They Mean Aspecs

When the Funny Joak about Straight People is actually hatred against asexuals and/or aromantics

[firstgrave]

[theselittlefeelings]

1. The Republican Party turns out for EVERY vote. Primaries, local elections, midterms, you name it. Most dems show up once every four year and then get defeatist when things don’t immediately change. It took the Republicans YEARS to overturn RvW but it has been a long game goal of theirs. YEARS of voting, and you’re gonna opt out after one vote. Okay.

2. Primaries are when you vote for who you want. Elections are when you vote for who you can. If you’re not voting in the primary, you’re letting the moderate centrist do-nothing candidate win.

3. Local elections affect your daily life. That sherif in Texas who is refusing to enforce the abortion ban? Local election. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, so much of this is trickle up from local politics.

4. Call your damn representatives. Even if it feels hopeless. The gun control reform that just passed (as minimal as it is) was bipartisan because people showed their reps that they wanted change. Get vocal as a voter and prove courting your vote matters.

5. If someone in your area is running for office and needs votes, be a signature for them. Not everyone can afford to pay to run. You want to support better candidates, put your name behind them (only in your district and always read what you’re signing first).

6. The two party system is shit. We know that. But the democrats are a big tent housing a lot of different opinions and trying to cater to them all. Republicans are generally united in one mission of dismantling everything and protecting only their own. This is also why Dems don’t have the same type of “super majority” and can’t easily whip the same voting results. And anyone who thinks Obama had a super majority for enough time to codify roe does not understand politics. He had about 18 days of actual in-session time, split into two different sessions.

7. Purity politics isn’t going to get you anywhere. The candidate is a bus stop getting you closer to where you want to be. They’re not the end goal, and a smart voter knows that.

8. Voter suppression is huge in America. Help other voters register and get to the polls. It’s not always indifference keeping people from voting. Do something to help disenfranchised voters.

Let me repeat: The two party system is shit. We need to get rid of the electoral college. We need ranked choice voting. We need to get rid of Citizens United. Our country is an oligarchy. Always has been. Not denying that. But Living in these ideals of what we should be without creating any change now isn’t going to get you anywhere. Being defeatist and abstaining from the process is cutting off your own nose to spite your face. Its saying “the other team is scoring too many goals, so instead of playing, I’m just gonna sit on the sidelines. That’ll teach everyone.” No, you’re just gonna keep losing. Maybe, instead, vote in the primaries and choose better teammates.

Y’all kill me with these “hot takes.” They ain’t even half baked.

Now, if you want to talk about the other things we should be doing IN ADDITION TO voting, like general strikes, organizing, etc. Then that’s a different conversation we should also be having.

[arirashkae]

History is made by those who show up

[theymeanaspecs]

just one more not vote bro I swear then the revolution will definitely come bro I swear just one more fascist given a free ride into office I promise then bro it’ll be okay bro trust me bro capitulation will definitely save us all look just do absolutely fucking nothing again bro just one more election it’ll definitely work I promise

[dathen]

I….genuinely am worried if a ton of twitter users come back to tumblr because of how many of them are exclusionists. I hate the idea of going back to that being the majority here again.

[dathen]

Okay for real though whether this will be a Thing or just ways to slow the spread of exclusionism/protect aspec people’s mental health in general:

- Add a specific tag for people to blacklist if you respond to aphobic or exclusionist content. Having to see that content—even if you’re countering it—can be extremely stressful.

- Actually do your research before boosting criticisms of aspec terms, headcanons, etc. If someone has *never* said a supportive thing about aspec people, chances are it’s not in good faith or may be an outright lie! Remember the bullshit of “you can’t say ‘aspec’ that’s for autistic people only!!” which was flat-out made up but got spread around by anxious aro and ace people?

- I STILL see fake accounts on twitter of people pretending to be ace while yelling the most nonsensical everything-phobic tripe. Fake ace accounts created solely to stir up mockery and hate vs ace people used to be very popular on tumblr. If you see what seems like an ace person spouting something hateful, check to see how old the account is, whether there’s anything BUT that, etc.

- Block, block, block. I don’t care if they make nice art or funny shitposts. “I’ll just ignore their aphobic comments and only reblog their art—“ NO. They don’t need platforms.

