Fort of blankets

As I mentioned before, I’m taking a break from social media/the net in general to focus on writing. This is one of the things I’ve been working on, so I’mma just leave it here, and disappear back into the aether.

How about a positive thing?

So, I’m going to stay anonymous here, but I write fanfic. I am also asexual, and though I never described myself as asexual or any of the characters in my fic as asexual, I somehow wound up with a pretty fair-sized ace following for one fic. Can people recognize their own kind through my writing? Is it just because I’m writing what I want to see [emphasis on romantic and platonic relationships rather than sexual ones] and it attracts people with similar desires? I don’t know. Regardless, like I said, decent-sized ace following.

I noticed that two of my most, for want of a better word, loyal readers had become friends through the fic, and I was like, “Hey, that’s cool. Maybe I can introduce more people each other with my fic, spark more friendships,” so I made a Discord server for my readers.

And within the first week or two of the Discord being up, someone nervously came out as ace.

And almost everyone else online at the time raised their hands and said, “Same here.” And one person said, “I’m not asexual, but I’m dating someone who is, and we’ve been happy together for years.”

And, I just went back to make sure, the woman who came out started crying. She wasn’t expecting that level of support, and she certainly wasn’t expecting a whole group of people–masculine, feminine, nonbinary, cis, trans, different races, different countries, different romantic orientations [including aro], ages ranging from early teens to late twenties, hell, even people who didn’t ship the couple from the fic and were just there because they liked the idea behind the story–to be just as asexual as she was. She was so goddamn happy. It was an incredibly beautiful moment, and I was so fucking floored by the realization that I’d helped facilitate that.

So amidst all the hate and the bullshit, don’t lose hope. Don’t think of yourself as less valid. Don’t forget that you can find happiness. Pride month is all about accepting and embracing who you are. And anyone who spouts that same bullshit rhetoric that has been used in biphobic and transphobic and even anti-lesbian arguments throughout history? Well, they’re missing the point entirely.

We’re here. We’re QUEER. Get FUCKING used to it.

Yeaaaah, I just did. The hypocrisy is just hilarious, though. And I wonder what it’s like, to see the world so black-and-white. And how you get your logic that convoluted.

Aces are invisible and that isn’t oppression, that’s just unfortunate. What y'all need is an awareness campaign which y'all don’t need the lgbt community to do

Except, we’ve tried to do awareness campaigns. It’s called Asexual Awareness Week, and LGBT people came fucking down on us like a ton of bricks for daring to want to exist. Either the date was wrong, and if we moved it that was wrong, and literally everything we did was wrong. Because we’re ace, so we don’t matter, or whatever.

I literally gave you examples of gay, lesbian, bi and trans people being invisible in other countries, and how that doesn’t mean there’s no struggle. How is their invisibility oppression, but ours isn’t?

You seem to really enjoy cherrypicking and making strawmen, and making very US-centric statements as if they were universal truth, when they have... very little relevance outside of the US. And making it all about the violence people in the community face, and none of the other issues. I wish you luck with that, and all the best. A kindly anon told me this is like a hobby of yours, so I’ll let you go ahead and do this dance with someone else.

It seems that no matter what I do to fight for other people’s rights, or how badly I don’t fit in with cishet straight society, I’m not enough. But hey, if you’re a representative of your community and the atmosphere there, then I honestly think I’ll pass. I’d considered joining in more Pride events than just seminars and debates on issues faced that were open for all, but really, the hostility I’ve seen is off-putting. You say I should stick to ace spaces and ace communities, and that I’m oppressing “your” people for showing up in the community. You don’t give a fuck about “your” people showing up in my community for the explicit purpose of making it unsafe, because LGBT people have never done anything to ace people. Right. Really, A+ hypocrisy.

Being agender wouldn’t make you gay so of course you couldn’t make a gay joke??

....I wonder at your reading comprehension. Of fucking course I can’t. That was my point. But if being agender is “enough” by your standards, since I’m neither cis nor het anymore, why is it okay to exclude me from the community for making a poorly thought-out comment, but gay men who make misogynist or transphobic comments get to stay, or any other combination of originating group making a comment about someone else? 

I said that if you were gonna exclude everyone who made jokes about other groups in the community, that it’d be a small one. You literally said I was making the space unsafe because I wasn’t either trans or attracted to my own gender.

on the day of the pulse shooting, you’re literally saying the equivalent of “at least people know about you to murder you”

I have not once said that the consequences of that visibility can be incredibly fucking dangerous! And the violence faced is abhorrent! It’s a real pretty strawman you’re making, but that’s all it is.

But visibility also means you have a voice. You have role models. You have resources. Since you don’t seem to understand ace erasure or ace invisibility, I’m gonna talk about gay and bi erasure and invisibility, and maybe you’ll understand it then.

Because guess what, that exists too. Gay, lesbian, bi and trans culture as it is in the US is not universal. If you go to, say, Japan, the culture is very different. In many ways, gay, bi and trans people can live relatively safe lives, with little chance of violence, because the general populace treat it like it doesn’t exist. Oh, they know it exists logically, but it wouldn’t happen to anyone they know.

So you can live your life safely. But it might take 30 or 40 years to realize you’re not straight because you had no info. You might think you’re never gonna find someone, because no-one is out. You can live your life just fine, without violence, but you live it in the closet.

Are you saying that because Japanese gay/bi/lesbian people are less likely to be beat up or face violence because they’re less visible, that they’re not oppressed? Of fucking course not. They’re living in a society where they don’t fit in because of their sexuality or gender identity, and that comes with a bunch of problems. Just because those problems manifest slightly differently doesn’t mean they’re not there.

And the invisibility and erasure that ace and aro people face works in a similar way. Invisibility is not a privilege. Both come with pros and cons, and neither is “better” than the other.

And there are countries where gay, lesbian, bi and trans people for the most part don’t live in fear. They can practice their sexuality or gender identity openly (sexuality more than gender identity, unfortunately), and 99.99% of the people don’t give a shit. Where the idea of conversion therapy is abhorrent, and the majority of the population scoffs at priests who refuse to wed same-sex couples. 

But they still celebrate Pride, and they treat it more like a party. It’s kind of like how people celebrate Christmas, even if they’re mostly meh about Jesus or Christianity. Or celebrate 4th of July or whatever national holiday, without really caring all that much about the origin. I am not saying the roots of Pride aren’t important, because they are so incredibly important, but as I’ve said, events take on a life of their own, and after a while, a lot of people participate for the event itself, not for its origins.

Yeah, that’s how I see it too. I’m ace before I’m aro, kinda-thing. Maybe it’s because romantic attraction seems more... vague to me than sexual attraction, but... idk, I’m aro first and foremost.

your “accidental” homophobia and transphobia as someone who oppressed both gay and trans people is DANGEROUS to us

I’m not gonna pretend it’s accidental, it’s the result of years of living in a homophobic society, and it’s something I have to work on, because I’m human and I fuck up.

But gay men making transphobic or misogynist jokes make the community unsafe for trans and wlw people, and vice versa. You are very eager to lump me with cishet people, because then you can justify the distinction. But like I said, I don’t even know if I’m cis. More than half the time, I consider myself agender. I just haven’t had the energy to find a label that seems to fit my gender identity.

Would it suddenly become unproblematic for me to make a homophobic joke if I’m agender? Of fucking course not. I still fucked up, and it was a joke I shouldn’t have made, and I need to do better.