#so knowing that i have cis mutuals who do a better job at not assuming someone's gender than some real grade a assholes out there

[punhetamaistriste]

I've been working all day

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job. Morrissey was real for that. I'm working for a little less than a month now, and it's not on my field (I'm an environmental science virtuoso) but I manage to make it work. I'm a dedicated, sympathetic proletariat. Working on the office I still don't find the show to be very entertaining, but they're coming from a place of office knowledge. I am the only bisexual man I know on the job, and I'm pretty much straight-passing when I'm out of the college campus. So, for the first time on my life, I'm being treated like a straight cis man. And it's terrible.

I like football. I like metal music and fantasy novels. I'm a skinhead. This on college is just traits to contribute to my reputation as a raging bisexual, but on workplace those are common ground among me and my straight coworkers. Since straight people rarely think about queers unless they're morbid homophobes, they assume I'm straight as well, no questions asked. It is hard to witness as these straight, cis, young to middle-aged men try and befriend me. I don't want to be alone, obviously, and the girls don't like me that much. They're usually friends with my gay coworkers, since they're married, or are dating, and do not want to interact with a man who likes women. I'm having a scoop on the straight world, and it's scarier than I thought. I'm friends with many bi people on college that I never thought of seducing. I have better things to do. Also, it's nice to just talk. Those men I'm befriending, they just talk to other men. The workplace is heavily divided by gender. One of them saw my football pin and asked me about my life as a migrant. My newest nickname is Carioca. As if punhetatriste wasn't enough. We talked about football, about Rio de Janeiro, about the best bars around the office building (but thanks I don't drink), and when the topic was women I got genuinely terrified. So this is how they think about women. This is how they talk about it when they're alone. I saw myself engaging in the conversation, talking shit about women and referring to them as whores, so this is how we talked about women.

When I was young I had a misogyny problem. I hated my mother, I was about 13 and I didn't actively hated women, but I saw them as… dumb. And I was smart. As a kid. I was deeply troubled because of my dad's recent death, and I felt so alone all the time. Didn't have many friends. Had a few crushes entering high school, but they didn't care about me (fair enough, I was ugly and terrible). I created my twitter account and my mutuals became my friends. They hated teens, blue haired queers, and women. I was respected for being an openly bisexual male, so I could hate on women. I read The Second Sex when it became clear to me that I was being misogynistic, but readind the book made me even worse. I got into feminist discussions with radfems to prove I knew more about being a woman than they did. Outside the internet I was becoming a punk, mohawk and anarchy included, and eventually I just grew tired of being an idiot. I got more and more engaged with the capitalist issues, started working on some anarchist programs (like occupying buildings or breaking shit up on protest with black blocs), then working with women was inevitable. Then, most my contacts were queer women or close. Bi women, trans women, lesbians, afab non binary people. In high school I finally made some friends, a couple of girls and I got myself inside a male friend group from my class. They adopted me, and I finally had people to talk to in class, late on my sophomore year. Then I entered college, where I only talk to queer people. I've been out of the loop on the straights for a couple of years now; despite knowing some straight people. The ones I know are communist or anarchist, they're very progressive and most have a college degree. They are (and I mean this in the most classist way possible) not like other straight people. Even they, they are not as close to me as the queer people I know. We have a shared experience being queer, young, usually POC and educated. This brings people closer. Now I work in a place where a major isn't required, so I'm dealing with non-college people for the first time in a while as well. I know this is something really shitty to admit, but I can't talk to people who aren't in college. I spent my whole day on campus for 3 years now, I live in a major city that has the best university on my country, I get invited to places only grad students go, and sometimes it even feels like I'm stuck in university. Now this scene is changing. Me being a proletariat is changing that. Also, you can be a grad student and misogynistic. There are many. What I'm saying is: I can't talk like a normal person anymore. I use complicated words. I assume everyone knows at least Calculus I. I talk about underground artists as if they're mainstream. I live in a bubble where feminism is still necessary but the misogynistic boogeyman doesn't exist anymore. Working bursted that bubble.

I feel sorry to admit I don't pretend to change the minds of these men. It would require time and real effort, also I'd have to do it very smoothly or I'd be alone in the workplace. For the first time in my life I'm being treated as a regular man, no expectations and mission, and the office is a place where I can relax and unwind from the college life. It is easier, the people are less competitive than in STEM, and they're trying their best to become friends. I'm very sorry to admit I'm going to roll with it and change nothing. Growing up as a deeply lonely child, I just want to be invited to the cookout. You'd say "it's easier for men to ignore misogyny!", or "You're enjoying practicing misogyny now that you're finally seen as a straight man, you are enjoying your newfound place of privilege" and you know what? Maybe. I'm trying to ignore it; it is hard to swallow, and those interactions will probably make me become more paranoid and obssessed with feminist literature, but I won't preach to my coworkers. I'm a fucking coward and I won't pretend this isn't true. It's almost like having a double life, working and studying. And other guys on STEM usually don't get that. They're misogynistic by themselves. How lonely.

[non-binharry]

But is it not telling that he didnt know pronuons in 2018?How does a person who has been questioning their gender not know pronuons?Also Ive seen receipts where harry assumed fans' genders and sexualities while louis has been more educated on that matter then why dont you assume that louis is nonbinary?Im just confused...

you know this message wouldn't have pissed me off so bad if you didn't clearly write it in such bad faith

that's not telling anything at all. gender is personal

it is a personal journey that is brought upon by inward reflection on how you feel you experience your life. you don't have to know all the vocabulary or different types of identities there are to look at yourself and go "hmm i feel different from people around me" or "i enjoy certain things or ideas more than people of the same sex typically would"

you wanna see what the first time i verbalized how i was feeling about my own gender identity looks like?

i chalked up the way that i was feeling to my bisexuality, which was the only definitive queerness i knew about myself at the time. i knew vaguely about various gender identities because i am a child of tumblr after all, but there were no specifics when i first began realizing how i really felt. i just knew it's what i was feeling and that's all i needed to know because it's something i was coming to accept about myself.

i get messages all the time saying "i didn't know i could feel non-binary while still feeling xyz" and it's because we tend to put so much emphasis on trying to fit ourselves into this universal experience instead of realizing that the only person we're trying to learn about is ourselves

