#Context: GENDERQUEER aroace lesbian

[cosmicfruits]

Nightmare sans is a lesbian send post now

[hammerbonk]

My Gender/Sexuality Headcanons For Reverse 1999 Characters

Except nearly all of them are aroace-spec 💀

No character is safe from my aroace beam

Vertin

Lesbian

Demigirl or nonbinary or agender? Idk I keep flipflopping between the three in my head. Either way I don’t think she’s that attached to her gender

She/they but also really doesn’t give a shit

Vertin is literally this image to me

Sonetto

Demiromantic/demisexual lesbian

This is mainly so I can project the aroace-spec experience of not understanding why your peers are so focused on crushes, dating and all that while the thing youre the most stressed about are your studies

Though I don’t think she’d ever properly label herself

Maybe not until muchmuchmuch later perhaps

Schneider

Lesbian

Underground gay culture was really big in 1920s Chicago apparently so she probably had her gay awakening at some point over there

Regulus

*looks around*

aroace regulus.

Whoops i tripped and fell and accidentally projected onto one of my faves again

Also she says “This Pirate will not be so easily labelled!”(?) in Chapter 5 so there’s probably some sort of gender fuckery going on w her

^ Yes i know that was in the context of soul numbers

Im gonna say genderqueer

Fucks with literally any pronoun

X

*looks around x2*

Aroace X.

Romance? Would you like to test out his latest rehash of the Goldberg Machine instead?

He/they

Medicine Pocket

*looks around x3*

You guessed it. Aroace MedPoc. i headcanon the entire irrational number trio as aroace 💀💀💀

They’re canonically intersex right?

Like with their pronouns I don’t think they label themself as any specific gender identity. But I’m pretty sure that’s canon too

[sarcasticsoup]

i fucking love this group chat

context: he was complaining about having to church-sit, the rest of the group is comprised of me (nb lesbian), the dnd nerd (genderqueer bisexual), future serial killer (aroace) and other friend (bi)

[ithriel-coins]

context: last year we had a school assignment where we made a spiral put of 20 right triangles (there was more math involved but i don't feel like explaining it rn /lh) so i had a lot of fun doing that, so i decided to make a much bigger one and fill it with pride flags.

[no id, help appreciated!]

as the label says, there are 142 pride flags. here's the list of all of them, in order from the first center triangle to the outermost one:

general pride, trans, nonbinary, genderqueer, genderfluid, bi, pan, aroace, aro, ace, arospec, acespec, lesbian, vincian, abro, queer, xenogender, demigender, fluidflux, genderflux, transhazard, biflux, sapphic, diamoric, achillean, aroflux, aceflux, greysexual, lulovien, starryknowic, cupiosexual, starryconic, midnimagiolic, eraprox, implagender, chaosgender, genderstrange, gender+, gendercollector, genderfaer, genderfaunet, gendersylph, kingender, agenderflux, stylegender, elfgender, gendergreed, novelpageic, ghostgender, rosenby, demiagender, impulsegender, giestressen, fluvidusian, artemisias, alterhumanogender, starfluid, gendershopping, celestialgendervoid, neldoreth, elvenkinnic, daenixian, waxian, dawnian, solarian, lunarian, stellarian, auroian, spacialian, eclipsian, nebularian, cometian, novarian, pistolian, galaxian, annulian, meteorian, penumbrian, phoenixian, siderealian, celestian, duskian, atmosian, duenixian, equinoxian, hafian, solstian, synodian, twigilightian, staraesic, neoboy, neogirl, xenoflux, masc-starvoid, myrromantic, nightskyaesic, madscientistcatgender, majikian, treesungender, halleviciyn, arcanestempic, teleskopine, quartermoongender, natamique, gendermerlume, starrynightgorodic, emoique, imaginasunstaric, florverna, ghostforestxirasic, scilogic, genderjunk, cliffmoongender, cosmasc, conflectian, alderavayn, bellussexual, agneasian, myrsexual, apressexual, chaotiqueer, idemromantic, amicusromantic, anovelaean, fuckyouphrasic, farleogender, seaglassgender, seagender, demisexual, demigreysexual, demialterous, demisensual, lotrgender, monuvalgamic, goodvibic, adrenaswingic, rainyskyrisic, flowersecaeon, elfengender, fleureili, progress pride flag.

