All Hail Kirstin The Queen

Why aren’t aromantic/asexual people lgbt?

The LGBT community was created to combat homophobia and transphobia. Obviously, to experience homophobia and transphobia you either have to experience sga (same/similar gender attraction) or not be cis. aro/ace people don’t automatically experience homophobia/transphobia, and if they do it is not because they are aro/ace. 

On top of that, aro/ace people being in lgbt spaces often sucks up resources actual lgbt people need, so it really is harming us.

What resources?

Scholarships, funds, beds at homeless shelters, lgbt suicide hotlines, pride clubs and other safe spaces with limited space, food that’s handed out at lgbt centers and clubs, et cetera.

But some aro/ace people are trans/bi/pan/lesbians!

You’re right! Those people ARE lgbt, but it is not because they are aro/ace. It would be because they are trans/bi/pan/etc. 

But the acronym is LGBTQIA!

The full acronym is ‘LGBT.’ Some people do add the “+” to be inclusive of nonbinary people who don’t identify as trans, along with pan/ply people who don’t want to be included under the “B.” But the “QIA” is not necessary.

-”Q” stands for “Queer” which is a slur that not everyone has reclaimed. While it is true that a lot of people DO identify themselves as queer, it is still potentially harmful to include it in the acronym as many lgbt people still rightfully see it as a harmful slur associated with violence.

-”I” stands for “Intersex,” and many intersex people have come forward saying that they do not automatically consider themselves lgbt for being intersex. Some intersex people identify as cis, and it is harmful to force all intersex people to identify as lgbt. intersex people can choose to include themselves in the community on a case-by-case basis, but it is harmful to include it in the acronym, as it makes it hard for intersex people to be taken seriously when they identify as cis.

What about the A?

The A originally stood for ally, to allow closeted people access to lgbt resources. It was not always actually included in the acronym, but it was generally understood that you could identify yourself as an ally and participate in community events without outing yourself.

The “A is for asexual” movement was started in the early 2000′s by a cishet man named David Jay. Jay is openly homophobic, (just one instance of this is his pride at being able to work “fag” into the lgbt acronym) and most of us find it deeply offensive that a cishet man forced us to include more cishets into a community that was specifically designed to be safe from cishets. 

LGBT is for all identities that differ from heteronormativity!

This is not true. If LGBT accepted all identities that were seen as “other” by society, we would be supporting kinksters, pedophiles, rapists, etc. 

Along with that, cishet aces do not differ from heteronormativity, they actively contribute to it. Het people don’t suffer from heteronormativity.

But ace/aro  people are still queer!

Queer is a slur that was used against sga/mga (same/similar gender attraction and multiple gender attraction) people and trans people. Many people have personally reclaimed it and started identifying as queer, but ace/aro people have no claim to the word. 

You cannot reclaim a slur if it was never taken from you and used against you violently in the first place. 

But “straight” means heterosexual AND heteroromantic! Cishet aros/aces aren’t straight!

“straight” means you are exclusively attracted to the opposite binary gender, (i.e. a binary girl being exclusively attracted to binary boys, and vice versa.) It doesn’t matter if this is sexual attraction, romantic attraction, or both. Heteroromantic asexual people are straight, and heterosexual aromantic people are straight.

If you call bi aces bi, and ace lesbians lesbians, you can call straight aces straight.

ace people can’t be cishet, because they are ace.

Cisgender heteroromantic asexual. Cishet.

But ace people are just as oppressed as other LGBT identities!

This is…also not true. Ace people are not systematically oppressed for their identity. You are not going to be kicked out for being ace, you are not going to be fired for being ace, you are not going to be beaten up for being ace or be killed for being ace. 

This is aphobic!

The term “Aphobia” suggests that again, ace people are oppressed. As outlined above, you are not systematically oppressed for being ace.

Ace people face corrective rape!

First of all, “corrective rape” is a term lesbians coined to describe their experiences with being raped to “fix” them. Ace people should not be using this term.

Secondly, the “corrective rape” ace people face is almost always rooted in misogyny, not aphobia. It is almost exclusively a case of a female/female aligned victim, I have yet to see enough cases of male/male aligned asexual people being raped for being ace.

Telling ace people they aren’t lgbt is gatekeeping.

Gatekeeping is a term that trans women used to describe being cut off from healthcare. To use it in this context is gross. Telling straight cis people that they aren’t welcome in safe spaces from straight cis people isn’t gatekeeping.

