Sideboard

if you are making something featuring multiple flags and you put in the asexual flag, you better put in the aromantic flag.

if you put in the aroace flag, you better put in the aroallo flag.

^ the aromantic flag

^ the aroallo (aromantic allosexual) flag

& just btw, aromantic erasure is so bad that on pubmed, many of the very few studies that have looked into aspec people specifically, categorize us as a type of asexuality. from this study:

Our findings highlight that aromantic people wish for aromanticism not to be considered a part of asexuality—a practice that has dominated contemporary literature (Antonsen et al. 2020; Carvalho & Rodrigues, 2022; Clark & Zimmerman, 2022; Hall & Knox, 2022; Zheng & Su, 2018). Many participants clarified the distinction between their sexual identity and romantic identity and highlighted that though they may be connected for some, they should be considered independently as unique contributors to an individual’s identity and experience. This aligns with a previous aromantic community survey that showed 72% of the sample did not identify with asexual terminology (AUREA, 2021a). In combination with our findings, this suggests that a tendency to conflate and describe these identities as the same or linked may be to the disadvantage of a significant portion of the aromantic community.

this is why it is so important to include aromantic people as our own group and to specifically include non-asexual aromantics. i hope y'all can understand how frustrating it is to be erased through a group that is already erased.

asexual representation is sparse? all aromantic rep is asexual and most of the time people don't even bother to remember that "aromantic" is its own thing. i can't count how many times i've seen a character talk about not experiencing romantic attraction, only for people to go "wow asexual rep!" even though sexual attraction was never brought up.

asexual community & resources are sparse? when i try to look up groups for aromantics, i get resources on "ace & aro groups" that are literally all asexual-focused. at best asexual-focused with a mention of aromantic people. which isn't really helpful when you are aroallo and don't really want or need a group that is clearly meant for alloro asexuals and aroaces.

asexual history is sparse? i've literally never seen anything even trying to talk about aromantic history. the most impactful thing on aro history is that one tumblr post talking about a woman at a nursing home who heard the term and realized her best friend was likely aro. see above with the character situation as well.

my point here is not "aros have it worse than aces" because we are both aspec and both get fucked over by the same forces and in fact, a LOT of asexual aromantics are also very frustrated by aromantic erasure! i've even heard some people talk about not identifying as strongly as asexual, even though it fits them, because they feel their aro identity is more important to them but gets constantly erased by their asexuality.

my point is that it is so fucking disheartening to be aro even in queer spaces that are trying to be asexual-inclusive, even in supposedly aspec spaces, because it swiftly becomes apparent that people see your entire identity as just a footnote for asexuality. so many people never even realize they are aro because they aren't asexual and don't realize that you can be aro but not ace. i dealt with some really intense arophobia as a teen after realizing i was aro, feeling broken and alone. it hit much harder than any internalized homophobia or transphobia did for me at the time. i did not meet another person who identified as aromantic irl until this year. any resources and community that i had as a queer teen, as a trans teen, did not exist for me as an aro teen and does not exist for me as an aro adult, really.

and big problem is that, because people think of aromanticism as just a footnote of asexuality, they implicitly assume that more asexual rep, more asexual resources, more asexual visibility will automatically serve aromantics too. and when it doesn't work like that, aro people continue to suffer as a result.

It is so devastating to look for aro pride trinkets, only to see dozens of dozens of pride collections that have all but the aro flag (This is from independant artists and shops btw). Like I have even seen the character hosting site Unvale bend over backwards to include the nonbinary, the gay male flag, and the intersex flag, all flags that usually also get forgotten, YET there was still no aro flag included. I love Unvale for what it is but that shit stung. I would love to support artists and their shops but I just cannot find it in me to buy from their pride collections if they don't include the aro flag.

Even in the "new ace flag" design, they conflate aromanticism and asexuality. Hell the creator included aromantics as a form of love!! That feels incredibly shortsighted and like the creator had no discussions with aros before making the flag.