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poisonedapples · 6 years

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Fanders Pride

Hey, my name is Sparrow, he/they, and I’m an aromantic ace-spec (autochorissexual) person who is still very confused about their gender identity. I’ve been a Fander literally since Thomas’ Vine days, so for the “Fander Pride Meetup” that is today to celebrate LGBT+ pride in our community, I want to talk about my own identities and how I found out about them. Sometimes it’s a happy story, sometimes it is not, but despite any kind of hardship that comes with accepting yourself, I’d like to show some of my very own Pride. By doing it in the most elaborate, dramatic way possible because I have no chill and also I’m sorry that I’m on mobile and can’t put a cut. Enjoy your never-ending scrolling that I also barely proofread~ 🌈

I’m also gonna put it into neat little categories because I’m like that.

Sexual Orientation,

Ace-spec: Someone who falls on the Asexual spectrum

Autochorissexual: a disconnection between oneself and a sexual target/object of arousal; may involve sexual fantasies or arousal in response to erotica or pornography, but lacking any desire to be a participant in the sexual activities therein

At first, I was going to put this story after my aromantic one, but this one is so much shorter and a lot less dramatic, so it’s gonna go first instead. It was a lot easier to notice that I was ace-spec once I had a word for never feeling sexual attraction towards any actual people. LJ helped me realize this, because he explained what “autochorissexual” was to an anon, and my entire brain just clicked. It was like I immediately realized that I had never had any sexual feeling towards anyone either. People in media (and much more graphic things I’m not going to go into) were the only times I had really felt that kind of “attraction”. Even then, I didn’t really think that they were very hot, just kind of aesthetically pleasing? It’s hard to explain, but since I tried to get most of my information on my sexuality from the internet and how I felt about people in those kinds of...18+ areas, I thought that I liked girls a lot better than the boys. Boys with their shirts off was just...weird, still is weird, but girls were always really pretty looking. So just like with romantic orientation, I took this as a sign that I was gay.

Basically I’m just an idiot that doesn’t research correctly.

But even before that, I had my little hints of suspicion that I may be ace-spec. Most commonly I would start to question if I may be demisexual, but I also confused “romantic orientation” with “sexual” a lot, so I took my “I hardly feel any attraction towards people” as “it takes a bond for me to get sexual feelings”. But even then, it didn’t really click in my head with the label demisexual, so it came and went really fast.

Ace-spec identities really do need to be talked about more, even if some of them may seem “ridiculous” to outsiders. When I first came out as ace-spec (gonna say that instead because I am fully aware “autochorissexual” is a mouthful), it was an actual weight lifted. Because not only from my own trauma and the anxiety of “how do you even do the do in real life?”, it felt so much better to just not be worried about doing something I wasn’t interested in. I’m ace-spec, all my friends know this, and I’ve learned that any kind of relationship can be long-term with no sexual feelings. And honestly, that is a great thought.

Gender Identity,

I remember when I was a kid, me and my sister would play a Fable game at my uncle’s house. One where the younger sibling, whether you played as a boy or a girl, would always be named Sparrow. From the first time I heard that name in that game, I loved it. Me and the few friends I had on my street would all play games of pretend, and we could choose our own names. No matter what, I would always go with Sparrow. I always adored that name a thousand times more than I did my birth name, I’ve always hated my birth name. I told myself for a long time that it was because it had no meaning, and was ridiculously generic. But I realized later that it was also because it was very feminine. It didn’t really feel like me, and although people kept insisting my birth name was a beautiful name...I didn’t like it.