@mogai-sunflowers some of your flags are here :3

[sysmedsaresexist]

Collectively we use he/him and are transmasc/nonbinary/genderqueer and queer/bisexual (depending on the context we use different words. But I as the host use different pronouns besides he/him and am genderfluid and aroaspec (on top of the other identities)! and some alters don't use he/him at all and are girls and are lesbians. and some only use it/its and are agender and aroace. Collective identities and also individual identities my beloved

When it comes to both collective identities & individual identities we're just like:

[picnokinesis]

What LGBTQ topics are you not confident enough to write about? Or that you have no interest to write about?

Hmmmmmmmmm I mean, nothing really comes to mind? I think my interest hinges more on the characters than anything else, and thus my interpretation of the characters influences the kind of queer topics I tap into. I tend to skew towards asexual/aromantic themes as a rule simply because I'm aroace, sex-repulsed, and very tired of everything being about romance sksksk - but that doesn't mean I don't like writing about romance! I've definitely done that, and enjoyed it. Again, it kind of comes back to the characters - for example, I have very limited interest in writing the thirteenth doctor as a lesbian, simply because my read on her as being aro/acespec and genderqueer/agender is so important and personal to me - but that doesn't mean I don't have any interest in writing about lesbian characters. Case in point - at least two of the characters in the screenplay I'm writing at the moment are lesbians (there may be a third but she's not telling me if she's bi or gay, and tbh that's valid of her). I guess, regarding confidence, I would feel less confident writing about queer topics outside my own personal experience, simply because it's outside my personal experience - but that's a fixable issue, right? See: I didn't feel confident writing about transfemme characters, but then I wrote a human au fic where the doctor was transfemme, did a lot of reading around about it, and now I feel confident enough to have one of the lead characters in the aforementioned screenplay be a trans woman! And like, obviously I can infer a lot from my own trans experiences, so maybe that's a bad example - but you get me. I see it similar to writing about, say, a profession I don't know about. I approached writing thirteen as a trans woman in a similar way to how I approached her being a virologist skksksks and I knew NOTHING about virology and immunology. Now I know a lot!

I think the only topic I can think of that I wouldn't want to dip into really is stuff to do with queer sex, but that's because I cannot write about anything sexual. There's actually a story idea I had focusing on aspec characters, with a lead character who was fraysexual, and another who was demi - and I would love to write that but the plot is like, inherently built around sexual attraction and stuff like that SKKSKS and alas!! I would have a terrible time. It's actually a problem I have with finding asexual media in general - because so often asexuality is talked about in the context of sexuality (obviously), but then it means you get shows that are focused on allosexual characters and their allosexuality, with the ace character there in contrast - a good example of this would be s2 of Sex Education, I think? I've not watched it for obvious reasons SKSKSK but like I think that show sounds amazing and wonderful and I'm so glad it exists, AND that it includes ace rep!! But I can't watch it SKSKSKSKS RIP ME. Which is why I enjoyed Koisenu Futari SO SO MUCH because it was focused completely on asexuality and aromanticism (as well as like, showing experiences and emotions I'd felt in a show that I'd literally NEVER SEEN BEFORE and it was like, a gut punch. And also it was hilarious. Truly an aromantic comedy). ANYWAY. Hope that answers your question!

[missgowgow]

I need to make a “don’t make me tap the sign” meme for queer discourse, how many times do we need to tell people that it’s okay to not describe yourself as queer but that:

a. many people, including myself, find it a much more comfortable label, especially in surface-level conversations where you don’t wanna explain exactly why you prefer the label bisexual over pansexual for your own identity and how it relates to your ever-expanding understanding of gender and how that factors into your attraction but actually both labels are equally valid, or why you identify as genderqueer but still use the pronouns associated with your assigned sex at birth, or that yes you present as very cishet but you’re aroace and wow I thought this was monday morning small talk but now we’re doing a brief history lesson on asexuals and queer history

b. lots of people only ever heard queer in a positive context and heard gay, lesbian, fag, dyke, etc. used as insults. my first introduction to the term queer was in my first introduction to the idea of queer history. my first introduction to gay and lesbian were hushed scandalized whispers and my first introduction to bisexual was a generic movie joke about cheating liars. in my head, queer is tied to the idea of us always existing as a community that fought for each other. if we’re going off of what words have never been used to hurt people, there would be no words left so just let people choose what they want for themselves

c. lots of people act like lgbt/lgbt+ just means gay or lesbian, we barely pay attention to the b or t except to yell at them (especially trans people my god) and the + community might as well not exist. using queer often is a way to prioritize all identities equally

