What do you think about some of the claims made @noyourenotmogai?
i just read their faq because i was not aware of this blog’s existence. i think they have some valid sentiment in that not all oppression/negative treatment by society is equal. i’ll be honest, i don’t know for certain where i personally stand with this recent argument about whether otherwise cishet ace or aro people should be included in the community or not. there’s valid points on both sides of the argument. but i do have some thoughts:
oppression isn’t a contest. if it were, a trans person who was accepted by nobody and treated the worst possible way from it would be More Trans than someone who has a supporting community. that just doesn’t seem right to me. our goal is all inclusiveness and an end to oppression so it seems weird to me that it has to be required to be considered mogai/lgbt+ (for the record, i’m trans so i’m not just defending myself or something)
also, the person who wrote the faq (is there more than one person running the blog?) seems to think there’s no negative consequence to being ace spectrum or aro spectrum at all. i’ll quote from a scenario in the faq: “Same person: I am only romantically attracted to people after I establish an emotional connection *noone has a problem with this or cares*”
like yes, most people might accept this, but even learning that about yourself in the first place is incredibly difficult. y’know, there’s the whole deal of feeling left out when you never have a celebrity crush (i’m demisexual) or forcing yourself to make your affection fit the standard “crush” model romantically (i’m quoiromantic), all while thinking everyone must be just like you because that’s all you know. you might not get denied a job for being acespec or arospec, but these things don’t exist in a social vacuum either.
it’s a complicated issue, and i can respect the opinion that the community shouldn’t include people who are Only acespec or arospec for the reason that they don’t share all the common sufferings we do, but in my personal opinion the community shouldn’t revolve entirely on that. i like the model where “trans is a feel and everyone can know it”, i like the model that encourages self exploration and welcoming circles because it just might help the general public realize we’re not so different from them. and besides, there can still be subcommunities for those who don’t want to include Everyone and only those with similar experiences. that’s valid and would be useful for a lot of people, myself included.
so this is super long and i could try to overexplain and ponder about this topic more but i think that’s enough to answer your question. i’m speaking only for myself and not the other mods of course. (and i’m also up for further discussion on specifics because why not.)
