#there are many things i don't understand but agree with the concept of! being cishet for example

[wizardnuke]

"i hate microlabels" yeah i also kind of dislike the idea of putting ourselves and our identities into very specific boxes, i think it can be really isolating- ohh wait you mean you think they're invalid. ohh no that's not the way to look at it. killing you

[eisforeidolon]

This is in response to the person who replied to your queerbaiting post. The thing that bothers me the most about that corner of the fandom is how they position themselves as "the LGBTQ fans of SPN" as if LGBTQ fans who don't ship D/C, or even see it, don't exist. Which is especially problematic since many D/C shippers are cishet but speak over actual queer fans.

Personally, I would not have objected to Dean (or Sam for that matter) being bi as long as their romantic relationships remained limited to flings and brief plot foils. A serious - especially "endgame" - romantic partnership for either brother would have changed the show into something I, and MANY other queer fans, did not want.

It really is deeply obnoxious. Unfortunately, as media has become more concerned with adding portrayals of a wider variety of people of all types, certain individuals in fandom have seized onto representation as a bludgeon to try and force creatives to write what they want very specifically.

Whether or not they're actually part of those groups themselves. Whether or not any significant portion - let alone ALL members - of said groups would agree the agenda at hand would actually serve their interests. That it even goes so far as tossing slurs at and invalidating people in those groups for being "bad" at being who they are for not supporting a very specific agenda about a damn tv show/movie/whatever? Just shows that it's not really about concern for the interests of the group - it's about trying to force the specific piece of media to tell the story you personally want.

The problems aren't with the idea of bi!Dean or bi!Sam as a concept. The problems are refusing to understand what the underlying story of supernatural was very obviously about - it was never a romance. As well as insisting an interpretation that is not confirmed by the canon IS indisputably canon because [unfortunate stereotypes & toxic masculinity & wishing real hard] and anyone that doesn't agree is a bigot.

I admit I didn't even bother to do more than quick-skim their last reply because not only was it the same old bullshit of refusing to pay attention to what's legitimately in the show and what the reliable sources from production have said about it (and therefore what it's actually reasonable to expect), and instead taking a bunch of biased cherry-picked specious bullcrap ~*interpretations*~ and ~*parallels*~ and other various conspiracy theories strung haphazardly together by shippers as gospel truth? They couldn't even be arsed to parrot make the arguments themselves, copy-pasting the generic regurgitated glurge of some randos on reddit. Because if people can write several thousand words about a thing on social media, it MUST be true!!! Especially if other people with the same agenda copy the same daft arguments over and over again! Amara help us.

[festeringfae]

I don’t know about this. Or maybe I’m just lacking context for your post. But as an Aro-Ace person, one reason I don’t feel “queer enough” is because many LGBT people don’t consider Asexuality to be queer. It’s not just coming from internalized heteronormativity, it’s coming from external feedback from members of the queer community who don’t think we belong.

I’m not saying all the blame falls on the queer community. But it sounds to me like you’re saying the “not queer enough” feeling *only* comes from the idea of being more familiar with cishet society, and that doesn’t sit right with me either. Maybe for some people that can be true. But I understand why some direct their frustrations at the queer community instead. Because the queer community is supposed to be where you go to feel welcome when you don’t identify as cishet anymore, but some of us don’t feel welcome there either.

So the reason I specified "queer enough" rather than "recognized as a member of the queer community" is because I'm specifically discussing the phenomenon of individual people blaming queer people as a community for their former inability to recognize themselves as a queer individual, rather than blaming the cishet systems that made them assume love and sex and attraction could only exist for them, their individual self, within one very specific framework.

In the example you provide, while debate over what ""counts" as queer identity exists, we can both agree that the queer community is not the reason or source of the default presumption in society that everyone experiences attraction the same way, correct? The origins of that are very clearly systems of power created by and for people who benefit from cisheterosexuality being the norm. So that means the source of any stigma or harm due to deviation from sexual or romantic norms is rooted in cisheterosecuality, not queerness-- regardless of how individual queer people try to gatekeep the label "queer" from others.

(As an aside, this is also why I think there's only harm and no benefit to discussions about who/what is "included" in the label "queer" or "LGBT." The former is meant to be a purposeful rejection of specificity, the latter is literally an acronym with a + or a * tacked on like w post it note that reads "if I didn't consider your existence, you can't get mad at me, because yes I did, I said 'et cetera!' The only purpose in grouping us all together is to refer to people whose existence demonstrates that society's default assumptions about gender, love, and sex are not innate facts, but narratives created by oppressive institutions to serve their own agendas.)

