#I should've prayed to be asexual man

[antiyourwokehomophobia2]

Man, this pisses me off so bad. If you're a woman who relates more to males than other women, it's because you've decided to focus more on how you're different from other women rather than how you're like them. You will literally never have more in common with males, and males do not feel the same way about you. These cute little posts that you write about how you love males more than your fellow women? They do not write the same thing about you. They hate and mock you constantly. Anyone remember "Cis women need to shut up"

"As a cis woman, I agree"

"You need to shut up, specifically"

?

Yea, that's how they feel about you and your solidarity.

The difference between lesbians and trans women in female spaces is the fact that lesbians do not have high rates of violence. There is no group of women that outclass men in terms of violent tendencies. Trans women retain the rates of male violence that regular men do. I'm not saying you have to treat trans women like they're all violent beasts, but if you can't see why female people would be uncomfortable with male people in their spaces, you're either naive or genuinely unsympathetic towards the very real fear that women have of being subjected to male violence. You can't say trans women and lesbians are similar because, unlike males, there is no statistical evidence that lesbians are highly likely to take advantage of a woman. If it turned out that 98% of rapes were committed by lesbians, I would 1000% understand why straight women don't fucking want to be around me. Have some fucking empathy, holy fucking shit. Even if you are completely on board with trans women being in female spaces, at LEAST acknowledge that it makes sense for women to be concerned about who is allowed in their spaces. It's crazy how I could tell someone I have a fear of dogs because one bit me when I was a kid, and they'd put their sweet pooch up, but God forbid a woman be cautious around a demographic who commit 90% of all violent crime. Oh no. That woman is suddenly a terf bitch.

I have nothing in common with trans women. I don't care how much pain they have experienced. We are not the same. When I was twelve, I cried and I cried as I put my palms together to pray to a God I hoped would be able to take away my homosexuality. I didn't even grow up in a particularly homophobic family. Both of my parents were accepting of me, but I still sat in the dark of my room, tears streaming down my face, as I prayed to have my sexuality changed.

Two years later, one of my friends made a joke about me dressing to impress my crush. She said my crushes name---a feminine name. A girl sitting in earshot heard her, turned to me, and asked me with disgust if I was gay. I said no without even thinking about it. It absolutely did not help that we were in a locker room with other girls. I was aware of my sexuality by that point, but I was 14 and unable to hold my own against a girl looking at me like THAT. For a few weeks after that, that girl made comments about how she was "watching me".

I know pain, I know discomfort, I know what it's like to feel predatory. Seeing feminine women, especially if they're white, makes me feel like an alien. I look at them and think "how are we so different? I see none of myself in you."

Sometimes I'm right. Sometimes we're not similar at all. But guess what? That doesn't mean I'm similar to a straight male. Fucking hell, sometimes I'm not similar to other lesbians. That's completely normal. I think OP needs to read better work by cishet women. If you think that there is not a single piece of cishet female writing that can move you more than something written by a male, you're not looking in the right places at all. I don't understand why some LB women seem to think that the very act of someone being a straight woman makes them incapable of relatability. Of course it makes sense for you to be cautious. Lesbians deal with a lot of alienation and predatory feelings, but if the very ACT of a woman being cis and straight makes you feel like she has absolutely nothing in common with you...? The issue lies with you. YOU are the one othering THEM. Not the other way around. You're the one who has decided that a few cis straight women othering you means that they ALL will so you'd better beat them to the punch. You're the one who has decided that your relationship to womanhood is so astronomically different from straight women that nothing they say speaks to you. That's INSANE. Do you realize how much you have to alienate yourself from womanhood to feel more relatability with a male person than a female one? Idk how to tell you this, but it is highly probable that the most cis, most het woman you have ever met has had a period. It's highly likely she's been harassed by a man. It's highly likely she's been made to feel inferior by way of being born female. No, they can't relate to the experience of being a lesbian who is made to feel predatory for no reason, but to say that nothing a cis het woman says/experiences can move you at all? Nothing they say can make you feel like your experience with womanhood and hers are similar? Do you realize how you sound? "Trans women have been harassed by men and made to feel inferior, too!!" Okay! So you should be able to relate to cis women in the way you do trans women, right?