- Same goes for those not-so-mysterious ~oh I don’t hate aspec people I just boost every criticism I see of them and have never said a single supportive thing~ sorts.

- Making up false rumors about aspec people/people who support aspec people was a popular tactic too. For the love of all things holy don’t boost callouts unless you do your research, especially if you see giveaways like “and they’re (gasp) INCLUSIONIST” in the call-out list.

- If you’re stressed by your dashboard boosting bad faith takes/engaging with hateful comments a lot, refine it. I had to unfollow a ton of ace blogs back in the day because they switched to ONLY countering the most bottom-of-the-barrel acephobic takes, which meant every time I came online I had to see it. Terrible for mental health.

Even if my fretting over twitter userbase doesn’t come to anything, all of this would be helpful to implement *right now* even if exclusionism and aphobia isn’t as popular here as it used to be.

[wizardpotions]

We NEED to put sex and magic back on the pride flag right now

[wizardpotions]

I'm fed up of people being like yea we need magic but not the sex one, sex positivity is vital to the lgbtq+ community it is not invalidating to asexual people to celebrate gay sex as something that is positive and beautiful and natural. We should be celebrating all the aspects of our community and this can include both asexuals and sex positivity

[ploncc]

Yeah hi, ace person here.

When asexuality is seen as a sexual perversion, as an explicit deviation from the norm that you, as an adult, will have these sexual roles tied to your gender and will perform these sexual acts in these ways with these frequencies,

which if fucking is,

then trying to act like supporting purity culture as a way to make ace people feel more comfortable and protect them from things they might not want to see, that starting to label things as being "for kids and aces" as if ace people are just immature or incapable of maturation, that pretending that asexuality is somehow inexorably different from other queer sexualities and needs to be held as a completely separate thing and isolated for fear of offense,

is doing nothing but burying your head in the fucking sand and hoping that purity culture and queerphobic attitudes will leave ace folks alone. (They won't.)

The point isn't and has never been "Sex Good" or "Sex Bad."

The point is that it is your fucking right to do or not do whatever kinds of sexual activities in whatever ways you want to so long as you and your partner(s) consent(s) to it.

SO YES, WE FUCKING DO NEED THE SEX AND MAGIC BACK ON THE FLAG THIS FUCKING INSTANT.

[spectranova]

Happy international asexuality day!!! This is actually the first one ever :0

[chicken-druid]

ay not trying to start shit or anything but like… seeing widely spread memes that mock anyone who uses words like “aphobia” or “queerplatonic” kinda hurts, like, i don’t think you can make jokes like that while simultaneously claiming to be supportive of asexual and aromantic people. they have the exact same tone and purpose as “i identify as an attack helicopter” jokes except directed at a group that is apparently an acceptable target still

i’m not trying to argue whether cis heteroromantic aces or heterosexual aros have a place in the lgbtq+ community (i think they do but i’m not making that point here), just saying if you claim to be supportive of people of any orientation but then turn around and reblog memes where what you’re laughing at is literally the idea that asexual people could face negative treatment because of their orientation, or aromantic people describing their own lived experiences, then the message you’re sending is “i don’t recognize the validity of aspec orientations”

[pixie-wizzard]

When will y’all learn

[someoneiwasnt]

[Image ID: Tweet by Pearl 3: peal (@/PearloLesbo): “Bro trust me my exclusionism is different bro no where are you going no trust be bro its good this time bro I swear this time they’re actually harmful trust me bro this is good bigotry bro I swear bro this time it’s different and justified bro” /End ID.]

[f1rstperson]

I watched trans discourse to nb discourse to bi discourse to ace discourse to aro discourse to any person without a full label discourse to any kinky lgbtqia+ discourse to queer discourse to intersex discourse to pan discourse

I am not lying when I tell you it is. Literally. All. The. Same.

“Secret disgusting straight group is trying to overtake us and lying about being  a part of (label I conveniently dislike)! Every other group we shit on before is actually okay but this group is REALLY SERIOUSLY SECRET STRAIGHTS TRYING TO DESTROY US!!”