Also, "the queer community" as I use the term is not the same thing as "gatherings where queer people meet," although since I started my post referencing the concept of "at Pride," I see how that distinction might have gotten lost in the sauce. Here's an example:

As a woman, I feel very alienated by gatherings designated for queer people but are very clearly for men-- but I don't blame the queer community for misogyny existing, I blame patriarchy. That doesn't mean there isn't misogyny in the queer community, it just means the existence of the queer community isn't the reason why misogyny exists.

I used the woman example because I am one, and I'm uncomfortable using identities I don't have in rhetorical explanations, but there are plenty of other forms of bigotry within the queer community. Those are all still separate issues than individuals who assumed they had to be straight, thinking the reason they assumed that is because other queer people didn't do a good enough job of explaining queerness to them, and then resenting other queer people for it, because its easier to do that than resent every friend, movie, family member, job, tv show, school, acquaintance, church, doctor, poster, teacher, stranger, podcast, storybook that made them assume they were straight in the first place.

This reply feels a little all over the place, but I hope it helped clarify things for you, anon.

[sistervirtue]

i saw you say on your post that there are no male lesbians, but there's also nuance to that because historically many people have identified simultaneously as butch women and trans men because of their gender non-conformity, and additionally not all men are binary men, there are many non-binary men (people who are multigender, genderfluid, male-aligned, etc.) who are queerly attracted to women because they're men, but in a queer, non-binary way, and therefore are much more connected to queerness than not, there have historically been many communities with many trans and butch people who've identified as lesbian men, so there is nuance to that as well.

no, in general the lesbian definition doesn't include men, but the rhetoric that it can't is historically inaccurate and exclusionist and enbyphobic considering non-binary can be lesbians and some non-binary people are guys, which doesn't make them less non-binary.

just wanted to point that out. i know many people don't understand the concept of men being lesbians, but many people think it means cishet guys but it doesn't include them at all, the nuance is that some non-binary people are also men, and since non-binary people can be lesbians, there are some non-binary men who are lesbians, as well as some individual trans men who have been part of the lesbian community and their lesbian identification still affects them even after discovering they're guys.

so no, there is no such thing as cishet guys being lesbians, but "man" doesn't just mean "cishet man", it also refers to non-binary men and others.

i agree multigender people can be lesbians also but i dont think trans men can identify as lesbians and to say so gets into some pretty iffy territory but those r just my thoughts and im opening the floor to my lesbian mutuals for comment

also the butch community isnt lesbian exclusive its been used by multiple groups in the lgbt community for decade so to portray all butches as lesbians is a little weird imo. but once again opening the floor to lesbian mutuals for comment

[larktb-archive]

Hi! I'm too shy to come off anon, but I need your help understanding something. I hope I'm not bothering you!!

I don't want to interact with anyone who is a fascist, but I'm not entirely sure what makes someone fascist. Can you please explain it to me?

I know I could look it up myself, but I know that not all definitions online can be correct and I just want your perspective;;

Thanks!

Hi anon! Well, fascism comes in many forms so “sussing out who’s a fascist” is technically a little harder to do than having a simple checklist. After all, doesn’t a White Supremacist have different beliefs to a Japanese fascist? And doesn’t a Japanese fascist have different beliefs to a Wahabist? These beliefs clash don’t they? Well, yes and no. Sure the surface level beliefs are different but the underlying core beliefs of these groups are actually quite similar; it’s the specifics which are different. Even though it isn’t a “bible” on what is fascism and shouldn’t be taken as gospel, Umberto Eco has an essay called “Ur-Fascism” which contains 14 points, which can help us identify whether certain beliefs are fascist no matter the specifics of their belief system. I’ll explain the points in short and give some examples. Quick disclaimer, I am not an expert on fascism or any of the ideologies I’ll discuss by any means so if you aren’t taking Umberto Eco’s writing as the 100% correct truth, definitely don’t take mine as that either (this is how you should treat most sources tho):

1. Cult of Tradition and 2. Rejection of modernity

I put these two together because they’re kind of inseparable. This is basically the idea that there was a “glorious past” that people need to return to and modernity is a corruption of that “glorious past”. In British fascist thought, this past is generally the 19th century at the zenith of the British Empire or mid-20th century Britain. The latter is more common for people who wish to be a little more PC with their writings; instead of trying to use a by-gone era that pretty much no one alive can remember, they use a much more recent time with nostalgic ideas of “the good old days” which doesn’t seem threatening on it’s surface but is dogwhistling for a time when there weren’t as many immigrants in the country.