[formerhimedanshi]

got tagged for a thing by @loudobjectprincess​

rules: answer 30 questions and tag 20 blogs you are contractually obligated to know better (those numbers are very ambitious): 

don’t feel obligated to do this if you don’t feel like it: @cristinadyke​, @droamiin, @scrapyardnecromancer, and i’m way too shy to @ anyone I’ve never talked to before but tbh if we’re mutuals or you’re one of the people that follow me because I bought you WKTD/HWBM and you fill this out and tag me I will absolutely read it and love it

name: Cleo/Clio/Cliodnha (I also answer to Chloe by reflex now because my family gets it wrong so often)

gender: female

star sign: Libra for 12 sign, Virgo for 13 sign

height: I’m fairly sure i’m 5′5″ but my cousin who I am very slightly taller than keeps insisting that i’m 5′6″

time: 8:38PM EST, I wonder what time it’ll be when I finally finish this (it was 9:55PM)

favorite bands: blind guardian, that band that does most of the music for FFXIV, Go! Child, idk what else I don’t actually listen to that many songs from the same artist very often

favorite solo artists: i guess Neil Cicerega? I’ve been liking Alex Moukala’s remixes lately too, also vocaloid stuff too if that counts

last movie: bird’s of prey, at my cousin’s request

last tv show: I can’t say for certain but it might have been the spongebob christmas special, which I have on dvd and watch every year around christmas 

when did you create this blog?: I’m going to say it was during summer(?) of 2015, although that’s mostly a guess. It’s possible it was late 2014

what do I post: mostly memes, plus the occasional hot take or positivity post, if I were brave I would actually post my writing but I am a coward so I don’t

last thing I googled: ff7 remake cloud strife, because imagining remake cloud as a trans butch lesbian does things to me. I swear. She is entirely too hot for someone who is supposed to be a cis man.

do I get asks: occasionally

why I chose my url: my name is cleo, I like snakes, I combined the two things

why you originally joined tumblr: cousin made me (every time I bring up a cousin assume it is the same cousin)

why you stayed: all the gay content (It’s worth noting at this point that I didn’t know I was gay or a girl at this point, so this probably should have been a sign)

average hours of sleep: varies every week, sometimes I can function for weeks on only two two hours naps a day, then other weeks I’ll sleep for like 12 hours at a time

what am I wearing: coat cus i’m cold and it looks good on me

dream job: wizard living in a tower

dream trip: moving to ireland eventually, also I kinda wanna go to one of those 3-day nightclubs they have in germany

favorite food: anything salty, also eggplant I suppose

nationality: irish

favorite song: Otherland by Blind Guardian is a strong contender, as is Bad Apple, oh also Servant of Evil. I’m bad at picking favorites

top three fictional universes: FFXIV, Pokemon, and Worm/Parahumans. Considering those are the 3 I tend to spend the most time thinking about. Digimon is a strong runner-up and would replace Worm if it were a question of universes I would choose to live in. Rune Factory might make this list too if the setting weren’t so vague. 

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

QIM Model | Dekoship Series | Phadship Series | Seroship Series

*You don’t have to read anything under the infographic; i just wanted to write something to go with it.*

While I think I give a very clear outline in the infographic itself, part of the reason for this whole model is the muddled, slippery, but sometimes scary or dangerous realm of human intimacy on a sexual note. While there is so much scholarship from different regions, philosophical frameworks, historical cultural contexts, etc about human sexuality, I built this as tool to progress the ideas of anarchism within intimate relationships; it was my desire to do that I needed to built this tool.

The prioritization of individual autonomy paired with human collaboration, mutual aid (more about that in the next series), respect, and the intentional absence of coercion, whether by culture, partners, organizations or governments.

The accomplishment of doing that is far from easy, especially in world where domination exists everywhere: from family systems, to workplaces, to sports, certain religious activities, and politics (the obvious one), all seem to tell us in one way or another, what to do, who to be, and how to even think. And while some of these ruffle our feathers more than others, depending on who you are, I wanted language to re-frame intimacy. I don’t want to trip over concepts that can’t share my experiences the way I mean it. 

I want to increase human connection and that starts by having language that can do a good job of it in the first place. Currently, I’ve been feeling what our culture’s relationship system would call, “Romantic Attraction” for someone. I dislike these words because they discuss, with so much baggage and imprecision, my feelings as if, because I feel them that means something significant or important. I separate behavior from desire intentionally, it is especially important in serotic circumstances to delineate desire from behavior. Desire arises, but behavior communicates it. Wanting to engage in serotic activities is not the same as asking for consent, or opening a conversation about if there is shared interest. 

Well... Duh. I dont think that we need to really be told that, I say it because, in real time, in our own heads and in casual conversations, we assume that desire = action. We live in a world where cis-, trans-, and nb afab bodies are oversexualized, fetishized, and experience an overwhelming majority of the sexual violence that happens in our societies. That means we need to have better ways of engaging with serotic feelings/desire, having conversations about what it can look like and how it can be done with respect to others boundaries, experiences, history, needs and desires. This isn’t just a desire to limit experiences on the scale of: mildly-painful to deeply-traumatizing. It’s also a tool to discuss how we can experience a joyful, positive, fun, engaging activity together.

How do I know what I’m wanting? That’s a huge question. It’s important to answer, but I want to address a more pertinent question: What does it look like for me to have fulfilled my desire? Whether it’s deep emotional intimacy, with some serotic experiences to feel connected and loved; whether it’s serotic fun, with someone who’s cute nearby; whether it’s just to be held and watch a movie with someone who shares your worldview and understands you. What is important, is understanding where other people come into that desire of yours; how we treat others matters, this why I chose to build a framework that works against our current culture and it’s values. 

There’s so much more to be said on these topics, but I’ll wrap this post of here.