This is just recycled biphobia!

Biphobia is a legitimate issue within the lgbt community, to compare bi people to cishet aces is super offensive to bi people because we actually face oppression from straight people and discrimination within the lgbt community, we would really appreciate not being used as a token in your argument as most of us disagree with you. 

aro/ace people are valid, stop telling us we aren’t.

Sure, you’re valid. Nobody is saying you aren’t-in fact i don’t think I’ve seen one person say aro/ace people aren’t real or something. 

“you aren’t lgbt” =/= “you aren’t valid.“

aro/ace people deserve a community!

Sure! the lgbt community just isn’t the right one. This community was created out of hard work, if you want a community to talk about your experiences, to specifically help aro/ace people, you have to create one. 

It’ll be exhausting to try and debunk all of these all over again, because as has been said on many occasions, one of the functions of oppression is to keep the oppressed continuously reiterating and defending their point, their right to acceptance, over and over again, so that they do not have the time or energy or resources to make gains in other areas. But I’m not asexual or aromantic, I’m bisexual and genderqueer, so let’s pretend I still have the energy to at least try to tell you why you’re wrong.

Asexuals are part of the LGTQIA community and always have been. Generations of queer-identified individuals have included them, and the recent attempt at exclusion is occurring by-and-large among people who don’t know that history. As stated in the link that opens this paragraph, the term ‘bisexual’ used to be a broad umbrella for a bunch of identities in the queer community that weren’t gay or lesbian, and asexuals were part of that (hence part of why the acronym used to only be four letters). To say they don’t have any right to the term ‘queer’ is thus wrong for a lot of reasons, which are described as this post progresses.

Also, if we’re talking about terms we should not use, the term “SGA” is gross and originated in conversion therapy. It’s not a good term to use and it’s only very recently entered usage with the LGBTQIA community, and almost exclusively as a means of denying the legitimacy of asexual and aromantic individuals. I, as a bisexual individual, find the term incredibly uncomfortable and would rather be called almost anything else. The term has homophobic origins and has not been reclaimed by the majority of the community, and so the broad usage of it is far more oppressive than the use of the (predominately) reclaimed slur ‘queer’.

Further, while the LGBTQIA community isn’t for pedophiles or rapists like you mention, it also did not develop solely for individuals who experience attraction to those of the same gender. It developed as a haven for all of those whose identity and orientation (not pedophiles or rapists, but identity and orientation, which is very different), falls outside of the heteronormative mold. If it were only for people who experience attraction to those of their same gender, that would exclude a lot of trans people, and by modern definitions, a lot of bi people, not to mention that the term ‘SGA’ (aside from being homophobia and biphobic in its origins) also inherently erases nonbinary identities. Beyond that, it’s really disgusting to compare ace and aro people to pedophiles and rapists. I could take all day to list the reasons why that’s wrong, but I trust anyone reading this to realize that it’s gross on many levels. (edited: it’s also not great to compare those in the kink community to pedophiles and rapists and I apologize for an earlier version of this response lumping those groups together).

The term gatekeeping is not a trans-specific term, and has existed for eons to encompass the notion that one group is limiting access to a given thing. The example in the definition that google provides is about cultural gatekeeping at Wal-Mart, of all things. Find a source on it being a term used exclusively and with a specific meaning within the trans community and I’ll reconsider that, but I’ve seen trans people using it to describe what’s going on in the LGBTQIA community against ace and aro individuals, not to mention that it’s been used before to refer to what has happened against bisexuals. But if the term is in fact transphobic to use for any reason, the fact remains that there are individuals in the community attempting to deny access to ace and aro individuals on false presumptions and doing so in a manner that is oppressive.

On the subject of terminology, although the term corrective rape was absolutely coined by the lesbian community, what else would you like to call it when individuals are raped due to their sexual orientation? If you want to call it something else, that’s perfectly okay, but the fact remains that this experience happens to a lot of asexual individuals. And for the love of god, stop talking over asexual people who say, directly, that their corrective rape has occurred due to their orientation and not their gender. Talking over a rape survivor about their own experiences is disgusting, and if its a woman who is the survivor, and given that the majority of asexual rape survivors are women or AFAB, you’re also being misogynistic by trying to define her experiences and talking over her. You’re aphobic either way for talking over someone, but misogyny occurs when you try to repackage women’s experiences in a way that fits your narrative and not their own. Stop doing it. 