You may have seen the “reject modernity, embrace tradition” meme and it’s pretty much the most obvious incarnation of this idea. Similarly you may seen people online use “degenerate” as an insult. If you look at the meaning of the degenerate it means “having lost the physical, mental, or moral qualities considered normal and desirable; showing evidence of decline”; it’s microcosm of these ideas put into a single insult. This is why you tend to see conservatives use it more than progressives.

I’d also argue that terfs obsession with 2nd wave feminism and their utter rejection of intersectionality and modern feminism is another manifestation of this idea. 

3. Action for actions sake

This is less detectable in terms of individuals but still important to note that these people tend to support action without a cause. Sure the insurrection at the white house earlier this year was action, but it had no substance behind it. It was action for actions sake, which is why any principled leftist didn’t support it. Fascists will tend to openly just call for action but won’t be very specific about the purposes of the action; as long as they agree with the ideology behind it they’ll support it. It’s why fascists love harassment campaigns and mindless acts of terror. Take Wahabist terrorist orgs like Al-Qaeda or ISIS, it doesn’t matter if bombing an Ariana Grande concert has no point, the only point is the action itself.

4. Disagreement is treason  

This one’s pretty self explanatory, they will ostracize you if you disagree with them. Again, terfs tend to do this, and I had a long conversation with an ex-terf I called a dumbass, who basically said that she was ostracized by them and mocked for having different beliefs (hope she’s doing well actually). There’s numerous stories from ex-terfs like this.

5. Fear of difference

There’s a tendency for fascists to group people into “us” and “them”. “They” are considered to be intruders who need to be removed whereas “we” are the people who deserve to be here because it is “our” right to be here. In Zulu Nationalism, this tends to be any non-Zulu speakers who they deem to be “Shangaan” even if they aren’t actually Tsonga, it’s just a pejorative at this point. If you see vague references to the “elite” without any reference to who they are and what makes them “elite”, this is tends to be a dogwhistle for Jewish people. Western Fascists have very little issue with the workings of capitalism itself or the accumulation of wealth by capitalists, they just don’t like “them”, taking “our” stuff. Any references to “us” and “them” is pretty much a red flag.

6. Appeal to Social Frustration

Fascists will tend to brush upon actual issues faced by the poor today but will instead blame it on an outside force. You’ll see job loss being blamed on immigrants or vague “elites”. Terfs do this too. They’ll see young girls who are genuinely struggling with patriarchal issues and divert all that pent up rage towards trans people and the “q*eers” (which they do tend to use as a slur unlike what most people would have you think). 

7. Obsession with a Plot

Everything is a conspiracy! The election was rigged! 9/11 was fake! that fucking pizza place/this furniture company is a sex ring! All of these are supposedly plots by the deep state who are trying to do... something or other. You’ll notice these “Plots” don’t actually have a purpose, but the fact that there is a plot itself is the issue. This is a way of engendering paranoia in the group while also feeling that there is a constant war against you even if there isn’t. This is also why, despite news sources being pro-capitalist the right will swear up and down it’s leftist media which is controlled by “them” (usually just meaning Jewish people).

8. The enemy is both strong and weak

“Trans people have infiltrated academia and the only reason people refuse to see gender as an immutable biological concept, is because they’re too afraid of the trans cabal to say anything. But also everyone can tell trans people are crazy and haha you have a high suicide rate.” It’s contradictory that’s the point. They need to feel that they’re both counterculture but also they need to be winning at all times so that contradiction is necessary. Also the use of the word “cabal” is a pretty big red flag for all forms of fascism.

9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy, 10. Contempt for the weak, 11. Everybody is educated to become a hero and 12. Machismo and weaponry

All of these are kind of interrelated so I’m grouping them together (also this is already fucking long as hell so I don’t wanna bore you any further). You’ll tend to see a love for the military or at least military aesthetics when looking through fascist blogs. Guns aren’t just a tool for fascists, they’re representative of masculinity and the necessity of violence. Pacifists and anyone who refuses to fight are weak and therefore are “degenerate”. If you do not fight, if you are not willing to fight, you cannot be a “hero” (an ubermensch or a matyr). This comes with the fetishization of violence instead of the recognition of violence being an means to an end, and the worship of individuals rather than of communities and organizations. Take Japanese fascists and their lionisation of the imperial military and their desire to once again have an actual army.

Terfs don’t necessarily fit these roles except for arguably 10 considering how much they seem to look down upon the mentally ill and those who commit suicide and surprisingly 11 since that involves the hatred of non-standard sexual activities and terfs hate non-standard sex (this is from the most vanilla bitch who is very uncomfortable with kink but understands its not inherently good or bad). I have a feeling this is more so because terfs are mainly women (there are male terfs ofc) whereas this was written for male led organizations. 