I’ve always just felt disconnected from the label of being a “girl”. People would say something about girls or targeted to girls, and most of the time I would have to tell myself “that means you”. Being a girl felt wrong, doing girly things felt wrong, so I avoided most feminine things to my mom’s annoyance. I felt like I shouldn’t allow myself to be girly to the feminine things I did enjoy, like they were some forbidden art from another world. I’d forget that I was supposed to be a part of that world, and I had to remind myself that no one would think it was weird if a “girl” wanted a girly shirt, or to play with dolls, and that it was actually encouraged. I just kept trying to fit myself into the box of “tomboy” because it fit better than “girly girl”. It still wasn’t very me, but I liked the more “masculine” things over the feminine, so I figured that it was better that way. And I’m a very gray person, I very rarely have black and white views, so it kinda makes sense I didn’t fit perfectly into one box honestly. It’s probably one of the more accurate metaphors to being nonbinary that I’ve seen.

As of right now, I don’t really have a label. All I know is that I’m not cis, I’m not very commonly feminine, and I’m transmasculine at the least. I know that I fluctuate in some form, or at least some kind of fluid (I don’t like genderfluid much though) since I never stay in the same place for very long. I find it pretty hard to not stress out over finding a label since I just want to know now, but taking my time instead of immediately coming out and then stressing again because I found out it’s not me gets rid of a lot of the anxiety. So for now I’m just “questioning”, but not gonna lie, I hope it doesn’t last very long.

I’m very impatient.

Romantic Orientation,

Aromantic: Someone who feels no romantic attraction to anyone of any gender

I’m going to just say this right now; finding out I was aro was not a very happy thing. It counteracted with my dreams and made me feel like I was cheated on by my own mind, maybe even the world despite how dramatic that sounds.

(TW: Unhappy marriages, divorce, parents fighting and a tiny mention of a womanizer)

I dreamed of having a loving husband to make up for all the years of broken marriages that I have seen, one that was funny and kind, one that believed in me, someone to make me feel less lonely than I really was and to fill up a broken piece of my heart from growing up learning love is fake. I saw fights and back talkers, divorce after divorce, and womanizing boyfriends who would scream at my birth mom as she screamed back with the same intensity. Threats of leaving, divorces, and my birth parents staring hateful daggers into each others backs. If they didn’t hate each other they ignored each other. If they stayed together they never said they loved each other. I only ever heard my dad speak good about his wife, but even then, when he wasn’t looking my mom would turn the other way and back talk him. But I never really learned that love was fake. I saw my birth mom scream at her boyfriend, and I dreamed of a world where me and my husband would make up and cuddle after a fight. I heard my mom complain about my dad’s temper for the tenth time that day, and I dreamed of talking to my husband about working on unhealthy flaws we both had. I didn’t learn love was fake, I learned that love wasn’t perfect fairytales instead. I learned how to grow from the mistakes I saw daily.

(Trigger Warnings over)

But before I suddenly started to question my sexuality, I had no evidence that I wasn’t hetero. In first grade I had a kiss with a boy I didn’t actually like, and in second grade I had my first “crush” on a boy in my class. Other kids would date one kid after another, breaking up and moving on so fast that my head started to spin before I even got to middle school. I saw kids get together after only a week of knowing each other and breaking up a couple weeks after. I had started to try and keep track of who had a crush on who because it always got so twisted. I remember in first grade all the girls seemed to have a crush on a kid named Justin, and all I did was just watch them all in confused awe. It was like watching a herd of derpy birds fight over a fancy breadstick on the floor; very important to them, but I didn’t really see the appeal.

When I thought I had my very first crush, I noticed that I didn’t really act like it. I remember watching an episode of ICarly where Sam had a crush or was dating a boy (can’t remember which) and Carly showed off the drawing Sam made of her and the boy surrounded by love hearts. It gave me the message that’s what people with crushes did, so although I wasn’t much of a drawer I decided to try and copy Sam’s drawing with me and this boy as swans instead. During and after the drawing was made, I noticed that I still didn’t really feel anything for what I made. I didn’t really care about the supposed “crush” I had on him, but I didn’t think much of it. The next year I would actually go up to this boy and tell him that I “liked” him, and he didn’t exactly give me a straight answer. He said “I’ll tell you when my lawyer [his dog Apples] is around”, and I tried for a little bit to get him to tell me about his feelings towards me before I just accepted that it was a rejection. But later, I would actually realize that I didn’t care about him returning his feelings for me, more so I just wanted to know because I’m nosy. I realized he rejected me and barely even cared, just went back to playing with my friends.