[trueslove]

✧･ﾟ: * (  park jiwon  ,  cis  female ,  she / her  )  have  you  seen  violet  hwang  around  ?   i  hear  the  twenty-one  year  old  is  working  as  an  art  director  .  did  you  know  they  have  97  love  alarm  points  ?  if  they  ever  want  to  be  truly  loved  someday  they  should  ease  up  on  being  temperamental  &  enigmatic  .  at  least  you  can  say  they’re  disarming  &  convivial,  too.  /  love alarm blocked

                     hello  !  im  xan  and  ur  watching  d*sney  channel ...  just  kidding  we  do  NOT  support  big  corporations  who  just  wanna  take  ur  money  😔  im  22  ,  from  the  est  timezone  (  even  though  my  sleeping  schedule  ...  does  not  reflect  that  sjbdwjkbdjdw  )  &  i  go  by  she  /  her  pronouns  !  im  gonna  be  honest  this  intro  is  gonna  be  completely  winged  so  buckle  up  ....  and  meet  violet  😋 

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     quick stats + aesthetics  !

full name: violet hwang. 

nickname(s): vee, vivi.

zodiac: tba....

sexuality: bisexual.

birthplace: manhattan, new york.

current residence: toronto, canada.

aesthetics: maraschino cherries at the bottom of a glass, driving with the windows down at night, unanswered text messages, black nail polish, the sound of rain hitting the windowpane, kissing and not telling, smiles that don’t quite reach the eyes.

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     backstory ! 

was born and raised in nyc baby ! she’s a true city girl, grew up in lower manhattan ( the financial district if u wanna get specific ) to a family with lots of $$$$ thanks to her father’s position as a ceo of an investment bank located on wall street 

life was pretty smooth until she was 17 and her father got arrested for embezzlement and fraud </3 it was actually a huge scandal for the investment bank he worked for because it was a whole group of higher ups who had been in on these crimes. basically a bunch of already rich men trying to get richer ... disgusting ik /: 

her life changed pretty drastically after that ! the hwang name was all over the news, their family was pretty much disgraced by high society in nyc, not a very fun time for anyone but especially not for violet’s mom 

after her dad got arrested violet was uhh high key furious with him for ruining their lives with his greed and she wanted nothing to do with him, but her mom couldnt let go. she was still defending him, spending the money they had left on lawyers which included the money the family had set aside for violet’s trust fund that she would have had access to once she was 18 </3

 so her plans for college changed pretty drastically JSDBJWBDJW ( goodbye ivy league education ) she actually ended up getting into the university of toronto for visual studies on an academic scholarship 

so she made the big move all on her own....moved into a tiny dorm...and vowed to reinvent herself. she didnt wanna be labeled as the daughter of a white collar criminal anymore so she just made it a point not to talk to much abt her past to anyone 

her struggles as someone who grew up with $$$$ turning into a broke college student made for some embarrassing but funny moments <3 luckily though everyone else had their own struggles so no one found it suspicious JSBDJWBDJ

when love alarm launched three years ago, violet had just started college so it was really the Big thing anyone and everyone was talking about. since she’d never been a fan of other dating apps, she wasn’t gonna download it but her roommate at the time convinced her ! at first it was fun, just something she didnt take too seriously 

fast forward to graduation and she’s snagged a job as an art director for a little local museum, doing freelance art directing on the side to help pay the bills. low and behold one day a photographer hires her to be the art director to a shoot they’re doing for a badge club member who was in a very high profile and public relationship at the time

violet ended up working with that photographer and badge club member a handful of times, enough for her to catch fee-🤢 catch feelin-🤢 i cant even say it .. she’d never rung anyone’s love alarm before, so of course her first time had to be with someone who was already taken </3 safe to say she ... freaked out 

she was embarrassed above all else, but also heartbroken bc in her head like ... why would someone who literally is part of an exclusive club based on ppl ringing their love alarm care that she rung theirs ? she didnt think it’d be a big deal to them the way it was to her ( but also didn’t stick around long enough to find out jsxbsjbdjw ) 

when she was offered the block she didn’t hesitate to use it figuring it’s better if no one knows her romantic feelings ever again like that /: she’d delete the app but a part of her still likes knowing there are ppl out there who DO like her like that so ... Rip truly 

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     personality + tidbits !

she comes across as ... kind of a bitch SDJBJWBJWBDW it’s truly not on purpose she just has a pretty serious resting expression most of the time ( so she looks mad or annoyed even when she isn’t ) and she’s pretty difficult to get to know ? not to mention the fact that no one has ever witnessed her ring someone’s love alarm .. so all that combined just makes it easy to assume she’s some sort of ice queen when that’s far from the truth /: 

violet really isn’t one to open up too deep to people, but that’s got a lot to do with the past she’s kind of running away from ! so if you’re her friend most of the stuff you know about her is probably surface stuff, but when she’s close to someone she can make that fact hard to realize ? she just has a way with making the people in her life feel important so it’s easy not to be focused on how much you know about her 

never bothers to correct the people that misjudge her. if you don’t like her, if you want to make up assumptions and rumors about her, go ahead like violet really won’t stop you which can sometimes make meeting new people difficult </3 if you’ve seen the dating class webdrama chuu was in she’s kinda like oh seyoung’s chara joowon 🤧

if she wants to, though, she’s pretty good at getting people to like her / trust her ! she does this a lot in professional situations, which is why she’s been doing so well as an art director so far despite being so young 

she’s also very loyal to her friends ! if you can’t ask for extra sauces at mcdonald’s....if you can’t make a phone call to your credit card company explaining that a $3,000 charge to starbucks wasn’t you.....she’s your girl <3 since she’s relatively not bothered by the way people see her ( unless it has to do with her past ) she’s usually the one speaking up if someone she cares about can’t 

after the ... incident ... JSDBWJDBWJ she’s really not a fan of the badge club and everything it stands for ): BUT she continues to do art directing work for a lot of the members when they do photoshoots, or instagram campaigns, or if they have a pop up shop, etc. it’s good money and she needs every penny considering she’s living without support from her family 

cannot cook to save her life so she’s always eating out .. this really is why she’s taking those more high profile jobs she can’t budget .. but it’s better, safety wise at least, that she continues wasting her money on takeout aha <3 

pretends she’s not a romantic and is all about the ~casual flings~ but really she’s just afraid of serious feelings and the idea of a serious relationship ... it’s the trauma 😔 constantly jokes shes gonna bring the tinder whore era back JWDBWJBDJW she is sick of this true love nonsense ! ( the irony of this url ahaha... ) 

she’s the most social after a few drinks, since drunk her isn’t burdened by a mind that overthinks literally everything the way she is sober. if you don’t supervise her though she can get pretty carried away and probably get into some kind of trouble so she’s definitely not the person you want to be in charge on a night out !

