The thing I love most about having spent time in the aspec, mspec, and queer communities is a freedom from having to conform to sexual orientation in the ways society would prefer me to. Society has created this internal battle between “Not Sexual Enough” and “Too Sexual” and by embracing both my bi-ness and my asexuality, I’ve been able to explore my own sexual orientation outside of the worlds pressured perspectives on what it should be. According to the worlds perspective I’m “supposed to be sexual” because I’m bi, but I’m “not supposed to be sexual” because I’m ace. I’m supposed to perform a certain level of sexuality according to what they see fit.
I love the freedom of labels in the queer, mspec, and aspec community because I’m capable of living my life and embracing my non-straight non-cisness while still engaging with other people like me. This community has taught me that if my orientation or my gender shifts or I gain a new perspective of myself, that’s a good thing and I can embrace it. Having both “microlabels” and umbrella terms at my disposal means I can be descriptive of my current feelings and impression of myself without prescribing a singular permanent identity across my entire life.
I can be as queer as I want, I can defy all of the cisheteronormative and amatonormative barriers and still claim autonomy over my orientation and gender without paying heed to what straight, cis, and allo society considers proper. They don’t choose how queer I get to be, because I’ll be as queer as I freaking want.
So my fellow queer people, thanks for being queer with me.