#bye)

While Zelgadis speaks, Rezo is stunned into silence. The moment he felt the familiar nudge into his side, he expected a quiet litany of concerns and woes, as is customary.  

What he receives is the gratification he never expected, not even if he lived ten additional lifetimes.  

And when Zelgadis stops speaking, Rezo, who might have expected to collapse into a sobbing, chest-pounding heap … .just continues to sit where he sits. But he is smiling, and the smile is serene, and all the flowers and plants and potted herbs within a ten-foot radius grow upward and toward him, flooded with unchecked white magical energy. 

Growth comes from healing, healing comes from love. What Rezo feels is a purest and most unabashed adoration. 

He turns and beams toward the voice, the familiar presence, of his boy.  

Yes. It’s done. It’s accomplished: achieved.  

     “You may or may not learn this, one day, firsthand. But it is very, very easy, to be brave for your child.” 

He finds a hand, a hand clawed into a fist, and closes his fingers around hard stone.  There they stay.

I just got an ask congratulating me on being out of ace discourse but fine I’ll give you the short and long of it.

The LGBT community is a community that exists to address the issues facing Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals (and any other MGA person who falls under the bisexual label, even if they do not use the bisexual label themselves), and Trans people (and any other person who does not identify with their agab, even if they do not use the label trans themselves).

The issues facing Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexual, and Trans people stem from homophobia, transphobia, and biphobia. As systems of oppression, these all come from the same institutions and modes of thought--that is to say, there is significant overlap in how we experience oppression, even between a cis lesbian and a straight trans man.

Part of this is because historically (and even currently), gayness and transness were thought to be the same thing and were referred to as “sexual inversion.” For example, a gay man is acting as a woman would because loving men is something only woman do. Therefore, he’s assumed to “want to be” a woman, ie he’s like a trans woman. Even more recently, we had the pseudo science saying “gay people have the brains of the opposite gender.” A woman who loves women has the brain of a man because loving women is a Man Thing.

Ergo, homophobia and transphobia have assumed the same forms. Sodomy laws affect gay, bi, and trans people alike. Marriage equality is a gay and trans issue because in a world where straight trans people are misgendered, legally they cannot marry their SO because they are treated as a same gender couple. A trans man only into women is seen as a lesbian by transphobes. Likewise, laws dictating how much clothes you had to wear of your gender/not of the “wrong” gender targeted gay and trans people alike.

Throughout history, Lesbians, Gay Men, Bisexuals, and Trans people have faced the same hardships, created the same culture together, and have the same legal woes. Between our groups, we share the AIDS Crisis, Stonewall, Lawrence v Texas, etc etc.. There’s a reason why Stonewall wasn’t just cis gay men and cis lesbians--it was a diverse space full of the L G B and T, all there taking refuge in the same spaces and fighting against the same oppression.

We are allied together by our fight against our mutual oppressors--cisgender straight people and cisgender aroace people.

Cisgender people all benefit from transphobia. Straight and aroace people all benefit from lesbophobia, homophobia, and biphobia.

Ergo, cisgender straight/aroace people do not belong in LGBT spaces.

They have no role in our culture, history, or activism outside of being the oppressors who inspire it. Cishets have been trying to glom onto LGBT culture for validation, resources, and to feel cool for decades now--starting with kinksters, going onwards with allies (especially allies who obfuscate their cis/hetness to continue this), and now here with the first publicly successful batch--aces.

I don’t have to bow to that. I don’t have to bow to their harassment campaigns. I don’t have to bow to a community first started on an article complaining about how jealous they are of LGBT pride while bragging about how better they are for not wanting sex. I don’t have to bow to a community whose most popular meeting space is AVEN, created by a man who proposed the acronym be changed to “LGBTTQQPFAGIBDSM” (Spot the slur!), said the a is for ally but allies are “queer anyways,” and then shat out a bunch of homophobia over the years.

A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose and a cishet is a cishet. And a cishet by any other name would smell as oppressive. Heteroromantic. Demi-grey hetrom. Hetero ace. Ace who is attracted to the opposite gender and only the opposite gender but somehow they’re not straight. Whatever.

Cishet is cishet.

And a cishet is not L G B or T. We share no culture, no activism, no strife, no love, no anything. And while they may hack away at liberal groups that never really did much for anyone anyways and win out on “inclusion” which means some groups will mention aces are welcome but never really do anything ace specific because aces don’t really need specific resources beyond just feeling included... I don’t have to subscribe to that bootlicking mindset. I’d much rather invite a thousand wellmeaning allies into LGBT spaces because at least they’re there to help us instead of demand we help them.

Fuck it. I have no respect for the ace community, in all 20+ years of them existing as a coherent (well, sort of) community, they have done exactly zero activism besides being a PR machine for their relationship to sex. No activism for rape victims. No lobbying for anything. All they do is tell teenagers is that tis’ okay to have sex with people they aren’t attracted to, which is just reiterated rape culture.

They are the inverse of the sex positivity movement--telling people unhealthy sexual behaviour is fine and is a new identity without ever really dismantling rape culture besides playing lipservice to “rape is bad.” Which isn’t even an LGBT issue--it’s a feminist one. It’s misogyny.

They have nothing to offer the LGBT community. And I wouldn’t want it even if they had something. Because the only ones not included in the LGBT community by virtue of their actually LGBT identities are just my oppressors (cishets and cis aroaces) and oppressors demanding access to resources and spaces created by those they oppress are just furthering their oppression. We tell cishet women to fuck off all the time and cishet women actually are oppressed by gender things you could arguably connect to homophobia and transphobia! There’s no way in fucking hell I’m gonna bend over backwards for other cishets who aren’t even oppressed by just feel a bit lonely because their relationship to sex/dating isn’t what they see in movies (hint: no relationship to sex/dating is accurately portrayed in the media).

I’m over it. I’m done. Cishets fuck off forever.