#gatekeeping mention

[stargazing-enby]

And that's that on that.

[fave-mspec-gays]

Princess Bubblegum is an mspec lesbian! And says gatekeeping queer identities is for losers!

[hyperfixationtimego]

People with unconventional labels deserve love and validation as much as people with conventional labels and that’s on gatekeeping love 😊💗💕💓💕

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

I'm big same on the meme bugging me. Not just for the gaslighting joke but the gatekeeping joke too. Cuz it just reads as high key exclusionist style joke and I feel like it's joking about things we very much should not be joking about. Idk maybe I'm triggered easily because of being a victim of both of those things on the constant for literal decades, but it seems like the kind of thing to use more as a "I should avoid this person from now on" warning sign rather than "haha funny".

Oh no, fair point! And it does I mean it feels like it's watering around the meaning of the word (kind of like how the word "toxic" and "abuse" have been watered down and people have a hard time telling if people are just toxic or if they are ACTUALLY abusers).

Big same, it makes me uncomfortable. It's also possible why these people might not find them triggering or touchy subjects if they haven't thought about the meaning behind gatekeeping and gaslighting maybe. I think that's me being hopeful though

[varioriented-pride]

Hiya!! So I think I’m variorented, but I’m not aspec at all?? So I’m romantically attracted to boys and masc enbies, but only sexually attracted to boys. Does this count as varioriented? If so, do you know of a specific identity that refers to this kind of attraction/know someone who might know?

Yes. Allos (alloromantic allosexuals) can be varioriented. Variorientation exists as a term specifically for those that recognize sexual and romantic orientations can be split and mixed, even outside aspec community (this is useful for this situation that you're not aspec). However most varioriented representation is within a-spec community, that's why sometimes most of our content is posts of them. Crossoriented allos are gatekept a lot, gatekeepers want split attraction model (SAM) be a thing only within aspec community, and some of them don't want this even to exist.

Discourses aside, torenromantic means romantic attraction to men and non-binary people. But you can also call yourself biromantic or other multiromantic spectral identity.

While monosexual, you can use androsexual (homosexual or heterosexual depending your gender), I guess there are other labels too.

Uranic is another label that may apply, this one does not specify the type of attraction (attraction to men, nongender people and all nbs who are not female-aligned or feminine).

[fiction-and-reality-are-complex]

I agree that the gaslighting meme is off-putting, in the wild. One thing I feel like I wanna contribute is how memes that are kinda yikes! To just randomly see, are also a lot different when coming from friends I know and trust.

My friends and I will make these sorts of meme jokes on call or as shitposts just for a small group, and im a lot more comfortable with them then, because ik all my friends and trust them to know the language and what it really means. Its more a play off the meme itself and mocking the meme than using it seriously?

And I think some posts that use it are using it in the context of "these words are often misused or poorly applied and I am making fun of that aspect of the internet, not the terms themselves"

I just have a lot of thoughts and felt like contributing, not trying to argue your discomfort for the record! Because I totally get it, seeing memes use these sorts of things can be uncomfortable, especially the way this one and similar ones are done. And definitely not all of the ones that are made are done with good faith and knowing the actual issues behind the words.

Oh no absolutely! I mean there are things I joke about (I have a fairly bad sense of humor and dark one djabandbf) and if anyone else heard me making these jokes besides close friends they would assume I'm a little. Ya know. Out there. Or I'm trying to be offensive.

But if I'm around people I know will get it I tend to say them because I KNOW they know I'm joking and I'm not being serious.

In small groups or people I know well enough I can see this working and totally being good! Is it possible that's maybe how this meme started and maybe people took it really far?

No offense taken! Just because something makes me squicky doesn't mean it has to make you as well! I'm just in the middle where I'm unsure how to feel about it LMAO.

[stargazing-enby]

Your gatekeeping post is so important. I spent many years trying to reach out to the community around me using “questioning” as a cover because my homophobic family had made me afraid to come out to even other LGBT people. I was ignored in a time that I was young and needed support. No one is responsible for my own well-being other than myself & I don’t blame any individual, but these experiences shaped me and are why I don’t have any desire to be active in the community now that I’m out & older

I'm so glad, but also so sorry that you and so many people relate to that post.

I'm still questioning. I know full well I'm not straight and just use gay or queer to define my sexuality, and I'm mostly okay leaving it at that.

But my gender? Gosh.

I know I'm not cis. I know it. I may not know exactly what my gender is or what I want from by body yet, but I know I'm not okay with how things have been up till now.

And still. Still, I can barely bear to call myself trans. Someone acknowledges the fact I'm trans and I have a moment of panic because I feel like I'm somehow deceiving them, since I haven't asked them to use a different name for me (because I'm okay with my name), and I guess I don't hate my birth pronouns. Someone trans acknowledges the fact that I'm trans and I think, 'hah, well, yeah, I mean, I'm not as trans as you, but, yeah'. And then I wonder if they actually think I'm trans enough to be trans, or if, on the contrary, they're just pretending I am and playing along because they don't want to confront me about the fact I'm invading their community.

And I'm so, so tired of feeling like this.

[atypical-irritant]

Exclusionists would do well to remember the term "there's no such thing as bad publicity". Even posts either with more hateful sentiment than sense raise awareness of a specific group of people existing, thus expanding the number of people exposed to the very ideas and identities they so viciously despise.

Though the inflammatory nature of their digital witch hunts does often leave others with a negative association, all it really takes is a little nuance to begin poking holes in an exclusionist's typically black and white criticisms. (That is, of course, if people actually attempt to think critically and come to their own conclusions rather than blindly following the first thing they hear about a topic, but that's another story.)

Regardless, if the intent really was to erase a certain subset of people they find unacceptable, they're going about it all wrong. Making broadly tagged posts ranting about how awful these people are, creating discourse blogs denouncing and calling out that groups behavior, it's all still awareness. It's much more effective to quietly silence their existence rather than publicly demonize.

Historically, hate groups have used a well calculated mix of both defamation, demoralization, and quiet suppression. Here, it seems exclusionists only focus their efforts on a fraction of this, leaving many more likely to sympathize with the targeted group rather than side with their persecutors. But quietly attacking and censoring them from the sidelines while they can only helplessly watch on? That's much more effective.

After all, everyone loves an underdog, but no one cares about the boy who cried wolf.

I don't say this to advise or condone the ostracisation of others over differing viewpoints. Personally, I feel it's a cowardly and weak-minded reactionary response to the unknown. Rather than adapt and learn, exclusionists assign a moral inferiority or threat to whatever they don't want to face or understand. I'm more pointing out the counterproductive and counterintuitive behavior of exclusionists and their hateful rhetoric found on many social media sites.

There will always be discourse blogs and yapping anti-whatever posts. Block lists and DNI debates, call out posts and anon hate; all because the violence has always been the goal. Nothing more.

Hateful people have always been obnoxiously self-sabotaging in their efforts because their aim isn't truly to erase their target. Otherwise they'd have no one to harass anymore. No, they go to all that effort for the thrill of hurting others. Maybe it really was about morals and the betterment of society at first, maybe they really did think their target of choice is some horrible threat to everyone, but all that vitriol doesn't sustain off a sense of justice alone.

They're in it for the pain of others and hide this under some fabricated sense of justice and moral superiority. Otherwise, perhaps they would've noticed their shit doesn't work years ago.