13. Selective populism

When fascists talk about “the people” they tend to mean “the people we like”. “The working class” can be translated to “this cishet white christian man from Minnesota who owns land but hey he lives in a rural area so he’s working class right?”. They’ll also tend to have “tokens” who will suddenly become the mouth piece of the entire community they’re supposedly representing even if no one in the community asked them to (i.e. Milo Yiannopoulos). 

14. Ur fascism speaks Newspeak

They speak in terms which are both inaccessible to anyone outside of their circles whilst being so simple that once you learn them it becomes easy to understand. They abhor any form of “academic” speech so you’ll rarely see them source things (unless those things happen to agree with their views, which is rare but Jordan Peterson is popular for a reason) and if they do source things they probably wouldn’t have read them fully and will rely on you also not reading them. This is to limit any critical thinking so that your brain is basically jellified into an unquestioning organ which only responds “yes” or “no” and only appeals to a higher authority without any form of reasoning involved. This is why they complain about “the lefts memes being too wordy”... because they’re used to not having to read (this is somewhat tongue in cheek but heyho if the boot fits).

And that’s the 14 main features of fascism, if anyone is displaying multiple of these ideas then they are most likely fascist, and if an organization or group continuously replicates these ideas, then they are definitely fascist. I hope this wasn’t too long but like I said... very complex topic. (Also hopefully this is written well, it’s 10 PM and I am surviving off Irn Bru energy drink). Hope this helped!

[thedreadvampy]

Like idk what you want from me here. If you want to engage me in a specific question about ace/aro identities, as I've said several times and nobody has ever actually done, then ask me the specific question. Don't fuck around with vague gestures at Points of Discourse and then get cross with me because I haven't answered the Exact Question you Didn't Ask But Expected Me To Intuit.

Preface: If you don't want to answer any of these because you are allo/allo and don't have a say because its not your place, say that. In fact, I'm asking these because you seem to do have opinions on things you shouldn't based off things you have said in the past.

I also want to state that I agree fully with your points about Martin- minus the blatant aphobia. Not just acephobia, arophobia as well.

1. Do you think qprs are problematic? I believe you once made a post saying roughly that qprs are just normal friendships, or something like that, that has since been deleted. What is your current opinion?

2. Are het aros lgbt?

3. Are het aces lgbt?

4. Cis aro/aces lgbt?

5. Cishet aro/aces?

6. Do the spectrums and micro identities exist? You've implied in the past they don't, in the post about how they were supposedly created from sex positivity

7. Can aros be in or desire romantic relationships?

8. Can aces have or desire sex?

9. Does the split attraction model exist and does it benefit people?

10. Can teenagers identify as aro/ace or do you think they're too young?

11. Can you be, say, an aroace lesbian, or an aroace gay, aroace bi, etc. Idk how to phrase this one but like can you be aroace and still id with another orientation?

I could send another anon detailing the aphobia in the post, because I at least am certainly not upset about Martin being sexual, rather it was the very blatant aphobia. It could have stemmed from ignorance, and if that's the case I don't mind explaining it.

Ok this is a lot of questions, some with quite involved answers, so I'm gonna answer them chunk by chunk so it's a bit more manageable, and then I might come back to some of the surrounding message. This isn't gonna be an immediate bang bang bang, but I'll try and work through them over the next couple of days.

Question 1

1. No, I don't think qprs are problematic. I don't necessarily understand them but I don't need to understand them to understand and respect that they're a thing that's important to a lot of people. I don't know what post you're referring to, but I'm surprised that you say it was deleted, because I very rarely delete posts except, occasionally, reblogs where people have flagged up misinformation or dogwhistles or which I reblogged by accident. tbh I'm the messiest online presence I'm way too lazy to delete past posts or block people even when I probably should bc I don't like to feel like I'm ~hiding evidence~. So I'm not saying you're wrong, you're probably totally right, but I'm surprised.

