chungus

It is so gosh darn difficult to find other ace and aro people irl. We’re a small community that mostly connects through the internet because we are a small percentage of the population and not that many people know about us yet. So, most of the support we get irl is from gay, bi/pan, and trans people. Not other ace and aro people.

I have two irl asexual friends now, but for the first six years I was out as ace I had none. Maybe an online person here or there, but no physical presence. Nobody to eat lunch with or vent to or hug when things got bad. Instead, the support I got was from my gay and bi friends. They supported me, and I supported them in return. The very first person I ever came out as asexual to was a gay guy I was friends with at the time.

He was there for me and I was there for him in return. He was relieved to find out I was ace actually, because that made me another queer person he could talk to. And soon after I connected with several bi and pan people at my high school. We were able to stand up for each other, get things done, relate to each other.

Including ace and aro people in the queer community means giving ace and aro people a support system. A safe space. An opportunity to relate and be related to. To love and be loved. To protect and be protected. When you’re already included by default it’s easy to sit in your leather wing backed chair in your ivory tower and say “Well these people should just form their own community.” but in reality that just doesn’t work.

Ace and aro people will always have their own community, yes. But also lesbians will have their own community. Trans people will have their own community. Gay men will have their own community, bi people, pan people, non binary people, the list goes on. But all the people in those communities can form one super group that relates, that supports each other. That unites under the umbrella of “not totally cis and hetero at the same time”.

It’s a support system that ace and aro people desperately need. We have bad and good experiences because of our orientation, many of which other queer people can relate to. We see the rest of the community and go “Same hat!!!” and feel a little less alone. And yeah. That includes heteroromantic aces and heterosexual aros. They need that support too, because believe it or not, heteronormative society isn’t kind to them either. They understand a lot more than you think. They’re not trying to join because it’s trendy. They get that same hat feeling just like you and I.

I watched irl queer groups disintegrate bc a few ppl who got into leadership positions used that to make the space hostile towards ace ppl (among others as well), saw friends go from being loud and proud aces n aros to actively avoiding any mention of it and letting ppl assume their sexuality. I myself, having been IDing as ace for 10 years at least, have in the past couple since this whole “"discourse”“ came into being, actively and intentionally stopped telling anyone at all that I’m ace. To put that in some kind of perspective, I am incredibly out as trans and will actively out myself pretty constantly except to total strangers I will never see again. I feel safer telling ppl I’m trans than ace. Especially in queer spaces. It’s fucked me up so much I didn’t even quite grasp how much but today my therapist asked me for the first time about like romantic relationships and I physically could not say I am aro and ace. Completely incapable, utterly frozen, and I just kinda let her believe what she will. Ironically the fact that I’ve gone from being willing and ready to tell ppl I’m ace as just another facet of myself to entirely unable and unsolicited to tell anyone, is probably a thing one might want to talk w one’s therapist about.

The ace discourse has been going on here for around 3 years now with no signs of stopping considering of how many excusionist and aphobic ace discourse keep popping up here and 99% of them are just really horrible people who keep bullying,harassing and mocking ace people as a form of “discourse”

Ace discourse hasnt made ANYONE feel safe in the lgbtqa community except people who are as much of a bully towards ace people as aphobes are and has just created a huge divide among the community bc many lgbtqa ACE people too feel like they cant trust other lgbtqa people non ace people since they  might turn out to be aphobic.

I hope anyone who has EVER contributed to this disgusting agenda against the existence of ace people reads this and realizes how they have only played the part of the bullies and bigots they hated in schools and societies, towards ace people and have contributed to the unsafeness and self hatred ace people feel for being ace.