Also, those false presumptions? You’re assuming that ace and aro individuals are cissexual heterosexual. They are not. They are not heterosexual at all, they are asexual, so stop calling them straight. Even if they’re heteromantic, they’re not straight. And what about an asexual aromantic? They seem to fail to exist by your measure? And it’s also literally oppressive to call a queer individual straight. I know that your post mentions that some individuals in the ace community may be trans or bi or another queer identity, but it’s horrific to invalidate one identity to prop up another. An asexual person is valid regardless of whether they are trans or nonbinary or biromantic or not. Your support of only half of someone is reductive, oppressive, and flies in the face of what you purport to want to accomplish. No asexual or aromantic person is straight, so stop calling them that. Period.

On that note, aphobia is a great deal like biphobia and transphobia. This is out of the mouths of bi and trans people. Not all bi and trans people will agree, but many do. I do, as someone who is bi and NB. As soon as I saw aphobic posts, I went “wow this feels familiar” because it is. All gatekeeping looks similar, once you strip it down to it’s core. And the majority of people making the comparison are bi or trans themselves, and because of that, it’s not biphobic or transphobic at all to make the comparison, and it’s not a token defense at all. To minimize it to that is to ignore the very real issue going on, which is that the LGTQIA community has a tendency to try and redefine ‘acceptable’ levels of queerness over and over again in a way that grants power to those doing the oppressing (and I don’t mean any specific identity, I literally mean to the people who benefit by spewing aphobic ‘discourse’ and vitriol). Whenever we see a community that has closed it’s doors to some of it’s own members, we must ask ourselves who benefits, and the reasons for it. Come to your own conclusions about that though, mine are too dark to get into here.

Speaking of benefits, that resources argument that has been touted a lot? Fails to hold water. As has been pointed out from a simple logical basis – if they didn’t need the resources, they wouldn’t be using them. Asexuals and aromantics face oppression, and the fear that aphobes have about them ‘taking’ resources from the rest of the community implies that we have a greater right to resources based on our orientation or gender than other people who are oppressed for their orientation and/or gender. When… we’re supposed to be about supporting those who are oppressed for their orientation and/or gender. So it just… doesn’t logically follow. 

“But they aren’t oppressed?” You know what, I’ll let the ace and aro community speak for themselves on this one. You can look at the posts on @acephobia-is-real for ace individuals who have experienced corrective rape (which, yeah, the term we might disagree on the usage of, but that’s what they call it and I’ll support that unless a better is supplanted). You might also want to this post about the term corrective rape and it’s origins, not to mention this simple explanation of systematic oppression. 

As for “who is oppressed more” … we don’t need to do that. We don’t need to say who faces the most/worst oppression for oppression at all to be valid, do we? Oppression is oppression. It’s known that asexuals are discriminated against, even within the community. So as issues of rape, suicidal ideation, housing issues, mental health problems, and intersections with other identities exacerbate all of these, the oppression of the asexual and aromantic community continues to be a systematic issue, one that we can fight alongside them, or one that we can help create. I’d rather be on the side of the oppressed and not their oppressors, when given the option. (I’d also like to point out that acknowledging they need a community of their own, which you do in your post, inherently acknowledges that they’re oppressed, contradicting your earlier point that they aren’t oppressed).

tl;dr - asexual and aromantic individuals are part of the LGBTQIA community and always have been, regardless of the ways that acronym has changed over time. They are oppressed (as acknowledged by yourself) and are discriminated against within the lgbtqia community, as acknowledged by many other members of the community, in a manner similar to oppression that those other members of the community have faced. 

Recommended reading: 

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/post/147686752868/lestermygaard-wetwareproblem-ewaphobes

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/post/147550248049/prokopetz-one-of-the-more-perplexing-habits-of

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/post/147135909186/arionwind-thats-another-thing-i-was-musing

http://phynali.tumblr.com/post/141942913639/wesencouncilerrandboy-sobercommunist-i-wanna

http://phynali.tumblr.com/post/147157515284/i-feel-like-as-a-closeted-person-i-hold-something

http://ayo-tofu.tumblr.com/post/147550641176/things-to-remember

https://acephobia-is-real.tumblr.com/post/146553626410/someone-asked-you-for-a-source-and-all-you-said-is

http://ayo-tofu.tumblr.com/post/146564659966/fuckyeahasexual-courteousmingler