There’s a lot of talk of solidarity in the queer community, that queer spaces are safe spaces and anyone who falls under the queer umbrella is welcome there. But it’s really not that simple, is it? In just the first four letters used as the face of the queer movement you can already see exclusions. “LGBT, where the B doesn’t matter and the T doesn’t exist.” That’s a phrase I’ve seen circling around here on tumblr quite a bit, and I kind of have to agree. I’m not bisexual, so I cannot speak on their behalf, but I see many of my bi friends dealing with criticism and attacks from not only straight people, but their gay and lesbian “siblings” as well.
You can’t have a queer family if part of the family is going to be left out in the cold. Bisexuals are told they don’t exist, or they’re told they’re being greedy, they’re fake, and they’re just not “brave” enough to come out of the closet yet… All of these things are hurtful, insulting and unacceptable. To add onto that, Transgender individuals are not only ignored completely, but they’re often belittled and attacked when they DO get attention. How many law reforms are stopped because “gender identity” or “gender presentation” are in them? Out here in Utah, one of our politicians was told that unless “gender identity” was removed from an anti-discrimination law, it wouldn’t be passed. Our own LGBT rights group told him to remove it, they’d “take care of it later,” but he refused.
You cannot exclude some groups to make the others look better. You cannot exclude some groups to make the others look better. It’s insulting, counterproductive, and harmful.
But let’s expand on the acronym, LGBT isn’t all there is to the queer movement. LGBTQPIA. And even then I’m sure I’m leaving some off, but what I mostly wanted to talk about in this post is the A. A does not stand for Ally. It never has, it never will. A good Ally does not need recognition for being a decent human being. A good Ally does not want brownie points. A good Ally uses their privilege to further the voices of those of us who can’t speak, and replacing the A with Ally is not any of those things.
The A stands for Asexual. Still fighting for recognition within the queer community, still demanding to be treated with human decency and respect, still fighting the “you don’t exist” phrase from just about everyone else. Asexual people have it hard, there is no denying that. Corrective rape, erasure, and denial to queer spaces are just some of the problems that asexual people face, but this post isn’t necessarily about that, although they do deserve the utmost attention.
What I want to talk about is the exclusion that goes on in queer communities. As I stated above, you cannot exclude some groups to make others look better. And by look better, I mean look better to the rest of normative society. Asexual people are constantly told “you just haven’t found the right one yet,” which is infuriating and invalidating, but it’s also become grounds for some exclusion going on within the asexual community.
There is some debate as to whether or not asexuality is a spectrum. I am of the belief that it is, it doesn’t make sense for sexuality to have hard and fast rules, almost nothing else in life does, so why would sexuality? The trouble is if it’s not a spectrum, what happens to those “less than perfect” aces?
The less that perfect aces I’m speaking of are demisexuals and gray asexuals. To my knowledge, gray-aces (graces) have garnered some acceptance in the community, but there’s still a lot of debate and denial surrounding demisexuals. For those that don’t know, demisexuality is the lack of sexual attraction to anyone, regardless of gender or sex, until a strong emotional bond has been formed. People get caught up on that last part, but I want to focus on the first part for now.
Demisexual people (like me) do not experience sexual attraction. That would place them into the category or asexual, since asexual people do not experience it either. However, on occasion, it does happen. A demi might find themselves sexually attracted to someone, the key word being might. It isn’t a 100% guarantee sort of thing. The thing these people have in common though, is a strong emotional bond. Speaking from my own experience, I’ve only been sexually attracted to 3 people in my life, it didn’t last for long at all, but I can tell you why.
All three of these people were people I was extremely close to, people I felt no need to censor myself with or hide anything from. I had a very strong emotional bond with these people, and when they broke that bond, the attraction disappeared. I hate to compare people to objects, but essentially the “default setting” of demisexual people is asexual. Many demisexual people haven’t experienced it as much as I have, and there are many people that I’m that close to who I don’t find sexually attractive.
But since so many asexual people are told “you just haven’t found the right one yet,” it’s made many aces reluctant to include demis in the asexual community. This is rather problematic, demisexuality is much closer to asexuality than it is to any sort of allosexuality. (Allosexual = feels sexual attraction.) For many demis, the ace community is home, it’s where we feel like we fit in and have people that experience the world like we experience it, that sort of thing is vital in the mental health of individuals who feel like they don’t fit in anywhere else.
Taking it away because demi’s may make people who don’t know much about asexuality think “true” asexuals are just demis in denial is harmful. It’s gatekeeping. It’s exactly what has happened to many other subgroups in the queer community. This mentality that we have to cut out one group to make another look better in order to gain acceptance is counterproductive to the movement. The normative society needs to learn to accept people as they are, not just the fragments they deem acceptable enough.
Demisexuals are essentially told “you’re not ace enough” to fit in with the ace community, and that’s just a harmful thought process to have when we’re trying to gain acceptance and love for all people.