I'm thinking about what posts I've made that you could be thinking of, and obviously I don't remember everything I say on here bc I say A Lot and I actively post to get things out of my head so 🤷‍♀️ but I do remember making a post a while ago where I said that it was a normal expectation of friendship to have some friends close enough that you'll live with them, raise kids with them, etc, and I'm wondering if that was the post you're thinking of? I did have qprs in mind while writing that to a degree, but only because I think 'you wouldn't do this with your friends' is a very common argument people put forward about qprs and I think it's a weak argument, because many people have different definitions of friendship, and the only argument I think is needed for any sort of I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing is...I Have X Emotional Relationship To This Thing. Like you can't offer a universal materialist definition of the differences between romantic, queerplatonic, sexual and platonic relationships, because the boundaries are very personal and it's really an emotional and experiential difference. so if that is the post you're thinking of, I wasn't criticising The Concept Of QPRs as much as saying that I thought trying to put hard lines around What Friends Do Vs What QPPs Do was a) counterproductive when arguing with someone who thinks QPR is Just Normal Friendships bc. if they do those things with their friends then saying NO THIS IS A QPR THING just reinforces their existing belief that you're talking about the same thing as they mean by friendships and b) to me seems to set a painful expectation to young people that you can only get these kinds of close friendships occasionally and in the form of a QPR and it will be stigmatised and misunderstood (and depending on how people talk about it, is only accessible to aspec people and allo people should only expect it to come through romantic/sexual relationships), when in fact most people of most ages I know have friends with whom they can share things like housing, deep feelings, futures, finances, who they miss if they don't see for a few days, who are mutually supportive and vital to their wellbeing. I don't think that's mutually exclusive with the existence of QPRs though - like I personally don't know what the difference is between a QPR and a close friendship, but I also don't know what the difference is between a romantic relationship and a close friendship but I know there is one and I know it's not a question of What You Do but a question of How You Feel And Interact, and that's pretty hard to define in unambiguous terms.

Like generally I don't Not Think QPRs exist, and I think it's a dick move to try and tell people they're wrong about how they experience and define their relationships because???? how are you meant to know that better than the person whose relationship it is??? but I do think the way people talk about QPRs (both from the perspective of defending them and from the perspective of attacking them) is pretty rife with problems and I don't think it's invalidating the reality of QPRs to talk about where the arguments and language around them potentially falls down or has unexpected consequences.

On the other hand, I don't know if that actually is the post you're referring to - the reason I'm calling back to that is that that and a few resultant asks are the only time I remember talking about QPRs on here in the last year or so. So like, several of these questions reference past posts, which is very fair, but I do need it to be clear that, since I don't really tag anything and I don't have a great memory, I can only really speak to What I Think Now In This Context, not to what I posted in the past and what I was thinking when I posted it. Like, this isn't too deny responsibility - I reckon I'm responsible for what I post even if I don't still agree with it, which is why I don't tend to delete my own posts on purpose - but just to deny capacity, I guess? I don't really KNOW what I've posted so if you talk about it in vague terms (and I do understand that if it's been deleted there's not a lot you can do but that) I may not necessarily be responding to the part of it that's worried you, so if I'm not speaking to something specific I've said or done, it's not because I Don't Want To, I just don't necessarily know to.

I'm waffling about this because looking through your messages there's a lot of "you said X" and like. given that the intended message of the post that's kicked this off was very different to the message people have taken from it, it feels important to me to know whether if I looked at the posts you're referencing I'd be like "ah yeah I did believe that but now I believe X" or if it's more a situation of "oh right I can see how you took X from that but my thinking was more Y".

(also sometimes when people say "you made a post" they mean "you reblogged a post" and I am a compulsive discourse scroller so sometimes I reblog a random post to bookmark my place on someone's discourse blog or I accidentally longpress the reblog button while scrolling - I try to delete reblogs that I don't agree with but sometimes I miss some, all of which to say if there's a post on my blog that doesn't seem to reflect what I say in my original posts then it doesn't necessarily mean I'm a crypto-whatever so much as I'm very lazy and messy with my blog. Doesn't mean I shouldn't be held accountable for reblogs but it's useful to know if we're talking original content or reblogs bc I'm unlikely to fully accidentally make a post. but I quite often accidentally reblog stuff. I doubt this is the case with this sitch just bc of your phrasing but I want to cover my bases)

anyway tl;dr: no I don't believe that QPRs themselves are inherently problematic, nor do I think I have at any point believed that, but I do think that a lot of the language and ideas used to talk about them are based in miscommunication or absolutist ideas about relationships and can have damaging knock on effects.

[blooming-blooming]

can you talk about when you were aphobic and why you changed your mindset? The general consensus is that aces and aros can hide their identity and don't go through the same abuse as the other sexualities and a huge part of the people against them say they are attention seekers and shouldn't bother to try to be in the community. Is this line of thought accurate? Legit curiosity here

Because Tumblr is an incredibly well coded website, trying to post this on my phone for whatever reason vaporized the ask so I had to resend it to myself verbatim. Hopefully posting this on my desktop won’t like, completely break the website. A plus, though- I sent a link to the broken post with a screenshot of the original ask on my Twitter, and a lot of my friends who also used to be aphobes at the same time as me said this all rang true to their experiences as well, and I put a lot of things into words for how they felt during that time. So, I’d say this is pretty accurate for a lot of aphobes who didn’t go as far as having discourse blogs, at least. Anyways!