really wants a dog but doesn’t think she’s cut out to be a pet parent it feels just as scary as the idea of having an actual kid so ... BDWBDJW if you have a pet ? she’s gonna be living vicariously through you <3 

━  ˙ ˖  ☆     wanted connections !

the photographer that hired her / introduced her to the badge club member she ended up having feelings for 

the badge club remember she had / has feelings for because we love suffering 😈

old roommates from college !! maybe even the one that got her to download love alarm in the first place hehehe

also a current roommate / roommates because your girl can’t afford to live on her own <3

someone she’s confided in about her past ( maybe they judged her for it and had a falling out, or maybe they remain confidants ) 

an ex bf or gf she dated while she was in school ! she never rang their love alarm ( even though this was pre block ) so maybe that’s why things ended between them. or maybe they never rang each others and it was just a mutual thing where they both didn’t really have feelings for each other and tried to date anyway and it didn’t work. or perhaps they dated and when violet realized she was starting to have those feelings she dipped before she ever got a chance to ring their love alarm bc she didn’t want to be exposed like that and commitment is scary ): 

spare best friend ? i’d use a knife emoji to show you how serious i am but i dont wanna scare anyone away aha .. i would just love a best friend plot 🥺

current flings / hookups or past flings / hookups ! i imagine most of them to not be serious but it would be kinda cool if there was someone she’s seeing now that she’s got the love alarm block that she’s actually falling for considering she’s never gonna be able to ring their love alarm hehehehe

people she art directs for !! i imagine she’s got a pretty long list of employers ( from badge club members to regular folk  🤧 ) so it would be cool to have people who hire her for stuff, or who collaborate with her for artistic endeavors since i’ve noticed we have a lot of artsy muses <3 

ummm maybe an enemy. but where it’s like .. the hate isn’t even that deep it’s just like oh you dislike me ? well i dislike you FIRST 😠 and they insult each other and try and sabotage each other like five year olds fighting on the playground like it seems super serious to them but to everyone watching it’s like ... can you guys just get over it you dumb babies KSDBSDBWD like they could probably be good friends if they just .. stopped 

and you’ve reached the end of this NOVEL of an intro post JDBJWBDJWBDW im literally so sorry i tried not to ramble but ..... its just who i am </3 please come shoot me a message to plot !!! you can use tumblr ims but im way more available / quicker to respond on discord so if u wanna add me there and plot u can find me at junhee mr. soft hands ʕ´• ᴥ•̥`ʔ#8172  i also did not check this post for typos so if u find one ... mind ur business 😭😭😭 

[quietkeith]

Some Thoughts on “Ace Inclusion”

tw: heterosexism, cissexism, anti-aceness, anti-queerness, sexual assault, rape culture, medical abuse

Heads up: the rest is in a read more because it is incredibly long!

x.) Preface I’ll begin with the disclaimer that I haven’t spent a tonne of time looking at the state of the ace discourse on Tumblr, simply because what little I’ve seen seems incredibly polarised and extremely lacking in nuance.

I’ll also add that I’m not ace. I’m trans nonbinary and am both romantically and sexually attracted to people of a variety of genders. (This is just to give you some sense of my authorial positionality; let’s leave talking about the merits and pitfalls of the split-attractions model, the cisnormativity of existing vocabulary surrounding sexual orientation, and other such matters aside for the moment, just so that the scope of this post remains somewhat manageable. These things are important and interesting, and we should totally talk about them, too; I just can’t discuss everything in one post!)

I also feel like I should acknowledge that this post will in all likelihood draw something of a binary between LGBT people and ace people. I recognise that there are ace LGBT people, and that their positions within this discourse are extremely diverse. I’m assuming this binary not because I deny that LGBT ace people exist, but because the current discourse seems to already be highly polarised into LGBT and cisheteroromantic/sexual ace, and the LGBT ace folks caught between this really seem to take either “side” in this discourse depending on their own politics and positionalities.

Similarly, I’m generally subsuming both asexual and aromantic people under the single term “ace”. I realise that asexual and aromantic folks’ situations have both commonalities and divergences within this discourse, so you can assume that I’ll try my best to say “ace” when I’m speaking about asexual and aromantic people collectively, and try to write out “asexual” or “aromantic” in full when I want to specifically refer to one or the other in particular.

Lastly, I apologise if my writing style is overly-academic or verbose. I’ll try to be to-the-point and keep my language accessible, but I acknowledge that I’m not always great at doing this. (There’s a very, very abstracted tl;dr in bold toward the end of this post, if that’s useful.) One particular bit of language I feel I should point out is that I avoid using “-phobia” terms because they are ableist, remove accountability from oppressors, and individualise/privatise systems of oppression that are better understood as social/public phenomena. As a result, I try to use the terms “heterosexism”, “cissexism”, “anti-aceness”, and “anti-queerness” in place of “homophobia”, “transphobia”, “aphobia”, and “queerphobia” respectively. Feel free to let me know through a reply, message, or ask, if anything I’ve written is unclear or needlessly complicated and I’ll try rephrasing it, offering clarification, or something! In a similar vein, I welcome call outs and the like, and even a measure of anger in said call outs; I’m still learning and am bound to make mistakes as I go. However, I also want to stress that I’m not claiming to know everything, nor am I claiming that my politics are perfect, and I’m mostly looking to spark more nuanced dialogue through this post -- not provide a singular manifesto to end the entire discourse forever. Please try to frame call outs and corrections with this in mind!

So, with that out of the way, on to the actual substance.

1.) Why is the state of the discourse is so bad right now? (Or, why we shouldn’t necessarily hate each other for the hateful things we’ve read.)

Needless to say, discourse on Tumblr about whether or not ace people are a part of the queer community rarely results in people leaving feeling like they’ve gotten anything out of it and actually engaged in meaningful communication. Mostly, it seems like LGBT folks and ace folks are just mutually spewing hate at each other.

At the most basic level, this might have to do with the fact that the users involved in this discourse are often pretty young on the one hand, and too emotionally exhausted to have a nuanced political dialogue on the other. 

The result of this is firstly that ace users struggle to articulate the concrete oppressions they face. Secondly, LGBT users maintain a facile notion of what constitutes queerness and whom the queer movement ought to serve; this ultimately devolves into identity policing and setting up standards for who is “queer enough” to be part of the queer community.