(note: if that’s not your experience with lgbt, I’m genuinely happy for you. I’m glad you don’t have that baggage and if you prefer me to refer to you and your personal community as lgbt I will, but respect my preference to be called queer too please)

I’m not denying the genuine reasons some people have to be against the term queer, but the reasonable accommodation for that discomfort is to ask people to not refer to you as queer, to ask your close friends to not use the word around you if it’s a trigger for you, and to do the internal work to understand that when other people in the community use it, they have chosen to do so for reasons that make sense to them.

[blimbo-buddy]

question. what do you think of aroace darkstripe

I think it's very good! I like all DarkStripe headcanons when it comes to his gender and/or sexuality. Gay DarkStripe, Lesbian DarkStripe, Bisexual DarkStripe, Pansexual DarkStripe, AroAce DarkStripe, Butch DarkStripe, Femme DarkStripe, He/him Lesbian DarkStripe, She/her Gay DarkStripe, Nonbinary DarkStripe, Genderqueer DarkStripe, Demiboy DarkStripe, Demigirl DarkStripe, Transgender man or woman DarkStripe, any kind of DarkStripe really

Just as long as DarkTiger (Or Dark having a one-sided crush on Tiger) is scrapped from the context, then I'm happy

[clanofjones]

PRIDE MONTH ART CHALLENGE

Lo and behold, gay art, lesbian art, bi art, pan art, trans art, enby art, aroace art, (FUCK YOU AUTOCORRECT IT'S AROACE, NOT AROSE OR A ROACH) and be gay, commit some goshdarned felonies.

Rules:

One piece of art for each of the following sexualities. It can DEFINETELY be fanart, I certainly will be some myself, and you can absolutely do more than one if your head canons or character faves seem it so.

No proship -- I.e., no incest, pedophilia, or ships to be deemed otherwise problematic -- although rare pairs are acceptable.

No sexually explicit content! Speaks for itself.

You do not have to include a ship that you feel falls under a certain category! Sometimes just multiple characters belonging to the same fandom, or a solo piece make more sense context-wise!

Sonas, avatars, and self-inserts/OC's are all welcome as well, as long as it's situationally appropriate!

Please tag me, @clanofjones and I'll reblog and add a friendly comment! I love this kinda stuff!

DON'T HARASS OTHER ARTISTS (obviously)

Memes and pride celebratory fics are also perfectly acceptable and welcome ^^

June 1: Gay

June 2: Lesbian

June 3: Bisexual

June 4: Pansexual

June 5: Polysexual

June 6: Omnisexual

June 7: Skoliosexual

June 8: Greyasexual

June 9: Demisexual

June 10: Asexual

June 11: Polyamorous

June 12: Intersex

June 13: Trans MtF

June 14: Trans FtM

June 15: Agender

June 16: Genderfluid

June 17: Bigender

June 18: Trigender

June 19: Pangender

June 20: Genderqueer

June 21: Demigirl

June 22: Demiboy

June 23: Androgynous

June 24: Intergender

June 25: Nonbinary

June 26: Questioning

June 27: Homoromantic

June 28: Biromantic

June 29: Panromantic

June 30: Aromantic

BONUS: Aroace, and/or any other(s) not included in this list!

Friends, mutuals, people I admire, others much more popular than I, HELP ME SPREAD THIS!

@yelenapines @theosb0rnway @redak-ted @zee-rambles @mistypool

And most importantly: BE GAY DO CRIME

Or, alternatively, BE GAY DO WITCHCRAFT

tag on my blog is: pride art challenge 2023

[tr3ns-d3ath-d3ity]

"LGBTQA+ is one of the most accepting communities, you're not being targeted by other queer people!! 😤​😡​"

Aight, time for the list of things related to my queer identity I've been yelled at for by other LGBTQA+ people (for context: I am an oriented aroace, trans, queer, and polyamorous dude):

・Being a trans man.

・Identifying as queer/calling myself queer.