There it is. the discourse for the next decade. Packaged with a bow just for you. When you see it tell them it’s literally just EVERY DISCOURSE I SAID UP THERE repackaged. Because it is. <3

[theymeanaspecs]

This is true. Also, I can’t help but see “Jews” scratched out and “straight” written in in that discourse boil-down. The rhetoric about a secret, corrupting, worse-than-the-actual-bigots subgroup who are trying to sneak into a marginalized group and subvert it for their own wicked ends? Pride community discourse has been basically just remixes of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for decades.

[just-antithings]

just exclusionist things - "people who use the word queer are all straight, like if a straight man dyed his hair green and said he was an aro pansexual demigirl you'd just believe him ew." yes and? what is this a bad thing? support your local aro pan demigirl today!

what is it with exclusionists and hair dying??

[theymeanaspecs]

Ridiculous theory: exclusionists are so terrified at the prospect of attracting attention that they think that anyone who would intentionally do anything to make themselves stand out is a complete idiot with no survival instincts. If someone dyes their hair, it makes them more conspicuous, and to an exclusionist someone being willing to be conspicuous is an indication that that person is untrustworthy, if not completely detached from reality.

And/or they hate fun.

[legsdemandias]

Of all the stupid shit that came out of that ace/aro hatred movement, people responding to information about the negative and violent experiences perpetrated against aces/aros by saying things like “uhm this happens to gay?? how dare you insinuate that [a sexuality that is extremely similar to other minority sexualities] experiences the same experiences as us??” takes the entire spoiled cake.

And to those that still think that, I diagnose you with very dumb bigot disease. It is curable, but the treatment is 5 CCs of boot applied directly to the teeth. 

[legsdemandias]

Invariably, the most annoying thing to come out of this was aces and aros talking about the violence they’d received and strangers coming out of nowhere to both invalidate the personal violence they’d sustained (”uhm being threatened with rape for existing does NOT mean you’re oppressed”) and other strangers coming out to invalidate the existence of the violence because “that’s a thing that happens to gay people (”the person that sexually assaulted you probably mistakenly thought you were gay so that doesn’t count actually”).

They recognize that these things a) are happening b) are happening a lot and c) are indeed fucking violence and oppression, but they can’t apply that logic to someone that they themselves wish to enact violence upon because they see themselves as hapless victims not perpetrators. They need to bend in pretzels to try and redefine violence (”only the government can perpetrate oppression” yeah okay fuckface) and redefine when violence is actually violence (it was violence when it happened to me, but it was a mistake when it happened to you).

THEN they dress up their bigotry with “BUT YOU’RE STILL VALID!!” or “I’m so so so so sorry that happened to you :( but–” like just because you’re faux positive about the people you hate (”not that there’s anything wrong with that…”) doesn’t mean you don’t hate them and don’t wish them the worst.

Just fyi, if you aren’t doing anything to lessen the violence and support those who experienced it, then you are part of the violence. We cannot save people we refuse to acknowledge need saving.

[tittytheif]

[lifetimeoftired]

please stop putting this on my dash guys- the very next tweet they have is ‘hetero aces don’t interact’ 

[tittytheif]

im sorry i didn’t know  i saw it and was like tumblr would like that and didn’t think to check

[lifetimeoftired]

it’s 100% okay! not a lot of people check at all, I keep seeing it all over my twitter feed and I know several of them didn’t check either. just spreading the word around just in case.

[elisamaza]

when someone uses only “lgbt” and no other letters it has unfortunately become an exclusionist dog whistle, so that’s something to keep an eye out for.

[intersex-ionality]

(it's "discourse" related so I figured I'd throw this over here) I'm going back through my dash and seeing that "vote for best tumblr post of the decade!" thing you reblogged a couple days ago include "this sounds suspiciously aphobic or possibly terfy" when if I remember correctly, OP /was/ aphobic, actually gave me an anxiety attack. A post that gave exclusionists an excuse to turn us hearing their dogwhistles into a meme nominated as something iconically funny. What is wrong with people.

FUCK I forgot that stupid post was on the list. I went through each of the posts one by one to cast my vote, and by the time I did, I had forgotten that shitshow was on the list because it’s not even top ten material, let alone #1.

