Respectful Discourse

Ace and aro folk have and will always be members of the LGBT+ community. Furthermore, they’ve been around for way longer than y’all exclusionists have.

Similarly, queer is a slur. Only in the 1980s did gay people start reclaiming it and, even then, not everyone did. Far from everyone in fact. The power of calling oneself queer was in the fact that you were reclaiming a horrible, disgusting word. To many, it is still a horrible disgusting word. The word literally first began as a way to insult Oscar Wilde who was on trial for having sex with another man.

And, ace for “aces and aros were always lgbt”. They were never at any major events. They weren’t at stonewall. They had nothing to do with the Matthew Sheppard and James Byrd law. Or the first gay rights group. Or the 1966 Sip-In. Or gay people being removed from the DSM. Or any great historic lgbt event for that matter.

No the “a for ace” movement began with fucking David Jay founding Aven in 2001. I’ve been alive for longer than cishet aces have tried to worm their way into lgbt community.

i’ve seen many people arguing that aro/ace people are lgbt because of “similar experiences.” this doesn’t hold up, because: not even every lgbt person has the same experience to each other! not even every lesbian has the same experience! not every trans person has a same experience!

again, the lgbt community is not about experience. everyone will face different experiences for different reasons. everyone will have similar experiences for different reasons.

but this does not make you lgbt.

what makes you lgbt is a social perception of your identity that is affected by the systematic homophobia and transphobia. even lgbt people who are born in liberal places and have no internal qualms with their identity or coming out are still lgbt because their identity is still directly affected by systematic homophobia and/or transphobia. 

the lgbt community is not a place for people who don’t conform to sexuality norms, people who feel ostracized or isolated. that is not the definition of lgbt, nor is it the definition of the lgbt community. the lgbt community has a clear history and intent of responding to and uniting against specifically homophobia and transphobia.

to insinuate that this should change because another demographic feels isolated in their relationship with cisheteropatriarchy disrespects the lgbt community history. to demand that the lgbt community should always be “open” and “welcome to change” is also disrespectful to the lgbt community. we are not a community you can bring yourselves into to change. and i’m not going to even go into how this is flawed anyway, since the first person to propose the inclusion of ace people into the lgbt community was a cishet white man. 

but many people like leaving that part out, or pretend that it doesn’t exist.

i think people on tumblr really need to recognize that social labels exist not because of experiences, but because of social perceptions. the “similar experiences” argument needs to stop, because you know what? short-haired cishet girls often have a “similar experience” of experiencing lesbophobia or transphobia due to not conforming to the expectation of women having long hair, but that still doesn’t make a short-haired cishet girl lgbt. 

additionally, we need to recognize that the other reason identity labels exist is because oppressors have isolated the people they oppress, not the other way around. the lgbt community would not exist if cishet people did not actively dehumanize lgbt people on the basis of being lgbt; that is, cishet people utilizing homophobia and transphobia to separate and harm them. 

most of the identity politics on this website are solely based on experience. some people are trying to argue that “cishet” is inclusively “cisgender/heterosexual/heteroromantic/perisex” and that “non-cishet” people are automatically lgbt. but this is (aside from being linguistically revisionist just for the sake of an argument) incredibly reliant a person’s experience with their sexual and romantic identity, which most of the time is not easy to distinguish because “romance” is a social construct anyway and the way anyone experiences ANY KIND OF ATTRACTION will always be different from each other. additionally, the world is not naturally separated into “cishet” and “lgbt.” cishet people separated us (lgbt people) by utilizing homophobia and transphobia. 

That’s all well and good but how are you going to explain to children why cishet ace Maria who “doesn’t like anyone” is married? How are you going to explain why pan ace Svetlana who “doesn’t like anyone” is together with her girlfriend?

in general, yes it has been reclaimed. many, many lgbt people identify with it and that’s great. i’m glad that you feel comfortable enough to use it.

but that does not take away from its origins as a slur. 

you need to respect the wishes of people who still don’t feel comfortable with it, because even though it’s widely reclaimed, many of us still live in communities where it is used against us.

most people nowadays feel comfortable using words like “slut” or “bitch” occasionally, and often not in a derogatory way. many women have reclaimed them. but if a woman were to ask you not to call them those words, you (i hope) would comply.

Saying trans people aren’t LGBT is transphobic because it ignores the role trans people (trans women of colour particularly) played in building the community, as well as the fact that trans people are systemically oppressed by transphobia.

Saying bi/pan/ply people aren’t LGBT is biphobic because it ignores the role they played in building the community, as well as the fact that bi/pan/ply people are systemically oppressed by homophobia.

Claiming any of these is a hateful act which erases the experiences of those who belong to these groups and ignores the reason for the community’s existence- it exists as a coalition against homophobia and transphobia.

But why does saying that ace/aro people aren’t inherently LGBT automatically make you ‘aphobic’ and what does aphobic actually mean in this situation? Someone being labelled ‘aphobic’ for stating this opinion isn’t ignoring the role that ace/aro people played in building the community because the ace community, as a collective, did not have a role in it. It doesn’t make sense to claim that cishet ace/aros and cis acearos played a role in the Stonewall Riots. It doesn’t make sense to claim that it is a part of their history and their culture, because it’s not. It wasn’t their fight because it was a riot specifically against homophobia and transphobia. Someone being labelled ‘aphobic’ for stating this opinion isn’t ignoring any sort of systemic oppression either, because ace/aro people aren’t systemically oppressed for being ace/aro. Nor are ace/aro people aren’t systemically oppressed by homophobia or transphobia just by virtue of being ace/aro. It makes no sense to accuse people of being an ‘aphobe’ when they disagree with your opinion on this.Saying ace/aro people aren’t LGBT isn’t denying their experiences, it’s acknowledging that ace/aro people don’t actually have any ties to the LGBT community just by being ace/aro.

CISHET ASEXUALS ARE NOT LGBT