These issues are made worse by the fact that both ace and LGBT folks urgently need resources that are not being adequately provided, which make us quicker to throw other groups under the bus if we think they might redirect resources we need to survive away from us.

So when we see really bad discourse on Tumblr, we need to always remember that these are often vent posts by young people in very hard situations, and so will not necessarily be the most balanced or articulate takes on the issues at hand. 

Heterosexism, anti-aceness, and cissexism historically have been, and continue to be, so closely linked that it may be argued that they are actually just different manifestations of a broader system of oppression -- “anti-queerness”. (For an example of how anti-aceness and heterosexism are linked, I came across an excellent post that I am unfortunately not being able to dig up again, describing how lesbian and ace women in England used to be discursively treated as the same thing by non-ace cishets; they oppressed both, and oftentimes did not draw any distinction between the two.) When we situate the current fracturing, hatred and conflict between LGBT and ace folks within the context of anti-queer oppression, it’s not a stretch to say that this fragmentation and lack of solidarity is intentionally produced by our oppressors, and that we’re playing right into their hands; we should try to have goodwill for each other, if only because that is the last thing our oppressors want us to do.

So, hopefully having established at least a provisional goodwill between ace and LGBT stakeholders in this discourse, I’m now going to try and argue that ace folks do indeed face oppression, and that the queer movement should include ace folks in principle (or at the very least should not only concern itself with LGBT issues, as some have proposed) -- that a queer movement that fails to do so will ultimately fail to bring about lasting sexual liberation for anyone, including LGBT folks. In the process, I will also try to address practical concerns that have been raised about feasibility, availability of resources, and so forth.

2.) So ace people face systemic oppression

Not long ago, I wasn’t convinced that heteroromantic/sexual ace folks faced systemic oppression, and ace blogs on Tumblr didn’t really do a great job of convincing me either; the blogs focused largely on lack of recognition, representation, and visibility, which are definitely issues but do not constitute the same levels of urgent systemic oppression that LGBT folks face; the kind that causes lasting trauma and possibly (read: far too fucking often) death.

However, after thinking about it at greater length and having several discussions about this with other people around me, I realised that there are systemic violences that ace folks face that are far more pressing.

One thing I was thinking about was the fact that, at least within the subcontinental, Western European, and North American settings in which I am situated, rape culture is pervasive. This makes asexual folks particularly vulnerable to sexual assault (and even more so if these asexual folks are women -- irrespective of whether they are cis or trans). It would not surprise me if asexual folks are pressured/guilted/coerced into having sex within the context of intimate relationships, and that sexually abusive partners would be viewed with understanding by society at large because they would be seen as simply getting the sex that they’re entitled to as intimate partners. In a similar vein, if an asexual person went to, say, a therapist or crisis support person after facing this kind of sexual abuse, they would in all likelihood be told that this was not abuse, and that they are being selfish and perhaps even that they are the one being abusive by “withholding sex”. We already know that in non-ace contexts, people who do not engage in regular sex with intimate partners are expected to set aside their own comfort to satisfy their partners; how many people, especially women, have been told by their marriage counselors that their marriage suffering was not a result of their partners’ lack of understanding or sense of entitlement, but a result of their “selfish refusal” to fuck? A culture that demands sex will enact systemic violence against everybody, sure, but asexuals in particular will be especially vulnerable (at a fundamental systemic level) to the violences that rape culture brings about, in ways that cishet non-asexuals are not, which suggests that simply equating cisheterosexual/romantic ace people with non-ace cishets is inaccurate, and that ace folks’ unique vulnerability to sexual assault is an example of systemic anti-aceness in society. I should add that this extends beyond the context of long-term intimate partner relationships. For instance, I wouldn’t be surprised if people who are out as asexual (again, especially women) would be targeted for “corrective rape” in non-intimate settings in much the same way that LGBT folks (and especially lesbians) are.

The cultural prescription that people will have sex (within the norms of romantic heterosexual monogamy) also sets ace people up to face medical abuse. In the context of contemporary medicine and psychology, not feeling sexual or romantic attraction would often be seen as pathology. In either case, ace people may be pressured into “treatments” for their lack of sexual or romantic attraction, all the while being subject to various diagnoses that view them as flawed on account of their sexualities. I wouldn’t be surprised if aces have been diagnosed as narcissists, psychopaths, or as having various personality disorders simply on account of their being ace. Besides the fact that these “treatments” would themselves probably be extremely harmful, this also means that ace people have to be careful navigating the medical system in a way that cishet non-aces do not because if they’re honest with their doctors about their sexualities, they will be vulnerable to medical abuse.

(I should note here, that I recognise that there are people who lose sexual or romantic attraction as a result of trauma or mental illness; I am by no means arguing that these people should not have access to treatment, or that the medical system should just tell these people they are “ace and valid” and reinforce behaviours that are causing them harm and distress. Rather, I am arguing that the medical system should not assume that anyone who does not want sex or romance is always in need of treatment and must necessarily be engaging in harmful or distressing behaviour, because some people will just be ace and attempting to treat those people will do them harm where they would otherwise have been fine. The medical system must work harder when faced with patients who don’t feel romantic or sexual attraction, to establish whether this is a symptom of a pathology, or simply a benign feature of the patients sexuality.)

Furthermore, being continuously made to feel like one is failing as an intimate partner, as well as aware of the fact that mainstream science and culture views being asexual or aromantic as pathological, must give rise to internalised feelings of inadequacy, worthlessness, brokenness, abjection, etc. in much the same way that internalised heterosexism or cissexism cause extreme detriment to the mental, emotional, spiritual -- and by extension physical -- wellbeings of LGBT folks.

I’m sure that there are a multitude of other ways in which ace people face systemic oppression and violence. However, I believe the claims I have made above that ace folks’ sexualities make them vulnerable to sexualised violence and medical abuse as a systemic feature of cisheterosexist society’s expectation that cisheterosexuality will manifest in sexual and romantic forms is already sufficient to say that ace folks do face systemic oppression irrespective of whether or not they are cisheterosexual/romantic. This means that anti-aceness is a meaningful concept and a social reality, and that cisheterosexual/romantic aces are not completely equatable with non-ace cishets insofar as access to power and privilege are concerned. If we view anti-aceness as just one manifestation of a broader anti-queerness, then the question of whether ace folks should be included in the queer community is now an important question, whose answer is not necessarily a self-evident “no”.