Yes, the person who was called “suspiciously terfy” was in fact a terf. IIRC–and forgive me, it was so long ago now–the tags on the OP contained a very obvious dogwhistle, and the post itself was originally circulated through TERFs and aphobes first, before breaking out into a larger sphere of popularity.

It’s really a disappointment and a disgusting mess that it became a meme at all, let alone enough of one that it can end up on a finalist list for best meme of the decade.

[theymeanaspecs]

It’s funny because aspec people were bullied into hypervigilance! Ha ha! /sarcasm

[theymeanaspecs]

The nearly frantic insistence by both the press and her own family members that Bianca Devins couldn’tve, just couldnt’ve been asexual (despite her publicly describing herself as such) is pretty telling. It’s as if they think that her being asexual makes her less worthy of love, and so they have to defend her against such allegations. 

“No, no! Ignore what she said--she was bisexual,” they’re saying. As if being asexual is some kind of cruel fate, a final knife in the wound of her passing. As if they can rescue her from her own self-determination. 

“You can mourn for her. She was a human being.”

[fuckyeahasexual]

Have you seen yasmin benoit's insta? Rolling stone published a story about Bianca Devins claiming aces had an agenda to tarnish her like those lying about her using drugs. It's fucking wild and so upsetting, especially w the tales and statistics about ace women in comparison to straight ones. The writer was aphobic on twitter before. It makes me rage so much that society forgets us unless they remember us for having an 'agenda' or being deviants & freaks or now lying about a poor girl who passed

If anyone has the stomach for a tweet could you send @yasminbenoit some support when calling out Rolling Stone today.

Here’s the twitter links. Even just RT or faving them will notify rolling stone of their error.

This was a failure of journalism and of the author and the magazine. If someone is violently killed all you have left is their words. An acephobe doesn’t get the right to undo someone’s own words and to target Yasmin as the cause of this another layer of vile on top of it all.

[fuckyeahasexual]

As per Yasmin’s twitter. I’d say please keep up support for Yasmin and calling out Rolling Stone mag for this needless drama they started after hiring an acephobic writer

[fuckyeahasexual]

Update:

[fuckyeahasexual]

That’s [email protected]

I honestly can’t tell you what Bianca would have wanted. I do know the living shouldn’t suffer because a bigoted women refused to believe the words of someone who should have been here to speak for herself.

[fuckyeahasexual]

Here is a text file version of an email if you’d prefer a template : https://twitter.com/voooorhees/status/1207499126381989888

You can also send a ‘correction’ email to [email protected]

[fuckyeahasexual]

Update 12/19

This is good news but

The article is going to be on the cover so they need to make sure the correction is made before it goes to print. It’s an easy fix so there’s no reason to delay this correction. Please keep emailing them if you can.

[email protected] and/or [email protected]

Here an updated link to a template email

I also find it tacky to be this “this murder went viral and that’s not right she was a person, a young girl with a future” and then have a magazine list her murder as click bait and pay a bigot to attack asexuals in the article.

[fuckyeahasexual]

https://twitter.com/theyasminbenoit/status/1207798760677531649

It is still pretty telling how reluctant this correction is, but it’s is a great show of aces working together to protect each other. Yasmin didn’t deserve to have her day/days derailed like this. And hopefully the writer will think twice before writing lies and hypocritically blaming others for an agenda.

[theymeanaspecs]

“Yes I know she literally called herself asexual in a public forum, and there are records of it, but people who are not her think that she wasn’t!” 

Jesus fucking Christ, they’re really determined to ignore her self-determination, aren’t they?

[trenderish]

transmeds dont doubt existence of people, only doubt that they are accurate about their identities. Not all people who are wrong about being trans are trenders, but trenders DO exist (even if they arent an issue we should be focusing on) - My transmed friend.

ok but get this: yall dont have any place speculating on others identities! trenders DONT exist! fuck off!

[trenderinq]

your transmed friend’s a cunt and youre a coward anon

[midnight-fox-boy]

There are cases of cis people pretending to be trans for one reason or another. But it isnt because of “trends” it’s because they have some selfish anterior motive and they usually only do it online. ( like cis women pretending to be trans women to be harmful to the community and troll)

People who think they’re trans but end up identifying as cis aren’t trenders either. They questioned a valid part of themself and ended up happy in the end

People with low or non-sex related dysphoria aren’t trenders.