・Saying that gay And mlm are two different things, just like wlw and lesbian are two different things

・Saying that trans women are women.

・Being attracted to men.

・Not being attracted to women and people on the genderqueer/nonbinary spectrum.

・Being oriented aroace.

・Not being monogamous.

・Talking about genuinely loving men.

・Being aspec and having npd (quote the girl who yelled at me for that: "your npd made you aroace, you're just to selfish to commit to genuine love lol.").

・Not being lesbian.

・Not being pan.

・Saying that I support mspec gays/lesbians because it’s not my place to judge other people’s identities just because I may not fully understand them.

・Saying mspec, the multi spectrum, or multiromantic/multisexual (to include ply, pan, omni, bi, neptunic, uranic, and every other pluralian sexuality) instead of just bi.

・Saying that nonbinary people can present themselves as masculine, androgynous, neutral, or feminine as they want, and still be nonbinary.

・Literally just. wearing green eyeshadow????? (quote the person who yelled at me for that: “t hat's a lesbian color, bro, you're literally appropriating lesbian culture by that.")

・Presenting masculine.

・Using he/him pronouns.

・Referring to the D-Slur as tThe D-Slur (y'all want me to say a slur I can't reclaim?????).

・Saying that the og polyamory flag (the blue-red-black one with the yellow pi symbol in the middle) looks neat.

・Not using any of the new polyamory flags because I prefer the blue-red-black + pi symbol one.

・Asking if there’s a word for nonbinary people who are exclusively/only attracted to other nonbinary people.

・Hating non-men who fetishize achillean relationships.

・Being specifically Half-Asian and queer.

・Writing books about exclusively queer men/non-women, mostly to cope with trauma stuff (apparently if your writing doesn't consist of a trillion sapphics, two gay fathers that get three seconds of screentime, and the occasionally non-human nonbinary person, it's automatically bad writing???? Okay damn. Sorry for focusing on my own experiences, I guess?).

・Not necessarily wanting to get married or have a romantic/sexual relationship.

・Shipping two characters in a queerplatonic way instead of a sexual/romantic one.

・Headcanoning a popular fandom character as aroace.

・Mentioning aroallo people.

・Saying that straight asexuals and straights aromantics are LGBTQA+ since that's what the A stands for.

・Not being T4T (I just wanna love men in peace fuck off with your "but cis men are horrible!! 🥺🤢😱 Limit yourself to trans men because I said so!! 😤🤬🤬"-Bullshit).

・Using someone’s neopronouns.

・Supporting xenogender people.

・Headcanoning a canonically lesbian character as trans female.

・Saying that I want more representation of achillean, aroace, trans, and asexual men in media.

・Asking asking someone who knew I used he/him pronouns to not refer to me with they/them (like, girlie, that’s called misgendering).

・Mentioning that women can be aroallo.

・Saying that people who don’t label their genders/sexualities can be LGBTQA+ too.

・Saying that two pan women I know in reallife dating each other aren’t lesbians because... they’re both pan?

・Mentioning that queer men should always be welcome in queer spaces.

・Saying that amab nonbinary folks can be lesbian.

・Wanting to go on T.

・Jokingly referring to my tiddies and my pussy as boys.

And last but not least,

・Saying "people", "y'all", "esteemed guests", or "everyone present" instead of "ladies and gentlemen".

I dunno, homie, I actually do feel a little targeted here.

[perhapsitisthegreatergrief]

queer (fantasy) recommendations

queer

Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe ➡️ memoir told in graphic novel form, the author’s journey to identifying as non-binary and asexual. as a genderqueer asexual person, this book really resonated with me

I Kissed Shara Wheeler by Casey McQuiston ➡️ YA novel about a girl who gets kissed by her rival at prom, who then disappears. it sucked me in and i read it in two days

Loveless by Alice Oseman ➡️ college girl discovers that she’s aroace as sapphic chaos explodes in the background. again, the aroace rep is really good

The Black Flamingo by Dean Atta ➡️ verse story about a mixed race, queer teen who finds a community in doing drag at his university. the coming out poem in the back made me cry when someone sent it to me without context

queer fantasy

Gideon The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ➡️ lesbian necromancers in space, or: girl with a sword gets dragged into a set of bizarre challenges with her nemesis to become one of the saints to necromantic god. this gave me tsoa-level emotional damage but for different (and similar) reasons