I told my discord server that I was nervous about my future roommates. I showed them photos and someone said "all this tells me is that they're feminine and white" and I literally think about that all of the time. I was projecting. I was so scared that these white, feminine, probably straight women were going to judge me for being a black lesbian that I didn't even realize that I was the one violently judging them based off of nothing but their skin color and their femininity. I knew nothing about them. I STILL know nothing about them. I've barely spoken to them. But already I had labeled them as unrelatable judgemental women because of how they looked. Hold on. Wasn't I the one afraid of them judging ME? How could I be so afraid of them judging me for being a black lesbian when I was the one judging them already? What sense does that make?

You guys are so busy writing off cis straight women as unrelatable bigots that you've failed to see that you're the one who is extremely prejudiced against them. And I absolutely fucking know someone is gonna read this and say "well, you can't say that all trans women have male violence patterns and dahdahdahdah" and it's like. But YOU can say that cis straight women are so unbelievably different from lesbian women that you'd rather say you're more similar to a straight up fucking male???

I'm not saying it's not a little jarring to see women who are so different from me. I'm not saying I haven't been burned before and there's no reason for me (or other lesbians) to be cautious. But I will literally ALWAYS have more in common with cishet women than I ever will a man pretending to be a woman.

One time I had a professor. She was on the older side (I'd say 40's) and white. Not the type of person I'd think I'd click well with. She was straight and married with children. One day we talked after class, and the only thing that ended our conversation was the fact she had an event she had to go to. We would've talked longer if not for that. She emailed me a little while later to tell me that she enjoyed our chat. After that, she actually hugged me on two occasions. You wouldn't think we'd have common ground. An older, straight, married white mother and a young black lesbian. Both of us are "cis" but I can tell you I relate to her much better than I ever could someone born male.

I once had a personal trainer who was a feminine woman. She had acrylic nails and everything. One time she said that she couldn't hug her male friends anymore because she had a boyfriend (he wasn't the one enforcing that rule. That was something she personally felt). Also not someone I thought I'd click well with. But we did. One time we had a really productive discussion that was actually derived from the conversation with my professor. I felt very close to her in that moment. Our conversation came to a close because she had another client, but I still think about that convo.

There have been so many fucking times where I thought "this woman is not like me. Look at her." But what I realized was that I was the judgmental one. I was the one deciding we were different, not her. I was the one writing her off. I was the one convinced we had nothing in common.

I am BEGGING you not to alienate your fellow women. There are no inherent traits that make you unable to relate to other women. No amount of whiteness or cisness or straightness can make a woman completely unreachable. I am NOT talking about political parties or views so don't fucking try me with that shit. Obviously that puts a wedge between people, but someone simply being born cis and het does not make them alien from you. For God's sake, look at the fucking MeToo movement. Women from all fucking backgrounds who share an experience that an unfortunate amount of women go through. Women from all different races, sexualities, etc. who came together to talk about how they've been subjected to sexual violence. Ellen degeneres was one of them. How does that fit into your "lesbians and cishet women cannot relate to each other" spiel?

OP's post has 130k notes and it makes me fucking sick. Holy crap y'all, we need more solidarity than this. Other women are not your enemy. I'm begging you to reconsider your approach to women who are different than you. You are missing out on people who can love and support you in a way that literally no male can. You are depriving yourself. Just because a few cishet women in the past alienated you, does not mean that you have to continue their legacy. Let it go. Everyone on earth can see you embracing your hatred of women, and you wonder why your fellow women never hug you? They fucking can't! Put your hatred down and make space for the love that comes with realizing that you absolutely are like other girls!

[kookies2000]

It really should've hit me sooner that I'm on the aro ace spectrum. Demi sexual and demi romantic. I was at a bible talk with girls at a college. The topic was temptation and sex. The leader asked who here ever had a crush and would do anything for a boy.

"Oh yeah!"

"Heck yeah."

"Of course."

"Many times."