3.) Radical queerness and LGBT liberalism (Or, why ace folks must be included in queer movements if we want to ever see liberation for anybody at all)

All of the arguments that I’ve really heard from LGBT folks against ace inclusion can ultimately be brought down to the following:

i.) cisheterosexual/romantic ace people don’t experience oppression.

ii.) the queer movement is about gay and trans liberation, not about including any and all “deviant”/”weird” sexualities.

iii.) including ace people is a practical impossibility because resources are inadequate and would get redirected away from relatively more-oppressed LGBT folks towards relatively less-oppressed ace folks.

I already addressed the first point above, so I’m just going to go forward with the premise that anti-aceness is in fact a social reality, since that’s already been established. In this section, I’m going to focus on the second point, and address the third in the next section.

While queer and LGBT are used practically interchangeably today, this has not historically been the case. Especially within a North American context, queer activism emerged from anarchist sex radicals who opposed sexual normativities as part of a broader anarchist politics. Meanwhile, LGBT is a more recent development; it is a liberal movement that seeks to assimilate lesbian, gay, bisexual, and trans people into the existing statist, nationalist, and capitalist system of power. A couple of practical examples of how the queer and LGBT movements differ, just to make what I’m getting at clearer:

i.) The queer movement is anti-police and anti-capitalist, as seen in the Stonewall riots. (In case anyone is doubting this, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P Johnson, who were both highly involved in the Stonewall riots and the organising that took place immediately after, were the founders of Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries -- as the “revolutionaries” part of its name suggests, this was an organisation with an explicitly anarchist agenda. Rivera later faced repudiation within the mainstream LGBT community because of her criticisms of LGBT assimilationism and “respectability politics”, especially with regard to the New York Pride Parade.) In contrast, the LGBT movement embraces both policing and capitalism, as illustrated by the presence of police floats and increasing corporatisation of pride parades.

ii.) The queer movement is anti-state and anti-military, with many queer activists for instance critiquing marriage (insofar as it is overseen by the state), as well as militaristic agendas that use cisheterosexism as a propaganda tool to demonise “enemies of the state” on the one hand, and which kill queer “enemies of the state” on the other. Meanwhile, the LGBT movement has centralised state-legitimised same-sex marriage as a political objective in recent years, to the extent that it’s sometimes made to seem like once same-sex marriage is allowed, that is the end of all cisheterosexism. The LGBT movement has also advocated for LGBT folks’ “right” to serve in the military, often framing this in terms of a desire to engage in patriotic citizenship and serve the nation-state.

More importantly to what I’m getting at in this post, the queer movement has historically been critical of identity politics (including its own) and has been wary of policing who is “queer enough” to belong within the queer movement. This is because the queer movement does not simply try to reform existing sexual normativities or replace them with new ones that are less oppressive towards LGBT folks, but rather tries to do away with any sexual normativities whatsoever; the arbitrary hierarchies of sexual normativities are thought to invariably give rise to oppression, irrespective of what those normativities happen to be in particular. In contrast, the LGBT movement sees reform as the best way to combat LGBT oppression, and is concerned neither with how intersections of race, class, ability, etc. will make those reforms only empowering to privileged quarters of the LGBT community, nor of how a reformist, assimilationist LGBT movement will invariably throw other groups (such as ace folks, indigenous folks, non-white folks, immigrants, people with non-Western genders or sexualities, and so forth) under the bus in pursuit of empowerment within a current system that is fundamentally oppressive.

In light of this, when LGBT folks say that the queer community is only for LGBT folks, they are conflating the queer and LGBT movements and engaging in “are you queer enough?” style policing that is antithetical to queer principles. This conflation -- and similarly the recent framing of queer as a slur at the expense of decades of reclamation work -- is not accidental, and is a calculated move by the liberal LGBT movement to coopt, and thereby stamp out, more radical forms of queerness that present an obstacle to their assimilationist agenda. And before anyone accuses me of reaching, I’d like to point to an example of this; the infamous Stonewall Uprising (2010) movie erased Marsha P Johnson, Sylvia Rivera, and other non-white queers, only interviewed “respectable” white queers, and finishes with the interviewees claiming that participating in the Stonewall riots was (to loosely paraphrase from memory) “the most American thing they’ve ever done” despite the fact that the riots were in opposition to the American state and its fundamental cisheterosexism. If that doesn’t represent a calculated (and highly invested) effort to coopt radical queerness into the liberal LGBT movement, I don’t know what does. Buying into this liberal LGBT coopting of radical queerness by agreeing with their conflation of queer and LGBT will foreclose any possibility for radical sexual liberation; the only way forward will be assimilation in to the existing ableist, racist, militaristic, capitalist nation-state and attaining a conditional, provisional, extremely precarious set of rights that can be withdrawn or ignored at any time by a nation-state that is still at its heart cisheterosexist. And of course, that way will only be open to a very small number of us who have the adequate intersection of privileges to survive. (In other words, if we allow ourselves to fall into the trap of policing who is “queer enough”, then we start creating a new set of sexual normativities which, although they might not be the same as the ones the nation-state currently uses to oppress us, are also oppressive in different ways nonetheless. Take, for example, the way that “nonbinary enough” has often come to mean a thin, young, white, androgynous/masculine-presenting person -- to the detriment of anyone who doesn’t fit that new gender prescription. The new gender prescription might alter the the logics of cissexism by challenging the gender binary, but it still systemically sanctions cissexism against anyone who isn’t nonbinary in the “right” way and so ultimately leaves cissexism in tact.)

Meanwhile, to address the concern that ace inclusion will imply being inclusive of any and all “weird” or “deviant” sexualities, I should add that I am by no means advocating that this should be the case, and there is no reason why this would have to follow from ace inclusion. Pedophiles, rapists, and abusers, for instance, are (rightly) not validated, celebrated, represented, advocated, or welcomed in the queer movement. The queer movement challenges sexual normativities insofar as these normativities create arbitrary hierarchies that give rise to systemic oppressions, but that doesn’t mean that the queer movement is uncritical of relations of power vested in sexuality, nor does it mean that it condones sexualised violence. Including ace folks would not change this.