Then, I started to question my sexuality. I didn’t exactly notice my lack of attraction towards any genders, I noticed that I had never cared for men. I thought that girls were prettier than boys, but I became so confused because I had such a lack of feeling any kind of attraction towards people. I considered a couple labels, but even when I knew what asexual and aromantic was, I didn’t even consider it. The people I saw who were aro acted like they had no interest in being in any kind of relationship, and that...wasn’t me. I was sure of that, I dreamed of having a spouse someday, so I immediately dismissed it. And in a feat of confusion and ignorance, I decided that if I knew for a fact I didn’t like boys, then I must only like girls. For many years, I identified as a lesbian. Both my parents still think that I’m gay.

Then, I joined Tumblr. Honestly, Tumblr and all the people I have met in the fanders community have helped me a lot with my identity, and people like LJ and Marin (who I’m scared to tag so I won’t) helped me with accepting myself a lot more than they could ever know. When I first heard LJ describe their queerplatonic relationship with Thuri, how they would marry platonically, I didn’t understand why that thought was so comforting until a little later. I realized that...I was scared. I was scared of being aro, so I hid it from both others and myself. I wouldn’t lie awake at night thinking about the supposed “crush” I had on my best friend, I stared mindlessly at the ceiling feeling empty inside. I would not break the chain. Aromantic people do not marry. I was doomed to live alone forever. I could handle being gay, I could have handled being ace or pan or bi which would have brought out my mom’s severe biphobia, I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was my biggest dream, the one thing in this world that gave me hope and peace with myself, being ripped away from my hands and being forced to accept that I could never love someone the way that I wanted to. With my already severe problems with feeling any emotion, this was hard to accept. I was willing to ignore my own romance repulsion just to have a “happy” marriage. I was willing to give my comfort away for something I thought would be worth it.

At first, I was willing to accept that I was grayromantic, and that those two boys in my life were the rare times I fell in love. I didn’t want to accept I couldn’t fall in love at all, so I tried to compromise with myself and use that label instead. Then, I read Marin’s queerplatonic Logince verse. A tiny little collage of stories in the same universe that I didn’t even get at first helped me come to terms with my identity. They loved each other. It wasn’t romantic, not sexual...but it was stronger than friendship. I learned that that kind of love was just as important as the ones I tried to dream of having as a kid. I felt like I was able to love again. Maybe not in the romantic way I wanted to, but it meant so much more to me. Queerplatonic saved me from going over the edge, and I think that is a beautiful thing.

I could go into a lot more detail with this. I could tell you about my struggles with understanding my feelings for my best friend CJ, and how I thought that I had a crush on him. I could tell you about the multiple instances I never realized I did because of my lack for romantic attraction, but now look back at and think “how did that not raise flags?”. I could tell you I thought I was just scared of commitment, how I also identified as cupioromantic for a bit, how I literally went through a grieving stage with accepting I was aro, but I’ll simply leave it as this for now. It hasn’t been easy at all accepting that I was aromantic, but that label has given me the most solace and peace, because now I don’t feel like I’m scared of commitment. I don’t feel like I’m faking, like I need to hurt myself to get my dream, like I need to bend to the whims of a romantic and sexual world. I have a new way that feels so much better than bending over backwards for something I can’t have, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.

And a Conclusion.

I will wave this green, white, gray and black flag with pride. I’ll wave my purple triangle one with the same intensity, and when I find out my gender, I’ll learn to wave it with pride as well. Because all of us deserved to have just that; We deserve to have pride and happiness with ourselves. No matter how you may identify, no matter who you love or what you feel like you really are, you can be and deserve to be prideful.

We deserve to wave our flags with pride. And we will have just that:

Pride.

#fanderpridemeetup

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