Not Being miserable all the time doesn’t make anyone a trender, by that logic, since I’m on testosterone and have low dysphoria now, that’d make me a trender.

Sorry to go off I just felt like saying that you can pretend to be trans, but 9 times out of 10 it isn’t to be “trendy”

[dignity-not-intact-deactivated2]

Sorry to go off I just felt like saying that you can pretend to be trans, but 9 times out of 10 it isn’t to be “trendy”

change that to 10 times out of 10 and you’re good. no one pretends to be trans for a fad. they do it because something about the trans people they’ve seen clicks with them. whether being trans is right for them or not is up to them to figure out, but the process of them figuring that out should not be brushed off by anyone else as “fake” or “being a trender.” and they should definitely not be thrown under the bus as a away to appease transphobes.

even making a little bit of room for the possibility that there are trenders is enough to give some of the power of self-determination that trans people have back to cis gatekeepers. there are no trenders. period.

[theymeanaspecs]

The only cis person knowingly and intentionally pretending to be trans that I ever saw was a cis woman who pretended to be a trans woman so she could shit on ace people.

And this is a woman who pretended to be a different type of woman. Cis people don’t pretend to be genders they’re not (unless they’re doing it for a playful and temporary purpose, like roleplaying games or cosplay). That means that the very very VERY rare somebody who claims to be trans but isn’t will be claiming that they are a trans example of the gender they actually are, and they’ll be doing it in bad faith to win arguments, not just living their own damn lives.

[theymeanaspecs]

Everybody on this website really needs to consider that straight cis allo perisex people do not, generally, CARE about the distinctions between us. Yes, all of us have different stereotypes assigned to us (e.g. gay-> pervert, bi -> slut, transfem -> serial killer, aspec-> inhuman, etc etc), and cisheteropatriarchy affects us in different ways, but in the end we’re all just one big pile of Not Straight.

When ace and aro people get sent to conversion “therapy”, the people sending them did “think they were gay,” yes, but that’s because it’s all “gay” to the cisheteropatriarchy. The Man doesn’t use “gay” in the way that we might to signify exclusive same-gender attraction. The Man uses “gay” to mean “not Straight,” because the Man doesn’t give enough of a shit about us and our experiences to use more precise language and modes of thought. 

The shift in our community to assuming that the Man uses “gay” in the same way we do is incredibly damaging--and make no mistake, it’s by design. It’s by design of the same people who trade on the rate that bi and trans people get assaulted to get donations but then give most of their budget over to cis monosexual gay people. It’s by design of the same people who lie about our past, claiming that “lesbian” always meant “exclusively a woman who is exclusively attracted to women” and therefore any indication that a historical figure was bi or a trans man or nonbinary is wrong and evil and a theft of history. It’s by design of the same people who want a middle class abled cis white woman to be able to look a poor disabled trans woman of color in the face and claim to be more marginalized then her.

The universally exclusive “gay” is a scam propagated by grifters and bigots, and I’m sick of everyone falling for it.

[dilfgmancoolatta]

when ace people say “this blog is a troll blog” it’s not excusing homophobia what it is saying is “this blog was made by someone who hates ace people and wants to make them look like homophobes and reblogging their posts making fun of them with no context gives off the impression that youre making fun of ace people”

[animefacialrecognitionsoftware01]

When ur so dependent on cool guy clout that u have to preface ur anti suicide post by insisting that u still love bullying ppl

[demoncourse]

you’d think they drop the asshat-act for something as serious as addressing people who are suicidebaiting someone my age, but no, they really are just like that naturally i guess

[theymeanaspecs]

“I’m about three inches away from realizing that my actions have consequences, but don’t worry, fans, I will definitely never cross those three inches because being a bigot and a bully is just too darn much fun!”

[marsixm]

if you dont believe at this point that people online are chomping at the bit to be homophobic towards gay men & would gladly post about hating faggots if they could get away with it youre not paying attention

[theymeanaspecs]

Tumblr Capital Crime #1241229:

Describing yourself with words that TERFs want to keep reserved for their personal use.