There's something so incredibly sad about exclusionists, and mostly I think it's how out of touch they are with the wider queer/LGBT community.
They spend so much energy fighting against aspec inclusion yet haven't realised that the fight isn't just long over, it's that the fight never really started at all. It's honestly really pathetic how much they refuse to acknowledge that?
Take me for example. I'm headed to a queer event in my city tomorrow, an awards night and celebration for outstanding acheivements of both individuals and organisations in the wider queer community of my area.
This event is huge in my city! It's celebrating it’s 60th anniversary this year, and it’s one of the oldest of it's kind in the world. It started as a private house party, organised by queer individuals who were sick of getting raided by police (because this was when being gay was still illegeal), and it’s so old it happened 6 or 7 years BEFORE Stonewall. And now, I and my identity/community are a part of it’s history.
Because not only am I going to this event, but I am nominated for one of the awards, Activist of the Year. I was nominated SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE of my work advocating for aromantic education and visibility. If aromanticism isn't queer, why would advocating for it get me nominated for a queer award?
Speaking of my actvism, I have worked with several queer organisations around my city to educate about aromanticism and provide them with resources. They were more than happy to welcome me as part of the community. I was also paid to speak on a queer panel educating mental health professionals on aspec identities. Twice. I can put 'being aromantic/professional queer' on my resume. I have references for it.
Speaking of my resume, let's talk about my day job. I help manage a national directory of health and community services, and we have a large number of queer/LGBT focused programs. Things like youth groups, counselling, mental health, homelessness/crisis intervention.
A large majority of them specifically include aspecs. In my experience these kinds of services are very focused, and they're defintely not going to be forced to be inclusive if they don't want to be. If they're listing aspecs, it's because aspecs need/use those services, and can benefit from a queer/LGBT focused program.
And this is just my irl experience with my local community. Almost everywhere you look in the actual community, it's inclusive. How about that new Blue's Clues song everyone went nuts about? Asexual and aromantic flags are front and centre on a pride float, just like all the rest. Search 'pride' on Google this month! Dozens of flags drop down the sceen, including asexual and aromantic.
Exclusionists can scream 'cishet' all they want, but the wider community isn't listening. They're so out of touch, and they just can't admit it.
This isn't to say that they're not harmful. Even aside from the dangers of the 'Exclusionist to TERF' pipeline, aka how TERFs use exclusionism to make more TERFs, exclusionists are just bullies. They see aspecs as an easy, acceptable target. They've spent a lot of time and energy going out of their way to harass and abuse us, and more than one aspec person has a lot of community trauma caused by exclusionists, either directly or indirectly.
But in the end, I want every aspec person to remember that exclusionists are a minority. They may be loud but they are few, and they are very, very wrong. The aspec community has made great strides in visibility in just a few short years, and the majority of the wider community supports and accepts us as part of them.
We already belong.