Harrow The Ninth by Tamsyn Muir ➡️ the sequel to Gideon. even more batshit insane (/pos) than the first book, basically answering the question of “what happens if you have a really repressed, depressed lesbian and she has to work with some weird old people”. continued the standard set by Gideon and made me emotional

Cosmoknights by Hannah Templer ➡️ graphic novel about space gays who want to take down the patriarchy. I’ve only read the first volume (the second one is being released chapter by chapter online and I haven’t been vibing with that style lately) but it is GOOD

honorable mentions

Sabriel by Garth Nix ➡️ high fantasy about a girl going into the dangerous, magical Old Kingdom to saved her father from the realm of Death. some seriously inventive, well-written worldbuilding and definitely my favorite depiction of death/necromancy. remarkably progressive gender-wise considering it came out 25 years ago

Circe by Madeline Miller ➡️ story of Circe’s life. crosses paths with multiple big greek mythology figures and there are several tsoa references. MM seems to have taken more creative liberty with this one and some of it I’m not a fan of but overall a good book

i will probably have more to add to the queer fantasy section of this once I’ve read more of my tbr. please please read circe if you read and loved tsoa

if anyone has other recs feel free to share them!

[ciaran2020]

Re: ur post on gay attraction as a nb person: my gender is gay, but in a specifically genderqueer way, where I want to either radiate "this person is queer" energy to everyone, regardless of how they perceive my gender to be, but, in the context of the country that I live in, terminology is p limited to gay, lesbian and transsexual (transgender is used v v rarely in part bc linguistically "gender" is presentation, sex, and actual gender, but we use the same words for all of them), which results in me just using gay as shorthand. This is why I sometimes call my attractions gay (even tho technically I'm aroace, but experience various tertiary attractions). The other part of the time I just want to not be perceived as a human shaped entity, which is usually when I don't want to refer to my attractions as gay. Ach this was a bit of a long answer, but I wanted to clarify as much as possible since Idk the context that u're asking this in.

that's very interesting, thank you!! I was asking for... reasons of I don't personally experience my attraction as ‘gay’ despite being attracted to prior of most genders and being nonbinary. I was curious how it felt for other people. thank you once again!! this was super helpful.

[arosparadoxica]

hello, aromantic doug eiffel is very powerful and i'm very glad someone else is thinking about it because it's a head canon i've had for a while. I kinda go back and forth between thinking of him as grey-ro and full on aro, depending how I'm feeling. I would love to hear more about aspec wolf 359 headcanons you have

Thank you so much—this was such a wonderful ask to receive! Sorry it took me a while to get around to answering it; I have a lot of aspec headcanons for Wolf 359 and wanted to do them justice. Here’s the general rundown (along with any other LGBTQ+ headcanons I have for the handful of characters I like to interpret as aspec): 

Eiffel: aromantic

It took him a long time to realize this, and his frustration and confusion from just not getting romance and trying to convince himself he felt things he didn’t is part of why his relationship with Kate didn’t work out

He’s still dealing with a lot of internalized amatonormativity and harmful rhetoric when he winds up on the Hephaestus, and that’s part of the whole relearning-his-own-self-worth arc his character goes through

Eiffel loves his friends (his family) so much! He loves his daughter so much! He loves humanity so much!! Doug Eiffel is aro and a beacon of love!!!

He’s also bisexual and questioning gender things (he knows that he’s gnc, and is starting to think that maybe he’s genderqueer—who knows? not Eiffel!)

Hera: quoiromantic

The definition that talks about finding romantic attraction conceptually “inaccessible, inapplicable, nonsensical” really resonates with her

Can she define or explain her love for Eiffel, or Minkowski, or Lovelace? Nope! Does that matter to her, at least once she’s confident that they love her back? Nope!

She’s also kind of questioning her gender—some form of femme gender expression feels right, but gender (and orientation, and most other aspects of identity) is kind of…really really weird to grapple with when you’re an AI and don’t have any other AIs to talk to about things?

