Rasie It Up Raise It Up

Its okay for tasks to be hard, it doesn't make you any less deserving of rest.

You are not lazy when your rest is mandatory.

You bring joy and hope to this world just by existing.

It's okay to cry, it's okay to not be held together all the time.

You are not alone, there are people out there who struggle in similar ways to you.

If mobility aids may help you or make your life easier then use them.

Your happiness and quality of life is top priority.

You work so hard and I'm proud of you,even when its not perfect.

People spend a lot of time romanticizing sex (literally and metaphorically), but in the end it is simply a thing that some humans like to do and that some don't like to do!!

Sex is a lot like cooking :) some people like it, some people don't, and there are a LOT of right ways to do it!! And some things that might taste so delicious to one person might make another person vomit!! AND, NOT EVERYONE LIKES COOKING!!! AND THAT IS OKAY!!!

Talk about how most of us can never legally transition because even if legal transition is an option it's typically restricted to the binary.

Talk about how even non-binary gender markers which seem like the solution actually force us into a double bind of either misgendering ourselves constantly or outing ourselves constantly.

Talk about how there is no way to "pass" as non-binary and that the only way to be stealth is to be closeted one way or the other.

Talk about how "non-binary" as a term was meant to be an umbrella term for a myriad of gender identities but was forcibly homogenized into one "third gender" by others.

Talk about how the MOGAI movement which sought to give names to the wide breadth of gender identity and experience was relentlessly mocked both by transphobes and other trans people alike, abandoned by our own communities because our identities were "too weird."

Talk about the slur "theyfab" and its misogynistic and transmisogynistic usage. Talk about how it contributes to the rampant erasure of amab non-binary people and treats all non-binary people as "whiny little wome- i mean afabs."

AROMANTIC PEOPLE

ASEXUAL PEOPLE

AND AROACE PEOPLE

ALL BELONG IN THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY

do NOT like sex, even with someone you love

will NEVER have sex, not even 'to find out if you enjoy it,' because you don't want to

have NO curiosity about sex and do not write, read, or enjoy smut

are SEX-REPULSED and have to beg your friends to stop talking about their sex lives in graphic detail when you're together

You are not broken, weird, or alien

Your boundaries are real, and valid, and you deserve for them to be respected

You deserve to be both treated and regarded as an Adult by your sex-having peers

If any of your sex-having or sex-wanting peers cannot or will not regard you as an Adult and as a complete person because of your asexuality, your indifference to sex, your revulsion for sex, or your virginity, I need you to know something:

They are in fact the living, breathing proof that having sex does not grant either maturity or a fuller understanding of human nature.

My dad has 4 half siblings and two step siblings. They're all a decent bit younger than him. When I was a teenager, we went to a family reunion, and I realized something—my dad did not respect his siblings. He looked down on all of them. He saw them as fuck-ups and overgrown children. My dad had the American dream: well paying management job, suburban house, wife, and three kids. My aunt and uncles did not. Excluding my aunt, none of them were married or in serious relationships. They hadn't really settled into long term careers. Several of them were working the kind of jobs that get called "Unskilled labor." So he looked down on them because the youngest one was in his thirties (and several were much older), and yet none of them had "settled down" into what he saw as lifelong, permanent careers and relationships and lives. He was polite to their faces, sure, but I heard how he talked about them behind their backs, to my mother.

And then a few years ago, we visited his brothers again for Thanksgiving. And I realized something again--he respected them now. He saw them as equals. Why? Well. All of a sudden, every single one of them had serious, committed romantic partners. They didn't even need to still be with those partners—one of my uncle's fiance passed away from cancer before they could marry—just having had one showed that they matured into a real adult participating in society. In fact, at one point, my aunt was telling my mom about how one of my uncles was no longer living in an apartment she owned, but instead, after having a steady girlfriend for about a year, he moved in with her. And my mom literally said to my aunt, "wow. Look at that. He finally grew up."

One of the lines that frequently gets repeated about anti-aspec sentiment is "why would anyone hate asexuals/aromantics/etc? They aren't even doing anything." And that's exactly it. In the eyes of amatonormative culture, we aren't doing anything. Adults are supposed to do things. That's how you become a member of society.

It's oppression.

a sex repulsed ace person can raise an issue with a statement that, on its face, reads like someone saying you, the person reading this, have a moral obligation to be horny on main (a statement i have unironically seen!) and here come 500 aphobes and aspecs with internalized aphobia to tell them they're a horrible person who wants "real" queer people thrown in jail and probably also kicks puppies

some people are more open about their aphobia ("omg why do aces have to make everything about them, look at this cringe loser") and others are much more subtle about it. but it happens nonetheless, over and over again.

oh, but they can't possibly be aphobic. after all, as they're so quick to point out, they have an ace friend who passes out water bottles at the orgy.