I’ve actually been meaning to address this about myself publicly for a while, so you’re fine! It’s kind of amazing... I used to get so mad when people called aphobia rebranded homophobia, but recollecting a lot of what I thought... that’s literally what it is. This is going under a cut because it’s a really long post with a lot of personal info, but if people wanna rb they can, idc.

This is... a really loaded question, so it’s probably going to be a long answer, because there are a lot of very intricate factors that lead to the aphobia in the LGBT community and gatekeeping, I think. One very important fact for my experiences that’ll make sense why it’s relevant later (or right away, if you know your aphobic troll talking points) is that my uncle was gay and died in the AIDS crisis before I was born.

I think the two biggest factors overall are 1) aphobic troll posts often getting heavy traction and 2) misunderstanding the ace/aro - allo dynamic as being oppressed - oppressor, rather than the actual dynamic of fellow community members sharing different experiences. 

In my experience, the consensus is also less about attention seeking, more about aces actually being cishet and trying to steal LGBT resources. The “hiding their identity” logic in my experiences was also less that, and more that being ace/aro didn’t actually impact their identity enough to be “oppressed”. 

Basically, the MO is that being ace doesn’t make you LGBT because asexuality impacts how you feel attraction, not the attraction you feel in and of itself (not true), and thusly if you’re heteromantic/heterosexual along with being ace/aro, you’re still cishet. (Or, if you’re aroace, you’re not cishet, but you’re still more privileged and not a part of the community because you’re not oppressed for experiencing same gender attraction.) That’s the gatekeeper logic in a nutshell. 

The biggest thing that makes people aphobic, I think, is as I said: troll posts. In recent years, the only things to really come across my feed about asexuality when not from aces are solidarity posts. Because of that, I’m not sure if the posts that bait people are the same as when I was younger, or if using troll posts at all are even as prevalent now. However, they were very prevalent on my feed in 2014-2016. They’d be standard homophobic talking points, but dressed up on fakewoke language with aces and aros as the punchline - generally, things along the line of, “These two gay kids were holding hands at my school’s GSA today and it disgusted me because I’m romance repulsed.” Things that, in hindsight, are really obviously fake, and were really obviously said to rile up LGBT people. The most infamous line of rhetoric trolls used, which is what got myself and many others I know to go aphobic, was, “if aces were a part of the LGBT community, the AIDS crisis would have done less damage because aces would convince people to have less sex.” You can see why this would enrage several of LGBT people, especially someone like me who has very, very personal losses related to the AIDS crisis. It was a lot of cheap shots at an extremely vulnerable community to rile them up against their own, and unfortunately it worked hook, line, and sinker. 

Something that really pushed the “us vs. them” mentality that had people fall for posts like this is that many ace people put more focus on the asexuality than they do other aspects of their identity, leading us to assume a much higher ratio were cishet than in realty. (This, and conversely the “well I support LGBT aces, just not the cishet ones” is an aspect that MAJORLY gives me homophobia vibes now. Acting entitled to extremely personal information on peoples’ attraction and gender is so, SO invasive, and it’s something LGBT people are subject to enough /all the time/ outside of their own community, let alone also being forced to in it.)

With this foundation set, it brings me to point two. Many people were very predisposed from aphobic troll posts to viewing aces/aros as homophobic cishets, so when actual aces coined allosexual/alloromantic to talk about their experiences, people completely misunderstood the meanings of these terms and once again took out their aggression on them. I think I summarized it pretty succinctly in my introduction, but these terms were created so aces/aros could talk about their unique experiences in contrast to other people, both in and out of the LGBT community. However, aphobes took it the wrong way (especially with the help of - surprise! - more troll posts!) and viewed it as if ace people were saying having romantic/sexual attraction at all makes you more privileged than them, and thusly are oppressing them. Obviously, this isn’t true - aces/aros are oppressed by cishet people, just like the rest of the LGBT community. The terms only existed for clarification.

This was another key factor for me in particular- my sexual attraction to women was a very, VERY vulnerable point for me that I struggled with for years, even after coming out. The concept that I could have privilege over another person for something I had so much difficulty with was incredibly insulting. This was probably my peak in aphobia, because I felt MY community was being invaded by my oppressors and trying to spin me to be the oppressor. 