4.) This is all nice in theory, but what about in practice? (Or, why scarcity of resources is not a valid justification for ace exclusion)

Let’s assume that my reasoning in the previous sections is sound, and we cannot have radical sexual liberation for anyone unless the queer movement includes ace folks (since I just argued exactly this in all of the above lol). Now, firstly, this means that no matter how scarce our resources are, LGBT and ace folks must stand in solidarity as a single queer community because it is the only way towards liberation. 

That being said, the fear of scarce resources also seems somewhat misplaced. Let’s take an example; the concern that ace inclusion will mean that ace folks will take beds in shelters that would otherwise have gone to LGBT folks.

Firstly, it seems overly simplistic to say that ace inclusion is all or nothing; including ace folks doesn’t necessarily mean giving them access to all queer spaces all the time. Even within LGBT, services specifically and exclusively for lesbians, gays, bisexuals and trans people respectively exist; this in no way detracts from the inclusion of any of these groups within the queer movement, and makes perfect sense in light of the specific needs of these separate quarters of the queer community. So if we find that homelessness is a problem for ace folks in a way that is comparable to the extent that it is a problem for LGBT folks, then ace folks would be entitled to those beds as fellow queers who have been rendered systemically homeless by anti-queerness. On the other hand, if we find that anti-aceness does not manifest specifically as homelessness in the way that cisheterosexism does, then shelters in particular could be LGBT-specific in light of the fact that this resource is particularly direly needed by LGBT folks.

Secondly, there seems to be a fear that if cisheterosexual/romantic ace folks are allowed into queer shelters, this would represent cishets invading queer spaces. This rests on the mistaken belief that cisheterosexual/romantic ace folks are equal to non-ace cishets in terms of power and privilege, which I’ve already argued is false. While comparisons of ace-exclusion to transmysogyny are overdone -- and themselves often transmysogynistic -- the fear that  cisheterosexual/romantic ace folks will “invade” queer spaces is similar to TERFs fearing that trans women will “invade” women’s spaces on the basis of the incorrect belief that trans women are “basically men”. Non-ace cishets do try to enter queer spaces, and we must resist this, but we have to be discerning in doing so lest we make queer spaces inaccessible to people who also face anti-queer oppression.

Thirdly, while including ace folks might mean that we have more people in need of resources within the queer community, we should always remember that we have always been our own resource so having more people will bring more resources with it. Practically nobody has historically looked out for the queer community or given it resources other than the queer community itself; we have largely survived by virtue of our own intra-community solidarity and mutual aid. So if ace folks are included, it’s not like the queer movement would suddenly find itself short of provisions and have to go ask some third party overseer like the state to give us more; that’s what liberal LGBT reformists would have to do. Rather, the queer movement would celebrate the fact that we now have the added intelligence, support, kindness, money, skills, etc. of these newly-included people, because our resources primarily come from within our own community. Ace folks might need access to some of our resources sometimes, but they’ll contribute to our community just like any of the rest of us. And if we do ever need to lobby a more powerful third party for stuff, wouldn’t having more people at the sit-in be a good thing? Saying we shouldn’t include ace folks because they’re a drain on resources sounds like a loosely similar rhetoric to people who say we shouldn’t provide welfare because poor people or people with disabilities are a “drain” on society; people need resources, but the ultimate point of having a community is that we’re stronger together and benefit from our solidarity. (Also, communities that think violence against community members in the name of the “greater good” of the community is justified are very possibly cryptofascist, since fascism rests on the same moral philosophy.)

x.) Closing remarks

tl;dr: Anti-aceness is real, and is a form of anti-queerness, alongside cisheterosexism. The queer movement must therefore include ace folks lest it be coopted into LGBT liberal assimilationism. Including ace folks will not necessarily make resources inaccessible to LGBT folks, and might even make resources more abundant.

In closing, I want to stress again that I’m still learning stuff, and that this is intended to be neither exhaustive nor immune to criticism. There is a pressure on Tumblr to never be called out, to always be the most politically informed and aware, and this kind of virtue signalling often impedes us from having conversations where the language is still very much being made up as we go along, from forming stronger bonds of solidarity, from learning from one another, and from surviving in more effective and fulfilling ways within our communities. I hope I’ve raised a few useful things here, and that this sparks some good conversations.

Finally, I haven’t proofread this very thoroughly. I’ve pretty much casually written an essay here and I’m tired. I figure if there’s anything wrong, I can fix it later, and if there’s anything I’ve missed, I can always either add that or make another post dealing with it later. This isn’t a formal academic piece, after all. Besides, I would hope that having a few mistakes or incorrectly worded things wouldn’t detract so much from the thrust of what I’m saying here!

[whalefucker69]

memememememme

Rules: Answer the questions in a new post and tag 10 you would like to get to know better

Got tagged by @onedamnminuteadmiral 

1. Nickname: My name’s Caroline, but ever since I was like 14 people have just called me by my last name, Birch.  It’s simultaneously an affectionate thing my friends do but also like??? being called by my last name makes me feel more respectable you know.  Savannah sounds like a mid-twenties socialite from texas who probably voted trump, Caroline sounds like a little girl, Birch is someone with a firm handshake and a condescending smirk.  There’s something almost military-esque about going by your last name, and I like that it’s a solid consonant-heavy one syllable.  Plus it’s not at all feminine, but it’s one letter away from bitch, and believe me I play to that pun as often as I can 

2. Star sign: gemeni

3. Height: 5′4′’

4. Time right now: 10:29

5. Favorite music artist: so many but my heart will always be owned by the killers ((for a broader selection, check out the other meme i just did))

6. Song stuck in your head: I saw the word “hideaway” on a tumblr post so now i have hideaway by keiska??? idk her name stuck in my head

7. Last movie watched: I saw La La Land last week and let me just say it’s a very pretty movie but if i ever met ryan gosling’s character irl I’d punch him after 5 minutes of conversation.  I,,,, don’t get along well with the “pretentious artist/hopeless romantic” crowd.