Every single girl raised their hand before looking at me, just happily sitting down with their hand down. It took me a good moment to look around and see I was the only one who never had a crush or thought of having sex with a guy. All the girls looked at me weird or tried repeating the question to me. Thankfully the leader said "That's ok, we're all different." For the first time I felt left out and wanted to cry. And I still refused to tell myself that I'm in the aroace family because the lessons that LGBT+ people are demons was still being hammered in my head. I asked a girl in the group what did she think about the LGBT+ community and yeah, the church isn't found of them.

I did have a friend group made up of one pansexual, a gay man, a bisexual and one straight girl. My pansexual friend has taken me to her pride club many times and kept telling me how I show signs of being at least asexual. My response would usally be that sex is a sin and I just avoid it. Plus, if I were to find anyone attractive, I have to have an incredibly close bond with them. And just so I could blend in, I would tell about my crush on a guy in theater class. The reality was that the guy was in a Christian household like me and he checked off everything that I needed to have a boyfriend. Nothing more, just me trying to find a boyfriend that the church would approve of by force. He was a great guy though, will never forget how he ran away in his Sebastián costume with King Tritian behind him yelling as they ran in the rain.

How did I finally come to terms that I'm in the aro ace family? Two years ago I had my very first crush. It was way too weird and intense and I didn't know what I was feeling at first. Even the sexual thoughts were hitting me and I wish I was kidding when I say I locked myself in the bathroom to cry. Just thinking to myself how could this feeling actually be real? Why is it hitting me now? Is this what every girl felt in their teens? Why didn't I feel any of this when I was a teenager? I was very childish when it came to handling these feelings for the first time. I cried, trying to pray for an answer. After talking with some close friends, I went to Tik Tok to calm down. Finally I was given an answer, or Tik Tok just over hears my conversations, and found a video on demi sexual demi romantic. No sexual/ romantic desire until you have a close bond. I went to my friends right away and asked why they never told me about this.

"Girl, I thought you were a suppressed full aro ace with the Christian life you grew up in."

I eventually left that life and am still in the healing process. I am happy to finally know what I am, and to find a way to accept it and be in an environment that accepts it as well. Though I still feel left out and left behind a lot. Left out because people always talk about losing your virginity, first kiss, first everything, and falling in love at first sight. It sounds really sweet and I adore it when I read it, just not on myself. But I can't help but feel left out, like I'm missing out. And left behind because if I ever do feel this again, it's gonna be my first everything. First date, first talk, first holding hands, and the feeling is intense. So I'll be an amature mess while the other person is experienced in this and will probably think I'm weird for it. And then the fact most adults in their 20s already had sex and I'm still here completely brand spanking new to holding hands. So yeah, I feel left behind and feel like if I did date, the other person isn't gonna like the fact that I'm new to it and leave for someone who is experienced.

Though, I'm not gonna end this on a sad note. It's still cool knowing I don't feel the same way as others do. I sometimes enjoy the positive attention I get from others. My co worker was waaaaaay to impressed by it saying he can't even go through a month with out having someone in bed. Or how some people have said they wish they were me so they can completely ignore the love life and have full focus on themselves. Yeah, they're sometimes oblivious to what being in the aroace spectrum means but at least they understand where I'm coming from. And hey, what makes me feel even better is the stories of some older co workers. Saying they made the stupidest decision of their life by marrying in their early 20s or getting married with someone they knew for under a year or both. I don't find enjoyment in their misery but the reason it makes me feel better is because they always encourage and embrace me being part of the aro ace spectrum after wards. How it's a great thing that I can manage to wait for so long and I can focus on myself first with out distractions. How I don't need to find love or have sex to blend in because it's not all that it's cracked up to be. If it's not for me then that's great because I can find other ways to make myself happy. And of course, how beautiful friendship is but it gets over looked a lot. Friendship is vulnerability, being a supportive person to someone you love, having fun, sharing memories and just everything that makes you feel good emotionally and even physically. It's everything you can want and no sexual or romantic acts nedded.

In summery, I do feel left out but at the same time, I love being acknowledged in a postive light for how much I stand out.