There’s a lot more aspects of aphobia, I think the vulnerability a lot of LGBT people have is another very major aspect to why a lot latched onto aphobia. That’s a very complicated subject I’m not quite sure how to delve into besides what I’ve already explained on it lending itself to those aspects, however. There was also just... a lot of straight up denying facts that you didn’t agree with. The most common I can remember is denying corrective rape happened because of aphobia, and insisting it was actually misogyny. Which... I’ve used eloquent language to this point, but I’m going to be blunt: telling someone they’re wrong about how/why they experienced their abuse is fucking disgusting. 

I think that covers the bases for how I felt during this period... I didn’t follow discourse blogs or anything, so a lot of my friends just stopped reblogging it as we realized a lot of it was also just an excuse people made up so they could bully ace kids. From there, it was mostly just slowly opening up, reading the posts my ace friends made and shared on the subject, and reflecting on myself. It was definitely a progressive process; I went from “neutral on ace discourse” after realizing most aces aren’t even cis and/or hetero (though, ftr, it doesn’t matter if they are or not)

Then late last year/early this year I started feeling isolated in the community for not being attracted to men (which was a personal thing and not the fault of other groups), and... things started clicking. I realized that aces, regardless of orientation, also lacked either sexual and/or romantic attraction to men, and suddenly started feeling less alone - especially because ace lesbians also exist. While I don’t think I particularly reached out, my mind opened up significantly more with that, and I started realizing a lot of common ground between us as a community in general. 

While I was having this realization, posts started coming on my feed about just how badly the ace community had been damaged by the rise of aphobia and ace discourse, and it started really sinking in just how horrific aphobia truly is. An entire community was more or less dismantled right when it was just starting to thrive, and the members are only just now starting to get back to a place of comfort again. It’s sickening, especially to know I was a part of it. Last month I saw a post about an ace lesbian being harassed at a pride event because she only had ace merch on, and someone justified it with her making her identity “about sex” - That was what really solidified everything for me and how much I’ve changed, because that is what homophobes say about nonsexual gay PDA with zero changes. 

I do want to apologize to all the ace people in my life, both if you knew I felt this way, or if you’re just finding out I used to feel this way and are hurt by it. I know I’ve apologized to at least one person privately, but you can’t truly love someone if you don’t support all aspects of them. I’ve worked ridiculously hard to unlearn everything, but that doesn’t justify that I thought these things to begin with. I understand any action people need to take to feel comfortable.

This was... a really deeply personal post that covers half a decade, more or less. But it does feel good to get out and like a weight has been lifted. Like I said, this is something I’ve wanted to publicly talk about and own up to, but didn’t know how to go about it. If nothing else, I think this is a pretty comprehensive look at how aphobes think and operate for resource purposes.

[fungisteri]

I wanna develop a bit more from my previous post

My journey with gender & sexuality was mostly online because, even if I'm lucky that I don't live in a ragingly homophobic place, it was still a pretty fucking taboo topic ngl. And being online and coming from teachings based on gender roles and the gender binary, and I grew up in Instagram, which has absolutely godawful discourse presented in pretty images and infographics.

I fell head first into exclusionism because it was easier to understand. It felt reasonable: these are the normal sexualities, and these are the weird ones. These are the normal genders, non-binary is technically valid, but if you have specific non-binary labels you're just a fucking weirdo. The right way to be trans is to do so in a way in which cishet people can understand, which is by being as gender conforming as possible. However, being gay makes you inherently smarter than cishets because we know so many things they don't. But if you act in a way that's not palatable to cishets, you're making the entire community look bad and stealing resources. Aspecs are their own separate thing from the standard acronym (LGBT) so they're a constant topic of debate. Actually, every popular label that's not on the acronym is a popular topic of debate. These were pretty common talking points: us vs them. And, looking back, it feels painfully obvious how many exclusionists were very likely cisgender, or gender-conforming binary trans people.

I think that the main selling point of exclusionism is that it's easy. It's that you make universal rules about what's "valid" and what isn't.

I was lucky that my lgbt elders (who honestly were and still are open minded 20 year olds, lgbt adults are unheard of in my offline environment, and every informative talk on the lgbt community is given by cishets that inevitably spread misinformation) insisted on how silly exclusionism is, at the end of the day. Like, alright, they're an exclusionist. They're a gatekeeper. People still are who they say they are though. You genuinely cannot stop them with hateful speech, if anything, you just make them feel unsafe and keep quiet. But at the end of the day, they're still the same person, regardless of whether you understand them or not, regardless of whether you think their personal labels are valid or not. It took me years to understand this. But, thanks to their help, I was able to figure out I'm not only non-binary, but that being a non-binary lesbian is a thing, and that nobody can take it away from me. Which was a HUGE relief because exclusionists made me hate nb lesbians and nb folk in general, which unknowingly made me continue to repress my already extremely repressed transness. Not only that, being able to be open minded about my own identity made it so that I could be open minded about other people's identities as well. I went on to understand my aspec peers, my genderfluid peers, my genderless peers, my bisexual peers, my transmasc and transfem peers, my gay peers, my poly peers, and probably more.