8. Last TV show watched: Mythbusters has owned my heart and soul since grade 4

9. What are you wearing right now: pajamassssss (oversized t shirt and boxers)

10. When did you created your blog: I joined tumblr in 2010.  I deleted and remade about 2 years ago.  

11. What kind of stuff do you post: who tf knows honestly

12. Do you have any other blogs: god no i can barely handle one

13. Do you get asks regularly: almost never lmao if i post an ask meme i’ll get one or two when my mutuals decide to come in clutch

14. Why did you choose your URL: it’s vaguely scifi enough to cover all my interests

15. Gender: cis girl yo

16. Hogwarts house: Griffindor!!!! People who meet me irl assume I’m a ravenclaw or slytherin but I subscribe to the whole “traits you value/aspire to > traits you have” Also I am,,, pretty brave?? Assuming bravery is just doing things even though they scare you; I’m the bravest person in existence bc infinite anxiety = infinite bravery

17. Pokemon team: Valor!

18. Favourite color: I don’t?? have one??? I don’t understand the question they’re,,, colors

19. Average hours of sleep: totally depends yo!!!!

20. Lucky number: 7 and 12.  7 is a pretty shade of green and 12 is divisible by both 3 and 4, which is pretty cool.  I dig all the multiples of 12 < 60 tbh

21. Favourite character: There will never come a time in my life that I don’t relate to Tony Stark 

22. How many blankets do you sleep with: uno.  I’m a big believer in deleting flat sheets and sleeping under a sole comforter.  

23. Dream job: Can I be an art director for a Bioware game??? Like please??? Listen ok EA has an office in my college town the scout my school I’m a programming major/digital art minor please let a triple A developer hire me??? I’ll be your fucking coffee intern I’ll be the graphic artist that does like,,,,,, floor textures lmao just let me into this industry

24. Following: 167

listen just,,,, whoever wants too I’m too tired to manually type peoples names just.... if you feel it mr krabs

[ineffablefool]

Hey Jack,

I....have a hard question I would very much love your thoughts on. I've gotten so much out of reading your writings.

I'm trans-masc but I seem to be in possession of a body that puts any extra me in verrrry feminine-coded places.

I'm stuck between a rock, a hard place and a sea of ick. The rock is not wanting to be fat-phobic and devalue human bodies of a y size, the hard place is not wanting to be transphobic and say trans people don't have the right be sad & take measures to change how their body looks to match their gender ID and the sea of ick is the idea that adipose tissue being on my hips instead of around my stomach means anything at all.

My body looks so feminine I cannot imagine it is mine. Sometimes I think that it does look like a very nice body, but why am *I* in it? This must be a filing error.

Oh, anon. I wish I had the answer to this one, because I could also kind of use it myself.

I don't... really have anything to say about the rock. You are correct 100% yay good job on not wanting to devalue bodies of any particular size or shape. That by itself is great.

The hard part -- I don't think it's mutually exclusive to say that you do not need to change your body's size, but you would like to change the gender-coded portions of its shape. For one thing, you are playing by society's rules here, just like most of us are (some people have completely opted out and that is good too), which means that, generally speaking, to be treated as a masc-leaning individual, you have to "look like" a masc-leaning individual, and someone who wasn't you decided what that meant. You didn't choose any of this stuff, you didn't choose to have everyone be so hung up on it (or to have your own brain be stewed in it your whole life!), but you (and I, and many other trans, enby and/or gnc people) are stuck with it. That means there are choices that boil down to "how many feminine-coded details could I leave in place if I wanted to (or if I couldn't change them), and still be seen as/feel like I am overall masculine?" And everyone gets to decide for themselves whether the genderedness of their body shape is something they are okay with, or something that they would like to change or downplay.

Granted, I still don't recommend weight loss for this purpose or for any other, since there are no well-formed peer-reviewed scientific studies at all ever that show that more than a few people can safely keep more than a little weight off for more than a couple years (and in fact they are likely to end up fatter, which just makes the "problem" worse) (I have dared naysayers to produce a study saying otherwise; no one ever has. One time someone tried to gotcha me with a study whose Results section agreed with me, which was hilarious).

But aha!, someone might say. Mister Jack N F Ibblefool, if that is your real name (it's not), what's the difference between a trans person making bodily changes and a fat person losing weight?

To which I say. Well. Nobody has ever gotten top surgery and had the things grow back, y'know? Nobody has ever gotten gender-affirming facial reconstruction and had it revert. Not all changes from T are permanent, but the ones that are, are... well... permanent. There are dozens of things that signal to people that we are of a particular gender, from haircut to walking style to voice intonation to bodily shape to what kind of a shirt you're wearing today, and as far as I am aware, there are no studies showing that in the vast majority of cases, all of these will revert in five years max.

Changing perceived markers of gender is often permanent, and even the temporary ones are generally not statistically-speaking nigh-impossible to maintain. Changing weight is, again, statistically speaking (inb4 someone wants to talk about how their aunt and their cousin and their friend all lost weight on this one diet, because your three pals do not trump decades of science), extremely temporary, and is more likely to end up the opposite of what the person was intending in the end.

So that's the difference between a trans person making bodily changes and a fat person losing weight.

(That was very long, anon, and I apologize for making your answer the place where I dump that series of thoughts. But it is at least a little bit relevant I think.)

And the sea of ick -- this gets back to the rules that someone else decided by and now we're surrounded by people playing them. The locations where the squishy bits go should not have nearly so much bearing on how we get gendered (including by ourselves), but they do. And it sucks. I think it's getting better even since I was in high school -- we definitely had no out trans kids in a student body of ~2000 at the end of last century, but now they're popping up all over and cis people are being forced to recognize that maybe their two neat little set-it-and-forget-it boxes are not actually the entirety of human existence and that is good -- but we're still stuck at "hips equals gorl" most of the time. I hate it. I don't know what to do about it.

See, like I said at the top, I really don't have a good answer. You get to pick what you do with your body, because it's your body. If you have the means and opportunity to talk to an experienced gender therapist, this might make a good motive, because they will be aware of resources and tools that one lil transmasc dude on the Internet (who actually tended to use his therapy sessions talking about general mental health instead, oops) has no idea about.

If you wanted thoughts, then hoo boy, I guess you got them. In triplicate. Here also are triplicate hearts. 💜💜💜

(note: I am aware T is a potential solution, but anon didn't mention it, so I'm assuming either they can't be on it at least right now, don't want to be on it at least right now, or have already applied that potential solution.)