[raybeam17]

The aphobes are going to be fired up about this one

[body-timeshare]

It's revealing to see exclusionists completely ignore the asexual manifesto being made in 1972 (made almost 50 years ago!), and continue to misdefine and purposely demonize asexuality as a whole.

They even mention the obvious meaning behind what asexuality is:

• Not about being """pure"""

• Not a choice

• NOT MEANT TO VILLIFY PEOPLE WHO ARE SEXUAL

• Relating sexually to no one, but also includes libido being natural, and masturbation being normal

This has been written by and for the asexual community for decades. Claiming that asexuality is a trend, or is fake, or is just a new random term is clearly being ignorant at best, and bigoted at worst.

"B-but what about them being LGBT(Q+)?"

The "Off Our Backs" activists back in the 70s had included asexual people in their promotion of choosing a label for yourself rather than society doing it for you (image above).

Myra Johnson's essays and papers in "The Sexually Oppressed" talks and includes asexual women and their harassment. She also has written about the lack of representation and acknowledgement of asexuality as a whole, published in 1977. This essay was included with many sexualities in this documentation of sexuality as a whole.

Toby, an alias for Jim Sinclair, was interviewed at the time for being androgynous and "nonsexual", and was repeatedly harassed for it once his coworkers found out, forcing him into hiding. The interview took place in 1989.

New York's "Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Act" is still the only piece of legislation in the world that includes and mention asexuality, which was passed only in 2002.

Articles, polls, essays, research into asexuality has been piling up over the decades of asexual history, only now to be denied by people who aren't even old enough to be there?

Hundreds of accounts of abuse, trauma and sexual assault based on the victim being asexual are passed off as misogyny by apologists, and easily speak over victims. Is this ok behavior just because someone is asexual? Even if misogyny is a reason for abuse, is intersectionality nonexistent with asexual people?

Doctors and practitioners are downright denying patients medicine because of their orientation, and restrict medicine because of their "fear of developing asexual tendencies" as if it's a disease. Doesn't that sound familiar?

Asexual people have been cast aside and thrown into the back burner for far too long. It isn't a game to debate people out of existence. It isn't funny to invalidate and harass a marginalized orientation. You don't actually care about LGBT+ ace people if you're actively making fun of them.

We need to stand strong together. When we focus on tearing each other down for not "being oppressed enough", we lose sight on actively fighting off groups that will kill us, regardless if we're lesbian, gay, bi, trans, ace, queer, etc. When that starts happening, they won't care what labels we're using.

Will you?

[queenofthecommunistcannibals]

When I was first introduced to the "A" in the acronym it was at the LGBTQ+ club in college roughly a decade ago (a little less but no less than 8 years ago). "LGBTQQIA" was what I was told. "That's the full acronym."

"What does all that stand for?" Someone asked. I was curious too because I only knew it to the first Q.

"Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Questioning, Intersex, Asexual," said the lesbian who was running the meeting. She added, "sometimes people add on a 'P' for Pansexual." That was accepted by everyone present in the know.

If you are 14, 15, 16 and you tell me "the A always stood for ally to help closeted people" you have been lied to. While you were in elementary school I was told the A stood for asexual and by extension other aspec identities. That was the consensus in the early 2010s.

You do not get to tell me I don't know something about the "history" I was actually present for.

The A never stood for ally. Closeted people's LGBTQphobic dads are not going to be convinced by someone saying "I am an ally!" Even if it did work most events are open to allies and they would have the same argument without being in the acronym. Allies should not want to center themselves and draw attention to themselves. The acronym is for people who are queer. Allies are not queer. They are literally cishet and putting a closeted person in the acronym when they are trying to he covert would be the opposite of helpful.

Two groups say the A stands for ally, cishets who don't get it and LGBTQ+ aphobes (exclusionists). The only reason the "A" suddenly stands for ally which means "closeted" rather than "cishet" for exclusionists is because they had it pointed out to them that it is completely contradictory to claim they are "protecting" the community from "cishets" while inviting them in.

[raybeam17]

someone I used to be best friends with just called the ace spectrum dangerous lmao... I’m in PAIN when will exclusionists develop emotional intelligence

[raybeam17]

By far the most mind-numbingly stupid thing exclusionists have started to say is that the corrective rape asexuals/aromantics experience is only about misogyny. Even if it wasn’t stupid just on the basis of it then, by necessity, implying that all corrective rape, despite which member of the LGBT+ community experiences it, is because of misogyny instead of the homophobia or transphobia or biphobia etc. that it actually stems from (which would be nonsense), it would still be invalidating the experiences of aces/aros who aren’t women/girls and yet have experienced corrective assault anyway. Not to mention how, speaking from personal experience, it is /extremely/ obvious when one’s rapist is raping you because of your asexuality. 

And also, while we’re at it, I’ll even throw you people a bone and point out that it definitely is possible to be an exclusionist without being a rape apologist, just a heads up. You can still think asexuals aren’t LGBT while also admitting and respecting the fact that we experience corrective rape and not turning the trauma of asexuals into ammunition to discredit asexuals’ existences. Just a heads up. Especially since the dumb logic being used actively harms everyone else in the LGBT community just as much by discrediting their own corrective rape-related trauma.

It feels as though it’s more likely a case of exclusionists willingly embracing the cognitive dissonance required to say something that nonsensical in order to have an easy, throw-away talking point than it being a matter of exclusionists being objectively stupid. And uhh… I guess being sinister is better than being stupid when you’re nothing but a bargain-bin terf?

Similarly to how it’s infuriating when the alt-right has no interest in whether or not you have all of the objective facts and scientific studies on your side, and how they’re gonna continue to say FeMiNiSm KiLLeD rOmE or whatever the fuck nonsense talking points they come up with, exclusionists are gonna continue to ignore the objective facts and scientific studies that asexuals and aromantics can cite to defend the problems and trauma they face and their right to exist despite it. There’s no real sense in debating someone whose whole argument revolves around bad-faith talking points and denial of reality. Hopefully, one day, they’ll wake up and suddenly their human empathy switch will flip back on and they’ll realize they don’t actually want to be rape apologists any longer. Ideally they also wouldn’t want to be exclusionists any longer either, but maybe, at least, they’ll stop defending violence against asexuals with the dangerously casual dismissal of it being just a symptom of misogyny.

Genuinely, somehow, wading through a constant stream of alt-right nonsense that has become both my day job and my academic life is less emotionally taxing than the masochistic epistemology of the ace discourse tag.

[aroacemonster]

terfs in the discourse tag

We have terfs who admit that ace discourse was their first step towards radfem ideas. We’ve had multiple break downs of how terfs and radfems try to radialize other people by using ace/bi/pan/nb/queer/etc. discourse. We’ve had multiple break downs of how popular exclusionist arguments use the same faulty logic and arguments that radfems use.

Can exclusionists maybe finally admit that this is a problem and either drop the discourse entirely or try to come up with arguments that aren’t copied from radfems?