That ISN’T what was said. What I SAID was, “the people included when I use LGBT or in the overall LGBT umbrella all experience homophobia or transphobia or BOTH.”
You’re arguing whether or not aroaces experience discrimination. I’m arguing that the LGBT umbrella is defined by people who experience homophobia OR transphobia, and that including any kind of cishet regardless of their relationship towards sex or romance is damaging to LGBT people and allows a class of our oppressor into our spaces as something other than “ally.”
1.) Discrimination does not equal oppression necessarily. So yes, aroace people can probably be discriminated against, but you’re hardly oppressed by society on a systemic level for not having sex or being interested in romance.
2.) Even if this was oppression somehow, it still wouldn’t make someone cis and het or cis and aroace “LGBT” because that coalition is built by and for people who experience homophobia and transphobia. If you experience neither, but still want a community – go forth and make it. But being LGBT isn’t a fun club for cishets to join as they please or feel like it. We’re not talking about an enjoyable party cishets weren’t invited to, we’re talking about a group of people oppressed by homophobia or transphobia working together. Generic discrimination doesn’t make people LGBT.
3.) I am not limiting my definition of harassment. I am defining the fact that the LGBT community is oppressed by two factors which overlap historically and in reality. The fact that cishet people are not harassed in THIS SPECIFIC WAY doesn’t mean they can’t be harassed, it means they’re not LGBT.
Cishet people playing dress up by acting as if they are persecuted by homophobia is both offensive and morally reprehensible. It’s “slumming it” with oppression and leaving when you feel like it. It also misdirects real serious issues of oppression by parsing them out into something that really isn’t quantifiable and has no consistent history.
If we framed this: “The patriarchy and rampant misogyny push all people into sexual roles they feel uncomfortable with, and targets anyone who does not behave accordingly,” then we could have a real, in depth, and sourced discussion. We could talk about why women in particular are punished for eschewing relationships or for being uninterested in sex, but we could also talk about how hyper machoism does the same to men, and how that marginalizes trans and nb people.
We could even have vast and deeply complex discussions about how colonialism and imperialism brutalized people into the gender binary, sexualized or desexualized certain bodies, and has attacked and weakened natural human bonding - to the point where we feel pressure to present our sexual nature in very specific and narrow ways. We could talk about the commodification of sex and sexual behavior. We could criticize Girls Gone Wild and both the Sex negative and Sex Positive movements. We could EVEN talk about why y'all apologists are always so eager to assume that ALL LGBT people have or want to have sex or are always sexual or in turn always interested in romance – but INSTEAD of doing ANY OF THAT and having deep and meaningful discussions about humanity and sex and gender and sexuality —
— we’re all stuck here at 101 reminding people “to be LGBT you either experience homophobia or transphobia.” So we never really move on to address any of the other issues and are stuck here, forever reiterating the most basic concept to people.