Make no mistake, there's still types of identities I don't understand and actually refuse to approach, but at least I've learned that the way to interact with those people is to just stay away, and not to go up to their face to tell them they're existing wrong.

Speaking of which, there's another concept I came to understand that I think goes pretty unspoken of in online communities: personal definitions. Inevitably, everyone has personal definitions. I see this is mostly observed with the bisexual label, making it a topic of debate, and honestly... I feel like we'd save each other a lot of grief if we just agreed to disagree. After all, it's a mistake to debate on labels in a vacuum: identity labels have a lot of emotional load, and it's just... Unfair to act like there's none and treat it as a debate. This happens with every label, too.

It's rough. Labels are actually really personal most of the time, even if they're not yours- it's all a matter of personal perspective, which is based on personal experiences. And these label debates very often fall into using these personal experiences as arguments, as proof, when they're just that: personal experiences. All these debates, regardless of being presented as founded in logic and reasoning, are all emotionally loaded. And for what- to define who belongs and who doesn't in a community of people so large that it's practically impossible to truly agree in anything? What's the point?

So, not only do I stray from exclusionism, I no longer bother with lgbt discourse. I obviously respect those who do, because I will always do my best to show respect to other people, but if I were to give them advice... Don't bother, man. It is what it is. There's better things to do than proving someone online wrong. As soon as you stop talking to them, they may very well stop talking to you too, and who knows- maybe you'll live better off that way.

[snapedefender]

I've stayed out of the debate because while I don't hold to the trans-Snape theory I don't care if others do. I do want to throw in a word because I am watching your argument with mayora97. I know several transwomen, they're all on hormones, they all present as female and yet they all still have male genitalia and this I think is the hangup for a lot of people. And while people can say genitals shouldn't matter the fact is for many people they do. Part 1

It can be hard/impossible for CIS straight people to deal with this if the trans person hasn't fully transitioned and many people aren't able to for financial or other reasons. I'm not necessarily saying it's the best thinking but this is the way it has been explained to me by many people who say they can't/won't date trans people. Is it transphobic? Maybe. But at the same time it can be complicated if the person hasn't fully transitioned because while they may see themselves as one sex their genitalia may say something else. And I think that might be what mayora97 is getting at. I understand you don't see it that way but I think this is where the two of you might not be seeing eye to eye. And as I said it is the way several people have explained it to me. I might not agree but I do understand. 

k.......... but just bc they have a dick doesn’t make them any less of a woman. if they have a vagina they’re still a man. whatever gender they see themselves as is the gender they are, regardless of what their genitals are. if cis people don’t get that there’s that transphobia for you again

i guess i’d take this “but they have a PENIS/VAGINA” thing more seriously if cis people didn’t emulate sex acts with any kind of genitals in the bedroom already. pegging is a thing if you really want to have sex with a trans woman who hasn’t done bottom surgery. pretty sure straight women could play with breasts and figure out a way to fuck a vagina. cishets do this kind of stuff in the bedroom already with fake genitals so it’s kind of weird to me that we’re insisting it’s so different just bc the person has the real thing? who cares? like sexual identity is the kind of gender you’re attracted to, not what their genitals are.

also this buys into this idea that trans people aren’t really their gender until and if they transition which is a bullshit concept. also buys into the idea that trans people should be judged solely on their genitals (eg if they’ve transitioned) which is bullshit. i don’t see a person’s genitals until/if we’re having sex, so it’s not like i choose whether or not i’m attracted to them based on if they’ve got a p or a v or some combo of both, you know? and dating is about more than sex too so this idea that you can only date a trans person if you can have sex with them is a strange one to me too....?

and yeah it is transphobic, you’re phrasing that like i should just shrug and go “oh those crazy bigoted cishets!” and just let it go? no????? it’s transphobic & if cis people think they can get away with it then how is the situation ever going to get better for the trans community? i care more about trans people being able to find love and live safe, happy lives than i care about cis people being uncomfortable with the Icky Genitals????? i don’t agree and i don’t understand and you should tell these people who explain it to you like this why it’s bullshit and transphobic.