of the twentieth century, religious pronouncements of “sin” and oral discourses engaging and describing sexual and gendered behavior as binary (homosexual/heterosexual; female/male) were increasingly joined and more than occasionally trumped by the emergence of parallel scientific and medical discourses addressing sexual and gender “deviance” and “normativity.”

Thanks US National Parks Services! 

www.nps.gov/subjects/tellingallamericansstories/lgbtqthemestudy.htm

LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History is a publication of the National Park Foundation and the National Park Service. 

This history means that the “divide” between “lgb” and what is seen as “trans and/or nb” was often not-divided at all, or complicated, or conflated. It means that previously some same-gender attracted people’s sexualities were simultaneously seen as their genders. Some of those people labeled “inverts” may have, in a later decade or different century, felt they were actually transgender or nonbinary. But others would simply just be “lesbian” or “gay” or “bisexual” and that might still inform their gender. 

Indeed, even today, there are people who feel their sexuality informs their gender, or find themselves navigating attraction and gender in complex ways. The historical women’s college Bryn Mawr worked on an LGBT oral history/student history -- and addressed this issue in a blog post on the matter. Their post notes that they have been in touch with trans men who had previously identified as lesbian women while undergraduate students.

People in the community have always occupied or existed in “other” genders, in non-binary genders, in lesbian, gay, and bisexual genders, in third genders, or trans genders. Whether we called it cross-dressing, or “trans-sexual” (which later became replaced with “transgender” as the appropriate terminology), or “third gender,” or tribade, or “bi-sexual” or intersex, or “invert” - it has always existed, and has always been in this specific community. Trans and non-binary are new terms for part of our shared & on-going experiences of humanity that the LGBT/LGBTPN community organized around. The feeling, experience, or reality of those words is not totally new -- it is, indeed, as old as any of the rest of “LGB” is. The experiences of what we now call LGBTPN have always been there.