Talking to Maxwell and Eiffel helps, but when she’s back on Earth she starts chatting with some other AIs about the intersection of life as an artificial intelligence with LGBTQ+ identities and issues, and it’s amazing to finally share her questions and thoughts with people who understand her experiences

Remember in the second w359 AMA when they talk about each character’s ideal valentine’s day? Here’s some relevant quotes for you (wording might not be exact):

“[Hera] exists in a context that is so different from regular human society and kind of regular human upbringing that I don’t know how hardwired it is into her person to celebrate things like valentine’s day.”

“[Hera] has no context to care about that kind of thing…unless the people she knows care about it.” and then they talk about how most of the other characters don’t, so….

“[Hera]’s got colors to name.” (the implication being that’s more important to her than valentine’s day)

Lovelace: aspec (”aroace-ish”)

She’s also a lesbian

Lovelace always had way more fun playing basketball/baking cupcakes/sneaking onto rooftops with her various girlfriends than kissing or doing traditionally ~romantic~ activities

Lambert was actually the one who helped her figure out that she’s aspec (post-Change of Mind, once they started getting along more)

She’s never been too worried about labels; it’s enough for her to know that she falls somewhere in the general vicinity of aroace but is still attracted to women

She and Hera have a lot of good conversations about being not quite human and the way that affects their experiences, both as aspec people  and as people dealing with trauma (as well as just in general)

On Earth, the two of them also work together on a lot of community advocacy projects

Back to the valentine’s day AMA question—apparently, Lovelace grew up pulling pranks with friends on valentine’s day and “giving people scary news about the perils of love” and if that’s not arospec culture I don’t know what is

Minkowski: grey-ace & maybe grey-aro

Minkowski realized she was on the ace spectrum before figuring out she was pan, but after she knew she was trans

She’s still not sure if she’s on the aro spectrum as well—she thinks it’s pretty likely, though

Dominik isn’t really one for labels himself but after Renee first told him she was grey-ace he stayed up way too late that night researching aspec terminology because he didn’t have much experience with the community but wanted to be able to support her

Eiffel knows how to embroider and makes her pride patches for her birthday one year when they’re up on the Hephaestus (“Don’t ask him where he got the thread, Commander, you’re happier not knowing.”)

Minkowski and Dominik used to go to pride parades, marches, and local LGBTQ+ community events together; after her return to Earth, they continue doing so, but now it’s usually with at least one or two other members of the Hephaestus crew in tow (usually Lovelace, Jacobi, or Eiffel; sometimes Maxwell or Hera)

Maxwell: aroace

also agender (fine with any pronouns but usually defaults to they/them or she/her)

Jacobi makes so many (non)binary jokes about them, and so many space ace jokes, and so many—you get the idea

(Maxwell loves it)

She and Jacobi may or may not have been in a formal qpr, but they both considered each other their partner in a way that was as much about friendship and sharing a life together as it was about work

Jumping to the third w359 AMA, when Michelle Agresti talked about Maxwell’s backstory, there were some very relevant quotes:

“[Maxwell] kind of eschewed social relationships to some extent, or at least like what we have conceived of as like normal, standard relationships with people.” 

“…all of a sudden [Maxwell] was now a sexual being and people looked at her that way and she didn’t know how to deal.” 

(After that quote, Agresti also talks about how Maxwell is a person who uses every tool at her disposal but doesn’t understand how to use That.)

[re: Maxwell and Hera’s relationship and whether it was romantic] “It’s kind of a relief, I think, that because it’s an AI-human relationship…that Maxwell isn’t being judged or seen through her body in a sexual way, because that…is very difficult for Maxwell to deal with when it happens.” 

“I think that’s also why [Maxwell] likes dealing with AIs, because they don’t have a body and she has a body.” 

Lambert: aroace

Back to that second AMA one last time:

“You know what’s Lambert’s ideal Valentine’s Day? He goes to bed on February 13th and he wakes up and it’s February 15th.”

Yeah.

[demiromantic-official]

Musings on Reactions to Aro and Ace Headcanons By Allo (Non-Aspec) People

As someone who regularly consumes fictional media--mostly tv series and novels--I come across many headcanons about the romantic and sexual orientations of countless characters, all of which are valid.  Fiction comes to life at the interpretation of the audience, which is almost as important as the text itself and as the author’s intentions. I’m not writing to discuss about how people interpret fiction, though, but rather a pattern I have found when certain characters are headcanoned as ace, aro, or any form of arospec,; a pattern that follows a rhetoric that will sound familiar to almost all aspec people.  

Let’s give an example. Though I am not an avid headcanon-er or shipper, if I find a character that shows signs of being aspec, genderqueer, bisexual, gay/lesbian, or another form of LGBTQ+, I am prone to suspect that the character is that sexuality or gender, or at least that the character could be that sexuality or gender. I usually do not deal in absolutes since until something is shown in canon, any headcanon is valid. Even if canon seems to dispute a headcanon there is nothing wrong with headcanons of any sort. In a recent show I watched, a character struck me as possibly aromantic since he seemed opposed to romance, said that he’d never fall in love, and that he sort of expected to remain single and to prioritize his friends through playing D&D with them forever, and that his friends would prioritize each other and also remain single. Then I made the mistake of looking up the character/show on tumblr to see what other people think.  Many are under the impression that the character is a closeted gay boy who may be struggling with internalized homophobia due to being young and living in a time period when being gay was less accepted than it is today, which is a fair enough assessment. It is definitely a valid way to interpret the character and I can understand how they could see him that way, especially if they have not shared my experiences. For all I know, that could be the screenwriter’s intentions, that the character is gay. What bothered me, however, was how furious these people became at anyone who suggested that the character was aro or aspec.  Comments like (and i paraphrase)  “the character is clearly a closeted gay boy, not aro” “@ aroaces: don’t take one of the few gay reps just because you relate to him” “get your hands off the gay rep”.  These kinds of comments were not from just one person, but several.

Where have I heard this rhetoric before? Oh yeah, from the hundred of aphobic and exclusionist people on tumblr.  I am not saying that every person who has made such a comment is aphobic but the situation does parallel the aspec situation and hint at a deeper problem among the LGBTQ+ community and it’s treatment of aspec people.  How people tell us that talking about being aspec is damaging to the LGBTQ+ community because people who are confused and struggling with internalized homophobia may mislabel themselves as aspec and that aspecs are responsible for any trauma they experience as a result. How they say that us interacting with the LGBTQ+ community is somehow “stealing” resources from gay, lesbian, bisexual, and trans people who (by this logic) are more deserving than aspec people of help (these groups of course deserve all the help and resources they need and want, but saying aspec people steal resources and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to be a part of community implies that aspec people do not deserve help at all).  These arguments over the headcanons from non-aspec people is just rehashing the old aphobic and exclusionist rhetoric but under a different context.

Aspec people are no more “stealing” representation from gay people by suggesting a character shows signs of being aspec than they are “stealing” resources from the rest of LGBTQ+ people. The idea that aspec people are “stealing” by finding community where they should be accepted and finding comfort in headcanoning a character as aspec, even if they may be projecting slightly on that character due to relating to them, is ludicrous.  Furthermore, someone headcanoning a character differently than you does not mean they are saying that you cannot have your headcanon and does not mean that the showriters would change their minds if your headcanon was “right”, so the idea that they can steal rep that hasn’t been verified in canon is ludicrous as well.  Fiction doesn’t belong to one person only, but to every individual who consumes it and each consumer is allowed to interpret it in their own way.  

These accusations about aspec people stealing representation of other sexualities is damaging to the community and alienates aspec people in the same way that aphobic people and exclusionists alienate aspec people.  The orientation of fictional characters is not the most important thing in the world, but the underlying problem in the fury of people who claim aspec headcanons steal representation and therefore should not be shared is important for everyone in the LGBTQ+ community to be aware of.  Not to just be aware, but also to oppose.  I am not implying that we should argue with every person who has made such a comment about aspec headcanons, or that we should argue with any of them for that matter.  What I am saying is that aphobic and exclusionist rhetoric has touched many aspects of society and the LGBTQ+ community, even in something as innocuous as headcanons and that it needs to change.  People need to change, and if they have made such comments about the headcanons but do not consider themselves aphobic, they should re-evaluate why they are so protective over their headcanons so as to be aggressive to people who have aspec headcanons. Attitudes toward aspec people needs to change, and by showing light to the little signs of aphobia I hope that people can be more aware of this need. I hope for a community where aspec people can be as accepted as those of other orientations and where everyone in the LGBTQ+ community can stand in solidarity, rather than disputing over their differences and alienating each other, like many cishet people have tried to alienate anyone who doesn’t fit into a square box.